The effects of environmentally-conscious business applications on competitive advantage: A study on Antalya Organized Industrial Site Corporations

Rapidly consumed natural resources and excessively increasing of production-consumption circulation have caused environmental destruction and reached to the limit which threatens the humankind. So environment problems have become one of the most important problems which occupy the world agenda. Corporations have important duties and responsibilities in the solution of the environment problems. Minimizing the environmental negotions is one of the most important responsibilites of corporations to society. There are some arguments and research findings which emphasize that environmentally-conscious business practices minimize the pollution and using energy sources and affect the image of the corporation positively. The main purpose of this study is revealing the environmentally-conscious business practices of corporations located in Antalya Organized Industrial Site and effects of these practices on business performance based on the opinion of corporation managers.The research involves 200 corporations which carry on the business in Antalya Organized Industrial Site. In the research process only 100 corporations answered positively for participating to research. The data collected through survey, the questionnaire has been constitued by the researcher based on the literatüre. The questionnaire consists of 56 questions which were ordered according to 5-Likert scale and question the demographic variables related to corporations, environmentally-conscious business practices and their effects on business performance. According to the survey data, corporations located in Antalya Organized Industrial Site try to apply environmentally-conscious business practices at least in extent o fulfil the legal obligations. In general most of the corporations have environmental management system and policies and environmentally-conscious design, supply, production, personnel management and waste management. However each practices have major deficiencies. Just one quarter of the corporations have ISO 14001 certificate. It has been revealed that corporations located in Antalya Organized Industrial Site haven't got a common conviction about the environmentally-conscious business practices on the positive effects of the competitive advantage. They evaluate these kind of practices as the practices which reduce the pollution and waste accumulation and gain the reputation. However they abstain in scope of their effects on financial performance and competitive advantage. Keywords: Sustainability, Competitive Advantage, Environmentally-Conscious Business Practices.