This study examined the relationship between green intellectual capital and sustainable performance. While many studies have focused on sustainability, this study is one of the first that focuses exclusively on green intellectual capital. This research used survey data from 112 manufacturing firms in Malaysia. As anticipated, the results found that green intellectual capital positively influenced economic, environmental, and social performance. The findings of this study have various implications for green companies and organizations in general and green manufacturing firms in particular. The novelty of this study is unfolding the contribution of green intellectual capital as an intangible resource for organizations in achieving sustainable performance and a competitive advantage for future researchers. Manufacturing industries of developing or developed countries can enhance their cleaner production capabilities by incorporating this model as a strategy.

Introduction

In the past, businesses considered the natural world as a free and limitless good. This attitude led to the “tragedy of the commons,” in which individuals and companies believed that their use of the commons had only a negligible effect on the environment. The result of this situation has been pollution and resource depletion (Shaw et al., 2016). With increasing environmental issues being reported, businesses need to adhere to their environmental and natural protection responsibilities. These phenomena have introduced the concept of sustainable performance in which the economic performance of a business is no longer regarded as the only goal to achieve as much emphasis has been placed on achieving social and environmental objectives (Bombiak & Marciniuk-Kluska, 2018). In line with the cleaner production practices, recent research has shown that sustainable performance has gained heightened attention, and research has begun mainly focusing on the relationship with green human resource management (HRM) (Zaid et al., 2018), green supply chain management (Yildiz Çankaya & Sezen, 2019), and sustainable manufacturing practices (Abdul-Rashid et al., 2017). In addition to this, Severo, de Guimarães, Dorion, and Nodari (2015) asserted that using methodologies for cleaner production organizations can reduce environmental impacts.