• Energy Research
• 2025-2025close
• PT close

This study aims to analyze the effects of venture capital (VC) financing schemes on the financial and environmental performance of their VC-backed companies. This research leverages a dataset including 325 U.S. firms between 2002 and 2022 and examines two issues of interest: independent venture capital (IVC) and corporate venture capital (CVC) funding. The results show that IVC-backed companies have significantly better environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings and emit fewer greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions when compared to companies backed by CVC. This highlights that the function of IVC is to improve the environmental sustainability of businesses. Together this helps provide a valuable perspective about which VC models (CVC, IVC) does have an impact on how businesses pursue sustainability practices alongside financial performance. This paper contributes to the sustainable entrepreneurship literature by focusing on the importance of funding types with performing sustainable practices. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

A significant body of research suggests that traditional masculine beliefs act as a barrier to reducing meat consumption and transitioning to a more ethical and sustainable food system. Here, we report a pre-registered experiment examining whether men who eat meat are more open to adopting plant-based diets when these diets are associated with traditional models of masculinity. A total of 1069 men who eat meat were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: a social media post with a plant-based meal featuring a male entrepreneur or a male bodybuilder (two experimental conditions), a social media post with a plant-based meal without a masculine model (social media post control condition), or a condition without any stimuli (no-information control condition). Both the entrepreneur and the bodybuilder were perceived as highly masculine, but these experimental conditions did not significantly affect participants’ perceived fit between plant-based eating and masculinity, nor did they affect tendencies to justify eating meat as necessary, attitudes towards plant-based diets, or willingness to adopt a plant-based diet. Nevertheless, the results supported previous research findings indicating that men who strongly identify as meat-eaters and those who consume more meat tend to perceive themselves as more masculine, feel more pressure from societal expectations to eat meat, justify meat-eating more strongly, view plant-based diets as less masculine, and are more negative about and less willing to adopt plant-based diets. Our findings raise questions about the “masculinization” of plant-based diets as a strategy for promoting dietary change among men. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion