Gestão ambiental no setor de alimentação coletiva: estratégias de educação ambiental e Marketing verde

Abstract

The sustainable production and the conscious consuming are practices that have been being used by companies to minimize the negative environmental impacts in the ecosystem. Organizations strive to adapt to this new demanding market. Companies are going through a transition and implementation period of sustainable actions and they are being challenged to find new sustainable forms and productive practices. It requires understanding the employees and customers environmental knowledge. The objective of this study was to carry out a diagnosis of the environmental impact and the socio-environmental perception in a restaurant school, aiming to develop sustainable practices based on environmental education and green marketing tools. A quali-quantitative research has been applied with field research, performed through systematic observations of the establishment production processes and management, and application of diagnosis instruments. The environmental impact was measured by the environmental impact matrix, ranging from -125 to +125 (idealvalues close to zero). A four-block-perception questionnaire was applied with the 13 employees for the socio-environmental perception in the following themes: ecological behavior, social behavior, Individualism and Collectivism, and socio-environmental knowledge. The scale of the new ecological paradigm (NEP Scale) has been adopted for the 300 clients. Seven aspects have been evaluated: 1) Global and Local Preoccupation (PRGL), 2) Green Consumption (CV), 3) Local Attitude (AL), 4) Decrease (DC), 5) Anthropocentrism (AT), 6) Beliefs (CR), and 7) Economic Growth Control; each instrument was composed by a group of questions on the subject. The last section of the study presents the environmental proposal management characterization, where they are developed and the intervention points. All the questionnaires had multiple choice questions in the Likert scale, varying the levels according to the type of evaluation. The environmental impact diagnosis pointed out an average index ranging from -86 to 4, with an average of -33, confirming the socio-environmental perception measurement necessity. There was a great concern about social behavior in the staff members (3.5, scale 1-4), the levels were medium for socioenvironmental knowledge (3.3, scale 1-5) and for life planning (4.86, scale 1-7); however, the levels for the ecological behavior were more modest (2.6 to 3.5, 1-6 scale). The socioenvironmental perception in the customers indicated a concordance for the issues related to the socio-environmental theme in most of the evaluated factors (PR, AL, DC, AT, CR, CE). On the other hand, considering the questions about the green consumption factor, the result obtained was that the majority of the customers did not practice green habits, or they were indifferent to them, it indicates that even though they understand about the socioenvironmental issues, the participants didn't consider green shopping habits frequently. Thus, an immediate need to insert environmental education instruments and green marketing actions was found in the group studied, mainly because it is a restaurant inserted within a university context, it means, pedagogical. In addition, the application of the socioenvironmental perception questionnaire enabled the understanding of the environmental education importance in a business and pedagogical context, as well as the diagnosis that employees and clients involved in the process need to adopt a sustainable behavior, once they influence the sustainable construction of the organization directly.