Social Media and Environmental Sustainability: An Overview of European Countries

The theme of the relationship between social media and sustainability has prompted many scholars to analyze the impact that “virtual information” has on the environment. This study empirically tests two models that examine the effects of cultural values and social media on environmental performance by considering different variables such as Social Media penetration, Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions and Environmental Performance Index. Two multiple linear regression models were employed to test the hypotheses on a sample of 30 European Countries. Empirical results, extensible to all of Europe, conclude that the cultural dimensions analyzed, as well as social media penetration, significantly influence environmental performance of European Countries when we execute a combined model. Social media are arguably an integral part of sustainability strategy and future research on IT and sustainability needs to take a more integrated approach. If we consider that social media have a positive effect on the environment it is easy to intuit that if governance implements effective policies to ensure social media access for everyone, real sustainable development could be achieved.


Introduction
Today the evolution of Information Technologies is opening new scenarios even in sustainability systems: the virtual revolution announces a new model of society in which the concepts of sustainable development could radically change managerial imperatives, structures, processes and organizational cultures.
The increasingly pressing need to preserve the environment as a source of exhaustible natural resources has led to promoting socio-economic models that are more balanced than those adopted in the past.Today organizations, complex adaptive systems, are becoming open and collaborative systems, capable of developing places, especially virtual ones, where new "distinctive" knowledge is created, knowledge that spreads through relational assets that are established between the human components.The communication process, therefore, takes a central role.Communication alone, however, is not able to carry out all its connection, accumulation, diffusion and sharing capacity developing "the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (Burton, 1987).On the contrary, it requires social and organizational intelligence, as well as the abandonment of traditional interpretations of organizational phenomena opting rather for an approach that takes into account the new communicational models that emphasize the interaction and cooperation amongst individuals and groups and, consequently, of the social innovation geared towards the fulfillment of a long-lasting sustainable competitive advantage.
From this perspective, what has captured our interest in this research is the fact that a complex and profoundly articulated relationship exists uniting "communication, culture and sustainability".
The choice of communication styles depends on cognitive differences reflected in cultural diversity (Richman, 2002).In actual fact, Information Technologies modify the mental attitudes of individuals from an extremely early age freeing them from the "proxemic" components typical of "face to face" communication.Besides, if it is true that the possible ways through which there is the chance to communicate, can be influenced by the context which, in turn, may be planned with intention, it would be interesting to understand how culture and social media could modify such processes and how a real incorporation of the social aspects of sustainability could take place (Carter & Rogers, 2008).
New styles and new contents in the communication system are required to develop sustainability, both because they allow us to communicate the progress towards sustainability (and the new social media have low costs and unlimited access) and because the pre-condition for sustainability is transparency, and social media are the tool to making the transparency practicable.
Today, to create a better and more harmonious world it would be useful to develop models that may allow for operation in a time-space dimension, which is apparently unlimited and where culture and communication are the instruments that spread common intelligence and socially sustainable inclusive development.

Conceptual Model and Hypotheses
Previous studies have focused on finding relationships between sustainable development and competitiveness (Riasi, 2015;Riasi & Amiri Aghdaie, 2013;Riasi & Pourmiri, 2016).According to these studies, it is now widely accepted that firms who pay more attention to sustainable development are more competitive in their businesses in the long term (Ansari & Riasi, 2016;Riasi & Pourmiri, 2016).
The concept of sustainability, that we adopt, is the concept of Triple Bottom Line (TBL), which considers organizational sustainability to include three components: the natural environment, society and economic performance (Elkington, 1994;Elkington, 2004).
The triple bottom line has evolved as an alternative to the idea of company success based on economic factors alone (Granados & Gamez, 2010) and considers organizational sustainability to include, besides economic components, also social and environmental ones.
Little research has examined the role of IT resources in enabling firms to develop capabilities to address TBL issues.In practice, the major contributions of IT to sustainability have been centered on reducing IT's energy consumption through green IT initiatives.Given the recognized role of IT resources in enabling business capabilities, it is arguable that IT resources should be critical in enabling firms to develop capabilities to address TBL issues and gain a sustained competitive advantage.However, insight on such issues is limited (Dao et al., 2011).
So, if we consider that the use of social media communication differs among cultures since the choice of a specific form of communication can signify a differential level of formality, respect, familiarity or intimacy (Richardson & Smith, 2007), it's simple to understand that the communication method adopted by an individual belonging to a specific culture can be read as the result of reasoning which derives from the perception of the sustainability and which has relevant effects on the implementation of the use of this new communication tool.
If we adopt this kind of observation lens, we could consider social communication and culture as useful keys for analyzing the sustainability of a country and, therefore, a valuable starting point to help to create a better and more harmonious world.
We define a pilot project, starting from the existing literature on the relationship between cultural diversity and environmental sustainability (Husted, 2005), and introduce a new variable, social media, to measure and compare its positive or negative effect on environmental sustainability.The use of social media, allowing for an instant sharing of ideas, opinions, knowledge and experiences, creates a new "space-time" dimension that translates into a new capacity of countries to implement a communicative system that is readily accessible to everyone (Castella & Verburg, 2007;Fürst et al., 2010;Mendoza & Martins, 2006).
This new form of communication, providing simpler processes and developing a transparent access to information, can ensure sustainable environmental development.
The basic idea of the model was to build a conceptual bridge between the use of social media and cultural diversity in different European Countries and environmental sustainability.
We have elaborated an integrated conceptual model (Figure 1), which matches the model of Husted (Husted, 2005) and social media.Husted's study analyzes the impact of Hofstede's classic cultural dimensions on environmental sustainability, recognizing this as one of the most widely conceptual frameworks of cultural diversity.Hofstede's classic survey has identified five cultural dimensions: Power Distance (PDI) refers to the degree to which the persons living in a society accept an unequal distribution of power and perceive hierarchies as something natural.Individualism (IDV) defines whether people in a society think in terms of "I" or "we".This means that people rely on the care of the groups they belong to, but in return these groups demand total loyalty from them.Masculinity (MAS) questions if the individuals in a society act more competitively or rather seek conse for examp how socie avoidance situations.
In  Our second model is based on the following regression, considering as regressors also the new Hofstede's dimensions (Hofstede et al., 2010), Social Media penetration and Gross National Income: The research design adopted is secondary data analysis and the elementary units of analysis are European Countries.A set of 30 European Countries was selected among Countries whose indicators chosen for this research had previously been evaluated (Appendix).Existing quantitative databases have been used as data sources.We first obtained country-level data of Environmental Performance Index (EPI) from the Environmental Performance Index report (Yale University, 2014) and excluded those Countries not included in Hofstede's Country list (Hofstede, 2014).Finally, we collected these Countries' Gross National Income and Social Media penetration data respectively from World Bank database (World Bank, 2014) and WeAreSocial report (We are Social, 2014).The data collected for Gross National Income, Environmental Performance Index and Social Media penetration are all from the year 2014.Hofstede's scores on national culture are considered to be relatively stable over time and are still used in numerous publications.
The dependent variable, that is EPI, represents, on a theoretical plane, the environmental sustainability performance of Countries.The Environmental Performance Index (EPI) is a method for quantifying and numerically benchmarking the environmental performance of a country's policies (Duasa & Afroz, 2013).
The EPI was preceded by the Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) with the aim of launching a complementary tool to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and a counterpoint to gross domestic product (GDP), which, for too long, had been the sole measure of wellbeing.
The ESI was a first attempt to rank countries on 76 different elements of environmental sustainability, including natural resource endowments, past and present pollution levels, environmental management efforts, contributions to the protection of the global commons, and a society's capacity to improve environmental performance over time (Yale University, 2005).
The index assigns scores to each country based on two key objectives: 1) environmental health which refers to the extent to which deficiencies in water quality, air pollution and other factors cause health issues and a decrease in quality of life; 2) Ecosystem vitality which measures the health of a country's ecosystem by evaluating such factors as agriculture, climate change, fisheries, and forestry (Onel & Mukherjee, 2014).
Data sources for the Environmental Performance Index derive from international organizations, research institutions, and government agencies and include:  official statistics that are measured and formally reported by governments to international organizations that may or may not be independently verified;  spatial data compiled by research or international organizations;  observations from monitoring stations;  modeled data.
In particular, the data on the Environmental Performance Index for our purpose (Appendix) have been extracted from the EPI Full report 2014 (Yale University, 2014).The spatial distribution of the data relating to the Environmental Performance Index is fairly uniform, not showing significant variability among values.A divergence between North-Western European Countries that show better environmental performance and South-Eastern Countries with relatively lower values is evident.
The measures of cultural variables related to Hofstede's three cultural dimensions of Individualism, Masculinity and Uncertainty Avoidance have been extracted from Hofstede's database (Hofstede, 2014).Hofstede measures of culture are widely cited and used by many scholars.Individualism (IND) describes the level of integration of people into groups.According to this dimension there are individualistic and collectivistic societies.
Masculinity (MAS) refers to the distribution of roles between the genders.The most relevant values of masculine cultures are competitiveness, assertiveness, materialism, ambition and power.
According to Hofstede, the uncertainty avoidance dimension (UAI) deals with the national culture's ability to tolerate ambiguity.Individuals in these high uncertainty avoidance cultures tend to be rigid and dogmatic (Baker & Carson, 2011).In Hofstede's new framework (Hofstede et al., 2010) two new dimensions have been introduced.
One of these is referred to as "(short term) normative versus (long term) pragmatic" (PRA).Every society has to maintain some links with its own past while dealing with the challenges of the present and the future.Societies prioritize these two existential goals differently.
The second one called "indulgence" (IND), instead, represents a society that allows relatively free gratification of basic natural human desires related to enjoying life and having fun.Restraint stands for a society that suppresses gratification of these needs and regulates it by means of strict social norms (Hofstede et al., 2010).Social Media penetration (SM) data (Figure 4) have been extracted from Social, Digital & Mobile Worldwide reports in We Are Social's series (We are Social, 2014).
At the start of 2014, Europe boasted almost 300 million active social media users, accounting for 40% of the region's population.However, when it comes to platforms of choice, the social media landscape in Europe is split in two.Facebook dominates in Western Europe, with 37 countries around the region accounting for a total of 232.2 million active users -roughly 19% of the platform's total global user base.To put this in perspective, these countries account for less than 8% of the total world population.
However, Eastern Europe is still a VKontakte stronghold, with users in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus accounting for more than 60 million active accounts.
As with Internet penetration, Iceland also leads the way in terms of social media penetration, with 70% of the country's population using Facebook in the past month.Malta puts in an impressive showing at 58% penetration, with the Scandinavian countries rounding out the rest of the top 5.
Gross National Income (GNI) per capita based on Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) represents a control variable.GNI is gross national income (GNI) converted to international dollars using purchasing power parity rates.An international dollar has the same purchasing power over GNI as a U.S. dollar has in the United States.GNI is the sum of value added by all resident producers plus any product taxes (less subsidies) not included in the valuation of output plus net receipts of primary income (compensation of employees and property income) from abroad.Data are in current international dollars based on the 2011 ICP round.

Data Analysis and Results
The output that we get from data processing through software Gretl, on the basis of our conceptual model, is indicated below (Table 1).Adjusted R 2 is used in place of the simple R 2 because as the number of explanatory variables increases, simple R 2 increases too.Given that adjusted R 2 is used as the main index of the goodness of the regression curve, for the analysis of multiple linear regression, measuring the fraction of deviance explained, i.e. the proportion of the variability of Y explained by independent variables X, we can affirm that the regression model proposed explains approximately the 98% of the variation in the EPI, so our Hypothesis 1 can be accepted.
Conducting the test on the normality of the residues proposed by Jarque and Bera the p-value associated with the test statistic is equal to 0.1053 for our first model and 0.0773 for the second one.Therefore, for both models, we accept the null hypothesis that errors are distributed normally, i.e. the distribution of residuals from regressions is likely to be Gaussian (Figure 2-3).In order to evaluate the efficiency of the multiple linear regression models identified, we have conducted the F-test to assess the significance of the model, to verify if there is a significant relationship between the dependent variable and the set of explanatory variables.
In particular, this test is based on the F statistic generated by the ratio of the mean square regression (known as variance of regression) and the mean square error (known as residual variance).By using this test it is possible to verify (null hypothesis) if the variance of residuals is due to the regression errors.This statistic follows a distribution F of Fisher.
In this study, the values assumed by the F statistic are equal to 323.6663 (first model) and 254.2257 (second model) and the associated p-values are lower than the critical probability value α = 0.05.Therefore, at a significance level of 5%, it is possible to reject the null hypothesis and to conclude that the multiple regression models herein identified are statistically significant, since, in both cases, at least one independent variable significantly influences the dependent variable (EPI).

Discussion and Conclusion
Unforeseeable success of social media, in the last few years, has required organizations to be present in places where people connect and share knowledge.Our survey has shown that there is a positive correlation between social media and environmental sustainability and that social media influence environmental sustainability more than 50% (Hypothesis 2).This value is similar in all analyzed European countries (Hypothesis 1).
These results lay the theoretical foundation for future research on the sustainability value of social media in several ways.First, our research has shown that the contributions of social media to sustainability go beyond reducing I.T.'s energy consumption through green I.T. initiatives, placing them in a broader sustainability framework.Investments in social media for sustainability must be aligned with other complementary business resources -here, HRM and SCM resources -to enable firms to achieve sustainability targets.Thus, social media are arguably an integral part of firms' sustainability strategy and future research on IT and sustainability needs to take a more integrated approach, examining IT resources and strategies that are integrated with complementary business resources and strategies, and aligned with the situational context (cultural diversity) to enable firms to develop sustainability capabilities for specific sustainability objectives.
It is an important result that requires an organizational change and, at the same time, new ways of rethinking policy: new roles, new work processes and new organizational structures.All this means investing in adequately shaped human resources which are able to manage the relationship with the customer efficiently, allowing to develop effective and efficient one-to-many, many-to-one or many-to-many relationships.In this way, customers have a say on the matter: by expressing positive opinions on the site they create an improvement to the image of the organizations and the human resources that operate within it, reaching competitive advantages which, in the long run, are transformed into sustainable advantages.
Today, environmental sustainability is one of the major challenges on a global level and as a result is one of the priority objectives of the European Union which, since the early 70s, has established Community rules on environmental policies designed to encourage companies to develop "green" economy.The main objective of European environmental policy is to enhance natural resources, promote an economy based on the efficient use resources and protect the health of people.EU Countries are required to consider environmental aspects, not only to comply with regulations, but also to structure their growth in a sustainable way, preserving their competitiveness on the global market.
Then, if we consider that social media have a positive effect on environment it is easy to intuit that if governance implements effective policies to ensure social media access for everyone, real sustainable development could be achieved.
the SM, i.e. effect on EPI of a change in SM, holding PDI, GNI, UAI, MAS and IDV constant;  2 = coefficient of the GNI, i.e. effect on EPI of a change in GNI, holding SM, PDI, UAI, MAS and IDV constant;  3 = coefficient of the PDI, i.e. effect on EPI of a change in PDI, holding SM, GNI, UAI, MAS and IDV constant;  4 = coefficient of the UAI, i.e. effect on EPI of a change in UAI, holding SM, GNI, PDI, MAS and IDV constant;  5 = coefficient of the MAS, i.e. effect on EPI of a change in MAS, holding SM, GNI, PDI, UAI and IDV constant;  6 = coefficient of the IDV, i.e. effect on EPI of a change in IND, holding SM, GNI, PDI, UAI and MAS constant; u = errors due to omitted variables.
the SM, i.e. effect on EPI of a change in SM, holding PDI, GNI, UAI, MAS, IDV, IND e PRA constant; δ 2 = coefficient of the GNI, i.e. effect on EPI of a change in GNI, holding SM, PDI, UAI, MAS, IDV, IND and PRA constant; δ 3 = coefficient of the PDI, i.e. effect on EPI of a change in PDI, holding SM, GNI, UAI, MAS, IDV, IND and PRA constant; δ 4 = coefficient of the UAI, i.e. effect on EPI of a change in UAI, holding SM, GNI, PDI, MAS, IDV, IND and PRA constant; δ 5 = coefficient of the MAS, i.e. effect on EPI of a change in MAS, holding SM, GNI, PDI, UAI, IDV, IND and PRA constant; δ 6 = coefficient of the IDV, i.e. effect on EPI of a change in IND, holding SM, GNI, PDI, UAI, MAS, IND and PRA constant; δ 7 = coefficient of the IND, i.e. effect on EPI of a change in MAS, holding SM, GNI, PDI, UAI, MAS, IDV and PRA constant; δ 8 = coefficient of the PRA, i.e. effect on EPI of a change in IND, holding SM, GNI, PDI, UAI, MAS, IDV and IND constant; u = errors due to omitted variables.The Ordinary Least Squares Estimator minimizes the average squared difference between the actual values of EPI and the predicted value based on the estimated line.