Environmental sustainability management in social service nonprofits: insights into drivers, challenges and opportunities

Purpose Social service nonprofit organizations (SocS-NPOs) have evolved to adopt an entrepreneurial mindset, while also fulfilling their social missions. Balancing different institutional logics, like in their case the business, social-welfare and government logic, is challenging. Recently, the climate crisis has increased pressure to also pay more attention to environmental responsibility. Integrating environmental sustainability represents an even greater challenge, one that often creates tensions, but also opportunities. The purpose of this study is to examine how SocS-NPOs perceive the relevance of environmental sustainability and to identify the drivers, challenges and opportunities shaping the intensification of environmental sustainability management (ESM) under competing logics. Design/methodology/approach The study draws on 15 semi-structured interviews with chief executive officers (CEOs) and sustainability managers of Austrian SocS-NPOs. Institutional logics serve as the theoretical lens to analyze the interplay between the three dimensions of sustainability (social, financial and environmental) and the social-welfare, business and government logics shaping ESM. Findings Concerning environmental matters, a highly pragmatic approach is pursued. Strategic positioning, employer branding and awareness building were perceived as opportunities while economic viability and organizational change represent challenges. Faced with new regulatory requirements, tensions between social-welfare, business and government logics are primarily resolved at the expense of government logic. Originality/value This study addresses the under-researched integration of environmental issues into SocS-NPOs’ sustainability management, examining institutional responses to rising complexity. It contributes to research on institutional logics, highlighting how SocS-NPOs reconcile competing logics amid growing stakeholder expectations.