The impact of environmentally friendly marketing on the performance of energy startups

Introduction
The emergence of new marketing paradigms has dual effects on the market: a fundamental challenge for established companies; And a unique opportunity for startups and emerging companies. Established companies that have established themselves in the market over time are too bulky and lack the agility to respond quickly. Renewable energies or new energies are energies whose source of production of that type of energy, unlike non-renewable energies, has the ability to be regenerated by nature in a short period of time, or in other words, they are resources that can be easily replaced after consumption. In this regard, in recent years, the Technology Development Headquarters of the Presidential Vice President for Science and Technology has taken a step towards the development of the knowledge-based economy and the promotion of the ecosystem of innovation and technology in the field of renewable energy and the use of these widely used resources. This caused startups to appear in the country's energy sector in the last few years. It is obvious that these companies are less competitive compared to the established companies in the market. This study was conducted with the aim of evaluating the impact of environmentally friendly marketing on the performance of startups in the energy field. This research covers two research gaps: (1) despite the relatively increasing amount of research that has been done in relation to eco-friendly marketing; Most of these researches have been conducted in conventional manufacturing industries, and not many researches have been conducted on the effects of environmentally friendly marketing in energy startups. (2) On the other hand, the effect of eco-friendly marketing on performance is usually not a direct path and other factors can also play a role in this. Clarifying the relationship between eco-friendly marketing and startup performance will improve our understanding of the importance of this form of marketing in the energy field, while addressing the aforementioned research gap. The results obtained in this research can potentially provide management and practical guidelines for the managers of energy startups to use a deeper perspective on the implementation of environmentally friendly marketing to improve their performance.
Methods
This research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive-survey in terms of the nature and form of implementation. The statistical population of this research includes all employees of energy startups in Tehran province (103 people), from which a sample of 82 people was selected using Cochran's formula. The main tool for collecting research data is a questionnaire. The research questionnaire includes 8 main constructs (4 balanced scorecard dimensions, plus environment-friendly marketing, customer satisfaction, customer trust, and organizational reputation) and 29 specialized questions with a 5-point Likert scale and four general questions including gender, age, education, and work experience. will be To check the validity of the questionnaire from the construct validity (external model). Convergent validity (AVE) and divergent validity were used, the results of which are presented in Table 1. In order to measure reliability, Cronbach's alpha coefficient and composite reliability were calculated. The partial least squares method has been used to test the research hypotheses. This method includes two external (measurement) models and internal (structural) models. Partial least square method with Smart PLS software was used to analyze the data and test the research hypotheses.
Findings
The results of the research hypotheses test showed that environmentally friendly marketing has a significant effect on customer satisfaction, customer trust and organizational reputation. Also, based on the obtained results, it was found that all three variables of customer satisfaction, customer trust and organizational reputation have a positive and significant effect on all four dimensions of the balanced scorecard.
Conclusion
The test of the first hypothesis of the research showed that environmentally friendly marketing has a significant effect on customer satisfaction. If we consider satisfaction as the satisfaction of the customer from the match between the subjective expectations with the company's products, then the environmentally friendly products will cause him satisfaction because they are favored and accepted by the customers. The reason for this is the increase in the environmental concerns of customers and the role of environmental considerations as one of the components in the purchase decision of today's customers. The results obtained in this hypothesis are consistent with the results of previous researchers (Anguin et al., 2022; Su et al., 2023; Martinez et al., 2015). The test of the second hypothesis showed that environmentally friendly marketing has a significant effect on customer trust. We use messaging theory to explain this hypothesis. Signaling theory has been widely used in various fields to explain the phenomenon of customer choice. It supports three main elements, i.e. signaler (service provider), receiver (client) and signal. A marketing signal is a marketing activity that provides information beyond the activity itself and reveals insights about the unobservable. The result obtained in this hypothesis is consistent with the results of Mahmoud et al. (2020) and Lee et al. (2020). The test of the third research hypothesis showed that environmentally friendly marketing has a significant effect on the company's reputation. Reputation is one of the most important components in attracting and maintaining customers. In relation to eco-friendly marketing, an organization's "green" reputation is created when customers are actively aware of a brand's environmentally friendly products and practices, which are usually stronger than the environmental practices of their competitors. Achieving the "green" reputation of the organization requires time and various tools, and of course, it also brings very positive consequences for the company; Because it reflects the performance of the entire organization, not just one product or campaign. This finding is consistent with the results of Rast et al. (2021) and Zamir et al. (2020). Another finding of this research (hypotheses 5 to 8) is that customer satisfaction has a significant effect on all four dimensions of the company's performance based on the balanced scorecard. Customer satisfaction is a permanent source for gaining competitive advantage and increasing the company's competitiveness. This is due to the influence of the customer in today's highly competitive market; Because one of the important slogans of modern marketing is: "The customer is the king". When a customer is satisfied with a company, they continue to buy from it again, and this is reflected in both the company's financial performance and customer performance. On the other hand, customer satisfaction will increase the level of customer/organization engagement and thus the organization will use customer feedback to improve internal processes and learning. The results obtained in these hypotheses regarding the impact of customer satisfaction on the dimensions of the company's performance are consistent with the results of other researchers (Saeidi et al., 2015; Saha et al., 2020). Also, based on the results obtained in this research, it was found that customer trust has a positive effect on Shukrat's performance (all dimensions of the score card). Trust is the key to success in establishing a long-term and effective relationship between the organization and the vendor. Mistrust is a gift of today's world and it is considered a great danger for governments and organizations. Distrust leads to a lot of imposition on organizations and governments. Without trust, you have to spend a lot of time and money to do even simple tasks. This finding is consistent with the results of other researchers (Kearney et al., 2022; Garcia-Salirosas et al., 2022). Finally, the results obtained in this research showed that organizational reputation has a positive and significant effect on company performance. The value of the business is not only the financial and physical assets that appear in the balance sheet, but most of the value of the business is reflected in the intangible assets. Reputation has the ability to create significant benefits, both financial and non-financial, for companies. The strongest companies that only see things from the point of view of physical assets will be very fragile institutions if they do not seek to create a reputation for themselves. The results obtained in this research are consistent with the findings of Al-Mubarak et al. (2019) and Rast et al. (2021).