Harnessing Green Intellectual Capital to Drive Green Innovation and Environmental Performance
Climate change and global environmental challenges have heightened the urgency for organizations to adopt sustainable practices. In this context, green intellectual capital (GIC) emerges as a strategic resource that supports green innovation and enhances environmental performance. This study discusses how GIC drives green innovation and improves environmental performance. It also identifies implementation challenges across sectors and geographic contexts, with particular attention to developing countries. Using a scoping review framework based on Arksey and O’Malley, 62 articles published between 2022 and 2024 were identified, of which 11 were analyzed in depth using thematic synthesis. The findings reveal that GIC strengthens firms' dynamic capabilities to adopt environmentally friendly technologies and promotes the integration of advanced tools such as artificial intelligence and big data into green innovation processes. Moreover, aligning GIC with green supply chain management significantly improves environmental performance, especially by reducing carbon emissions and increasing energy efficiency. Nevertheless, infrastructural and resource limitations in developing countries continue to hinder the effective mobilization of GIC, limiting its potential contribution to sustainability. This study emphasizes the need for stronger policy frameworks and organizational strategies to support the development of GIC. The study contributes to the literature by clarifying the interrelationships among GIC, green innovation, and environmental performance across different institutional contexts, while also strengthening the theoretical integration between sustainability-oriented perspectives and intellectual capital literature. The findings highlight that effective utilization of GIC can transform ecological challenges into innovation, resilience, and long-term sustainability opportunities.