Green Karma – promoting environmental initiatives by adapting and using QFD as a proactive tool

Abstract

There is a lack of feasible managerial tools to support companies in their greening initiatives. The objective of this paper is to propose a tool – Green Karma – for monitoring and proactively managing initiatives for environmental sustainability. We present findings from an action research project involving two freight transport companies. The tool is based on Quality Function Deployment but has been adapted to capture various dimensions of environmental efforts. As goals, in traditional QFD labelled as ‘customer needs’, we applied national environmental goals, thereby widening the scope of the customer to a societal perspective. Regarding the means, traditionally labelled as ‘functions’, we instead documented greening initiatives in the companies and applied them in the tool. Using the Green Karma tool resulted in increased pro-activity. New initiatives were taken among the companies. Furthermore, a more structured approach and firm commitment to realise ideas were observed. Thus, the tool has shown its potential to increase the pace of greening the companies’ operations and strategies. QFD has previously been used to analyse and prioritise environmental activities but it has not been used before as a proactive tool for driving and implementing environmental initiatives. In this paper, such an application is presented.