Modelling barriers to the adoption of industrial sustainability measures

Abstract

Sustainability is constantly gaining relevance among industrial decision makers, policy makers and scholars. In order to be sustainable, firms need to implement industrial sustainability measures, however there are many barriers to doing this. This work is based on a review of literature on barriers to the areas of occupational health and safety, eco efficiency, energy efficiency and to sustainability, and contributes to industrial sustainability research by presenting a novel, integrated theoretical model of barriers to the implementation of sustainability measures. The model encompasses previous literature review contributions and is intended to characterize and evaluate barriers to the adoption of industrial sustainability measures in all its areas. We have conducted a preliminary validation of the model investigating eight northern Italian manufacturing firms, looking at its ability to represent barriers to sustainability, usefulness and ease of use. We conducted semi-structured interviews to people responsible of the different areas of industrial sustainability, complemented by questionnaires and secondary materials. Results show a positive overall judgment of the model by all the interviewees. Moreover, the model was able to be applied to issues deriving from different perspectives and different areas of industrial sustainability. The findings can help firms and policy makers overcome barriers and they also provide insight into the different perspectives on the adoption of industrial sustainability measures than can be used to promote their adoption.