One Framework to Rule Them All: An Integrated, Multi-level and Scalable Performance Measurement Framework of Sustainability, Circular Economy and Industrial Symbiosis

Abstract

There is an overall established agreement on the need for the industry to transition towards a more ecological and ethical approach to business. Numerous ways to engage into this transition exist, such as Sustainability, Circular Economy and Industrial Symbiosis; yet the proliferation of alternative paradigms creates confusion and generates limited applications in industries. The measurement of performance appears indispensable to foster the implementation of improving actions, benchmark results and effectively communicate them to different stakeholders. Despite the emerging interest, a proper system for the measurement of performance related to the ecological and ethical transition is still missing. By means of selection mechanisms specifically developed, indicators retrieved from the extant literature have been organized in a novel integrated, multi-level and scalable framework of performance measurement systems. The framework presents some features of great relevance, in particular: i) integration of Sustainability, Circular Economy and Industrial Symbiosis paradigms; ii) possibility to be applied at different levels of application, i.e. the single firm, the supply chain or the district; iii) adaptability to firms with different characteristics (firm size and awareness), thanks to the development of two different (Full and Core) scalable systems. The framework has been then validated in four manufacturing firms against its capacity to represent each paradigm, its usefulness, and its ease of use. Besides the positive feedbacks obtained considering the three axes of analysis, the framework was appreciated for its capability to overcome tensions among the three paradigms and encourage firms to consider performance beyond their own boundaries, including the supply chain or district, and its scalability as for different sizes. This research advances the knowledge on the ecological and ethical transition and on the related paradigms, contributing on theoretical and practical levels and offering several insights for future research, especially empirical ones.