Dimensions Of Environmental Performance Research Articles

The Dimensions of Environmental Performance: A Systematic Review for A Common Yardstick

The Dimensions of Environmental Performance: A Systematic Review for A Common Yardstick

The Effects of International Orientation on the Dimensions of the Environmental Performance of Agri‐Food Companies: A Chilean Perspective

ABSTRACTLike other Latin American economies, Chile has significantly increased its presence in international agriculture markets. Agricultural commodities are primarily developed within specialized exporters or multinational enterprises and exported to several different countries. In Chile, the fruit sector accounts for almost half of total exports. Internationally oriented companies explore business opportunities in foreign markets and invest adequate resources in international operations. In addition, more internationally oriented companies could be more inclined to invest in green practices due to external pressures and, consequently, achieve higher environmental performance. In this context, environmental performance is related to the extent to which available natural resources are protected during the production, delivery, and consumption of agricultural products. To the best of our knowledge, there is scattered evidence of the relationship between international orientation and the environmental performance of agri‐food companies, especially in Latin America. Grounded on the natural resources‐based view theory, this study assessed the effects of environmental collaboration on five dimensions of environmental performance (greenhouse gas emissions, energy efficiency, food loss and waste, food quality and safety, and water footprint management) in agri‐food companies with a survey with Chilean firms. Data were analyzed using the partial least square—structural equation modeling. We found that international orientation positively influences all five dimensions of environmental performance. Our study identified that the dimension most impacted by international orientation is water footprint management, and the least impacted is food quality and safety. With the aid of multi‐group analysis, we concluded that there are no significant differences in these relationships between micro/small and medium/large companies. A significant difference was observed in food loss and waste between fruit and nonfruit producers. We expect the outcomes of this study will support exporting‐related decisions and public policies in Latin America.

The impacts of environmental collaboration on the environmental performance of agri-food supply chains: a mediation-moderation analysis of external pressures

ABSTRACT Although researchers have investigated the relationship between inter-organisational collaboration and firm performance, there is scattered evidence on the relationship between environmental collaboration and environmental performance in agri-food supply chains. This study assesses the effects of environmental collaboration on five dimensions of environmental performance (greenhouse gas emissions management, energy management, food waste management, food safety management, and water footprint management) in agri-food supply chains, particularly when mediated and moderated by customer and regulatory pressures. This study used a survey of Chilean agri-food companies. The data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modelling. We found that environmental collaboration positively influences all five dimensions of environmental performance and that customer and regulatory pressures mediate this relationship. The dimension most affected by environmental collaboration was water footprint management. Finally, we provide recommendations for improving the environmental performance of companies in agri-food supply chains through collaboration.

Explaining environmental performance: Insights for progress on sustainability

Every country in the world needs to improve its environmental performance, and doing so requires data-driven insights into the factors associated with success in attaining environmental sustainability goals. We analyze here the 2020 Environmental Performance Index (EPI), a comprehensive composite index that provides a scorecard for 180 countries on their results in protecting human health and ecosystem services. Analysis of the EPI metrics helps to explain the variation in performance among nations and across issues. While per capita GDP, or level of development, is a substantial explanatory variable, this study improves upon past research by testing additional, policy-relevant factors that provide important insights for decisionmakers and other environmental stakeholders. We find that quality of governance is a significant and important explanation for many dimensions of environmental performance at all levels of economic development. Economic liberalism shows a moderate but significant association with EPI scores, offering some signals about how to resolve the tension between growth and green development. Service-based economies typically score higher on environmental performance, but we fail to replicate the connection between environmental degradation and manufacturing and exports.

Corporate performance patterns of Canadian listed firms: Balancing financial and corporate social responsibility outcomes

AbstractBased on stakeholder theory and considering the conflicting performance interests of a wide range of stakeholders, this research investigates corporate performance patterns using a cluster analysis of financial, social, and environmental performance dimensions. An analysis of a Canadian sample of 771 company‐year observations for the period 2014–2018 reveals three types of corporate performance: financially focused performance, balanced performance, and corporate social responsibility (CSR)‐focused performance. Firms in the largest cluster, financially focused performance, deliver poor sustainable performance and prioritize financial performance over social and environmental performance. The CSR‐focused performance cluster scores low for financial performance and high for environmental and social performance. The balanced‐performance cluster also has higher levels of sustainable performance but is the smallest cluster, accounting for a quarter of the sample. Overall, this study presents a portrait of corporate performance balancing financial and CSR objectives and the evolution of this activity over the research period.

Performance outcomes of supply chain practices for sustainable development: A meta‐analysis of moderators

AbstractSustainable supply chain management (SSCM) practices have received growing attention but their consequences on firm performance yielded mixed outcomes. This study aims to synthesize quantitative research and to analyze potential moderators on the link between SSCM practices and firm performance. This study draws upon resource‐based view of the firm with the extensions of natural resource‐based view and relational view to underpin study hypotheses. The analysis is based on data collected from 145 independent samples composed of 33,886 firms. The research hypotheses are tested using meta‐analytical procedures. The results show that SSCM practices are significantly and positively correlated with firm's social, operational, economic, and environmental performance dimensions. Additional findings from moderator analysis provide nuanced views of SSCM practices‐performance link. This paper contributes to the literature by underlining the relevance of SSCM, identifying and classifying SSCM practices into a coherent framework. The research findings help policy makers, practitioners and other stakeholders to better understand benefits from the adoption of SSCM practices. Additionally, to the best of authors' knowledge, this is the first study that meta‐analytically combined existing empirical evidence of the social supply practices on various types of firm's sustainability performance.

Environmental Performance Evaluation and Analysis Using ISO 14031 Guidelines in Construction Sector Industries

The construction sector is garnering increasing concern as an industry that generates significant pollution while suffering from a lack of adequate environmental performance evaluations. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the environmental performance of construction sector industries using the ISO 14031 standard in three dimensions: planning, using data and information, and reviewing and improving environmental performance evaluations. Using a descriptive and correlational approach, this study described and analyzed the level of implementation using a 7-point Likert scale questionnaire distributed to 1000 organizations in Saudi Arabia. The questionnaires were completed between May and December of 2018 and the results were measured against similar studies. The mean positive percentage responses were 31.36 and expressed the implementation levels of the three dimensions of environmental performance. The corresponding values for the three dimensions’ items were 33.36, 29.83, and 30.95 respectively. The minimum Kendall correlation coefficients for each item in a dimension were 0.79, 0.79, and 0.83, respectively. The maximum correlation values between an item and a dimension to which the item did not belong were 0.25. This study answers a fundamental question regarding the implementation level values of environmental performance in construction organizations based on the ISO 14031 standard model and analyzes the pairwise correlation among the descriptor variables of the model. Further studies are needed to investigate the model structure using the principle component, factor analysis, and cluster analysis.

Sustainable development and research and development intensity in U.S. manufacturing firms

AbstractAcross manufacturing sectors, mounting regulatory pressures motivate the adoption of innovative sustainable practices to help address and improve environmental performance. Sustainable practices, however, face many challenges to minimize negative environmental impacts while conserving energy and natural resources. This study seeks to understand the effect of research and development intensity on dimensions of environmental performance in manufacturing firms. Using data from U.S. corporations over the period from 1991 through 2015, we find that sustainable practices are associated with a higher level of negative environmental ratings. In addition, the level of environmental concerns tends to decrease with firm investments in research and development intensity over time. These findings suggest that bigger firms are likely to report a higher level of environmental concerns due to their experimentation with sustainable practices. These firms are also likely to reduce negative environmental ratings over time and realize economies of scale with sustainable manufacturing.

Firm Environmental Performance under Scrutiny: The Role of Strategic and Organizational Orientations

AbstractReducing firm environmental burden is not easy. Thus, several studies have investigated the antecedents of good firm environmental performance; however, they provide contrasting results, focus on specific categories of antecedents, and often rely on subjective performance measures. This study overcomes these gaps by jointly considering the effects of different firm strategic and organizational orientations on several dimensions of environmental performance, objectively measured. Through the analysis of 269 large global companies included in the Newsweek Green Ranking 2014, we found that: both market and environmental management orientations have a positive effect on carbon, energy, and water productivity; green supply chain management orientation has a positive influence on waste and water productivity; and technology orientation negatively affects carbon and waste productivity. Based on these findings, we advise managers that strategic and organizational orientations do not affect all types of environmental performance in the same way, thus calling for caution when they are designed for environmentally friendly purposes. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

Middle-Way Strategies for Sustainable Intensification of Agriculture

Sustainable intensification is a widely shared idealistic vision for agriculture, in which production and other ecosystem services jointly increase to meet the future needs of humanity and the biosphere. Realizing this vision will require an outcome-driven approach that draws on all available practices and technologies to design agroecosystems that negotiate the difficult trade-offs associated with reconciling sustainability along production, economic, and environmental performance dimensions. To create such “middle-way” strategies for sustainable intensification, we call for strongly transdisciplinary research systems that coordinate integrative research among major streams of agriculture via ethical and philosophical orientation provided by “purposive disciplines,” such as applied ethics and design. Middle-way research partnerships can be strengthened by linking outcomes to mutually agreeable goals, such as “net agroecosystem aggradation.” We illustrate our proposals by outlining a potential middle-way strategy for weed management, describing its ethical rationale, and suggesting a research policy agenda for sustainable intensification via middle-way agriculture.

A simulation-based decision support for eco-efficiency improvements in production systems

Environmental sustainability is an everlasting concern of our modern society and has been gaining importance in practice and academia over the last decades. For being a major contributor to global environmental pollution, stakeholder pressure on manufacturing companies is increasing to reduce their environmental impacts, while simultaneously delivering high value goods and services at competitive prices, understood as increasing their eco-efficiency. However, complex interrelations between the economic and environmental performance dimensions in production systems create a non-transparency to decision makers, hindering them to translate this strategic target into improvement measures on a shop-floor level. Discrete-event simulation has been established as a promising method to solve this problem, although current approaches are insufficient for focusing only on energy aspects and being too complex in their application. This paper proposes a decision support consisting of two elements: 1) A novel discrete-event simulation approach that seamlessly integrates LCA with common economic evaluations by embedding the Ecoinvent LCI database, while considering all relevant eco-efficiency drivers within a production system; and 2) a system analysis and modelling procedure supporting its application and the identification of appropriate improvement measures.

The link of environmental and economic performance: Drivers and limitations of sustainability integration

Combining stakeholder, resource based and institutional theories suggests that stakeholder demands affect the environmental and social activities of firms, which in turn influence various performance aspects. This paper tests if stakeholder demands are related to the integration of management activities within the firm, and if such integration is positively associated with economic and environmental performance dimensions, where especially for the latter empirical evidence is scarce and inconsistent. To address this gap, data from the manufacturing sector is used for analysing how stakeholder types associate with sustainability integration and economic and environmental performance. The analysis reveals better fit for a moderated structural equation model than a model with direct links between economic and environmental performance and shows that environmental performance is decoupled from integration. These findings suggest that resource based reasoning could be self-limiting in jointly improving environmental and economic performance.