Environmental Performance Measurement Research Articles

The sound of one hand clapping: transparency without accountability

ABSTRACTDoes increasing government transparency in an authoritarian regime, absent electoral forms of accountability, change outcomes? The case of China, which has adopted a number of open governance and public information laws, is examined to see whether increased transparency by local environmental protection bureaus affects key environmental outcomes, specifically reductions in air and water pollution. Several unique environmental performance measurements, developed by the authors, are used to supplement standard government-reported measurements of environmental outcomes, and a widely used environmental transparency index (the PITI). By testing information that is newly supplied to the public, but already available to government, government and public monitoring are distinguished from one another, and the effect of public knowledge of government functions is tested. In the absence of a mechanism for the public to hold local government accountable, public transparency alone has no impact on outcomes other than information provision itself.

METRICS-BASED HIERARCHICAL APPROACH FOR SUSTAINABLE MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS PERFORMANCE EVALUATION

This paper presents an approach to evaluate sustainable manufacturing performance at line, plant and enterprise levels. First, requirements for a sustainable manufacturing evaluation framework are identified through reviewing existing literature. A framework to concurrently consider the three pillars of sustainability, total life-cycle emphasis, and 6R (reduce, reuse, recycle, recover, redesign and remanufacture) concept is then developed. The framework is used to propose index-based methods for sustainable manufacturing performance evaluation. Metrics for economic, environmental and societal performance measurement are progressively aggregated to determine performance at sub-cluster, cluster, sub-index, index levels. The proposed approach allows to integrate metrics relevant to product and process performance to evaluate systems level sustainable manufacturing from the line to plant to enterprise level. The application of the proposed approach is illustrated using two examples.

AN ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT OF ENERGY EFFICIENCY FOR PRODUCTION SYSTEMS

Measuring energy has been widely considered as one of the most cost-effective ways to improve energy efficiency leading to the energy sustainability by decreasing impact on the environment. The literature on energy efficiency and sustainability assessment methods, applied on the industrial processes is still under development. With regard to the production systems, activities mainly address separate improvement measures for energy savings, but there is no methodology for assessing the integrated effects from a combined analysis of energy, pollutions, and benefits so far. The aim of the paper is to provide a new look at an environmental sustainability assessment of energy-efficiency in production systems combining LCA-based methods energy efficiency optimization technique, and Data Envelopment Analysis. The results show mitigation of energy impact on the environmental bringing net benefits in nine production systems. It might contribute how the application of the assessment method can contribute towards developing the environmental sustainability performance measure within them.

Environmental supply chain management in the construction sector: theoretical underpinnings

ABSTRACTEnvironmental implications of a product/project are typically spread across its supply chain, from design through to end-of-life. This is particularly acute for construction sector because of the inherent nature and complexity of its supply chain. The sector, therefore, could benefit from the application of environmental supply chain management (ESCM), a systematic and integrated approach towards restraining the adverse environmental impacts emanating from the supply chain. Unfortunately, uptake of ESCM in construction vis-à-vis other sectors is limited and fragmented. This formed the motivation, which using 39 interviews across 20 firms in the UAE construction sector, provide systemic insights on the various facets of ESCM namely, core and facilitating environmental practices, internal and external drivers (pressures/motives) and barriers/challenges affecting environmental practices’ implementation, and relevant environmental performance measures across different firm types and stakeholders with the support of several established/emerging theories. The findings is expected to enhance the application of ESCM in construction.

DEA environmental assessment on US petroleum industry: Non-radial approach with translation invariance in time horizon

This study empirically assesses the performance of the petroleum industry, focusing upon independent companies, in the United States (US). For the empirical study, we use the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) that has been widely used for environmental assessment and performance measurement. The conventional use of DEA requests that all observations in the data set should be positive, prohibiting an occurrence of zero and/or negative values. The requirement of non-negative value is inconsistent with the reality of US petroleum industry, because many oil firms recently experience negative shocks in financial performance. To overcome the obstacle, this study discusses the property of “translation invariance” under undesirable congestion (e.g., capacity limit in the transportation pipeline network) and desirable congestion (e.g., green technology innovation) based on the non-radial models. The property implies that the unified efficiency measure should be not influenced even if production factors are shifted toward the same direction by adding or subtracting a specific real number. The property makes it possible that we can evaluate the performance of firms, whose production factors contain zero and/or negative values. This study is empirically concerned with practical implications of translation invariance from energy and environmental perspectives. In addition, this study examines the proposed environmental assessment in a time horizon. For the purpose, this study uses “window analysis” to examine an efficiency change along with a time shift. Our empirical investigation finds the following three implications. First, under the natural disposability, the oil firms' efficiency growth rates have become less than unity, implying the industry-wide difficulty or inability to cut back their drilling and production operations. Second, all firms have been under regulatory and stakeholder pressures on air pollution. Therefore, the efficiency growth rates under managerial disposability have not exhibited a major change during the observed annual periods. Finally, such implications are statistically reconfirmed by regression analysis that examines how the change of energy price influences unified efficiencies under natural and managerial disposability. An exception can be found in the natural disposability where energy prices influence their efficiency growths. Thus, an increase in energy prices is important in maintaining a high level of efficiency growths in the US petroleum industry.

Environmental Orientation in Swedish Local Governments

This study explores the environmental orientation in Swedish local governments. Environmental concerns over potential risk factors have become more important and popular among public organizations and environmental improvement efforts are made to create a sustainable ecosystem for the actors doing business, living and working in the area. Prior research indicates that public organizations have started to become more environmentally oriented in order to take on more responsibilities for reducing their own environmental impact as well as influencing the citizens and local businesses in the direction of a more sustainable way of living and working. Through a survey of Swedish local governments we conclude that they are taking on a key role in developing a sustainable ecosystem through becoming more environmentally oriented. This includes developing a framework for setting environmental goals, identifying suitable environmental indicators and reporting to a wide range of stakeholders. A factor that explains the increasing environmental orientation in the public sector is the implementation of digitalized performance measurement systems. We find that the environmental performance measurements are used to motivate different internal and external stakeholders in the efforts to create a multi-actor ecosystem.

Linear Programming Model for the Measurement of Environmental Performance in Wine Industry—Concepts and Empirical Results

In Taiwan we are currently facing serious air pollution problems, PM2.5 airborne particles not only endanger the human body, leading to coughing, asthma, chronic bronchial and other respiratory diseases, but it is also carcinogenic, our basic rights for survival has been seriously threatened. According to the latest study by the Environmental Protection Agency, the industrial sector accounts for about 25% of the sources of air pollution in Taiwan. The winemaking industry, with raw materials has several stages of production; it must use electricity, water, oil, diesel, gasoline, and steam as energy. The final product is not only wine, but also the discharge wastewater, lees, CO2, waste gas, etc. Different process methods will produce different energy consumption results, thus providing the possibility of CO2 reduction. This study takes the winemaking industry as a case study, trying to find out how to achieve a concept of “win-win situation “for both sides of carbon reduction and economy development. First, aiming at the policy of energy saving and carbon-reduction inventory of winery, trying to find out the source of pollution and the change of pollution source during 2008-2016, and then according to the data, the empirical results are analysed. Finally, a linear programming model proposed for the production planning of winemaking processes to achieve maximum operational profit while reducing CO2 emissions. The options considered in this research are levy the carbon tax in different prices to decrease CO2 emissions; installation of new equipment to enhance capacity; switching production schedule that emits less CO2. The objective of the linear programming model is to determine suitable CO2 mitigation options for a given reduction target while meeting the demand of each final product, quality specifications, and simultaneously maximizing profit. In this research, How to achieve the optimal production goals: minimizing the cost & energy consumption, and the maximum production value become the optimal production objection.

Environmental Performance Measurement of the Simple Urban Housing in Martubung Medan

In this paper, we evaluate the environmental performance of simple urban housing in Medan, Indonesia. The population in this research is the national housing Martubung. The technique of data collection used are observation, interview and documentary studies. We identify a series of quantitative and qualitative indicators and categorize them as either operational, environmental, or management indicators. We conduct co-integration analysis, correlation analysis, and multiple regression to evaluate the environmental performance of this simple housing. Based on survey and interview results undertaken in the Martubung housing in Medan, Indonesia, we performed a robust fitting of various factors. By calculating their performances based on the results of the integral indicators, we defined coefficients that reveal the level of environmental performance in the region. We found the most important factor impacting the environmental performance of housing to be ease of access, followed by the existence of adequate public transport, sewage systems, and road maintenance in residential areas. The perception of the environmental performance of housing is to some extent dependent on the local residents. The diverse and complex relationships between the identified indicators are consistent with the observations made during the environmental performance assessment.

Do Board Expertise and Networked Boards Affect Environmental Performance?

We examine the resource provision role of the board of directors in ensuring substantive corporate sustainability practices. Specifically, we examine two channels of resource provision (i.e., the presence of non-executive directors with previous experience in environmental issues—EEDs—and network connections of EEDs) that can affect a firm’s ethical and environmental behavior. Using greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions data from FTSE 350 firms, as a measure of environmental performance, we show that the presence of EEDs on the board is associated with lower GHG emissions. Further, firms with better-networked EEDs have better environmental performance. A possible mechanism is that firms with EEDs invest more in environmental technology. These results suggest that, in addition to the traditional role of shareholder value maximization, the board of directors also caters to the interests of wider stakeholders of the firm by facilitating substantive ethical practices.

Environmental management accounting and its effects on carbon management and disclosure quality

Along with the development of environmental management accounting (EMA) in the past decade, a variety of management accounting and control tools have been designed and implemented to improve the measurement and management of corporate environmental performance and information. While the importance of EMA to corporate sustainability has been increasingly acknowledged, extant literature has drawn little attention on assessing and understanding EMA application and its effectiveness on the quality of carbon emission management and disclosure. Using data gathered of 114 large firms in the US, Germany, Australia and Japan, we find that many firms have applied some EMA tools, yet only a few have applied the full range of EMA tools. The empirical analysis reveals that EMA application has a significantly positive impact on both corporate carbon management and disclosure quality. Further analysis specifies that audit and benchmarking tools as well as control tools have significant effects on carbon management and disclosure, while for measurement tools no significant effects could be observed. Based on the results, implications are developed for management education and practitioners, which can help managers to make better informed choices for the application of EMA tools.

A route efficiency analysis using Shannon entropy-based modified DEA method and route characteristics investigation for urban bus transport in India

ABSTRACTIn the context of urban bus transport, the efficiency study of the bus routes, the impact of the contextual factors on the efficiency, and environmental performance measurement have not been paid enough attention. For performance evaluation, scholars mostly apply conventional data envelopment analysis (DEA) model whose limitation regarding handling the undesirable parameter limits its usefulness in the presence of undesirable outputs. Here, we propose a Shannon entropy-based output-oriented consolidated DEA model for the holistic performance measurements of the bus routes. Apart from operational and financial performance measurement, we introduce a novel ‘emission metric’ for environmental performance assessment of the bus routes. We show the context-specific implementation of several modified DEA models for measuring the efficiencies of the bus routes and integrate the efficiencies from different models into a single score using Shannon entropy approach. We apply the proposed method on 21 bus routes of Kolkata, an urban city in India. Our method facilitates consistent and more improved score in case of profit-making and loss-making routes, respectively. According to our analysis, route length, route overlapping, number of intermediate stoppages, and cost structure play a crucial role in the performance. We provide several route-specific as well as policy-level recommendations.

A quantitative model for environmentally sustainable supply chain performance measurement

The development of robust mechanisms for supply chain performance measurement have been identified as an integral step needed for the transition towards sustainable supply chain systems and a greener global economy. However, measuring the environmental performance of supply chains is a challenging task, due to several factors, such as the lack of standardised methodologies and the inherent multi-criteria nature of the problem. By leveraging the capability of a Multi-Regional Input–Output framework to handle the complex and global nature of supply chains, the current work presents a robust environmental sustainable performance measurement model underpinned by industrial lifecycle thinking.As a result, some theoretical insights are provided and an empirical application of the model to the Metal Products industry of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) nations undertaken in an attempt to address some of the methodological and applied measurement challenges. In particular, this allowed the modelling of carbon emissions trends within, and between the BRICS nations and with the Rest-of-the-World over a 20-year period (1992–2011) as well as providing an opportunity to hypothesis on their future carbon emissions performances. Specific analyses of the Metal Product industry showed that demand represents the main driver for the increasing carbon footprint. However, the overall decline in reported carbon footprint was due to improvements in emissions intensity and efficiency gains induced by technology. The study further assesses the effects of imports and economic growth on carbon footprint and discusses the implications of the study to sustainability transition processes in the BRICS nations.

Slowness Saving the Day of Worldwide Travel and Tourism? Environmental and Sustainability Aspirations of Airline and Business Voyagers, Shared by International and Student Travelers as well as Religious Tourists

The paper’s first part analyzes global tourism’s core concerns and responsibilities in the new millennium, one of which is sustainability. Sustainability is shown to be made operational by the triple bottom line, which is analyzed as an internal managerial decision-making and planning tool as well as an external assessment and reporting framework. Key triple bottom line dimensions are presented together with economic, social, and environmental performance and impact measurements via a range of key indicators. The paper’s second part evaluates the concept, forms, and contributions of slow travel and tourism to worldwide sustainability discussions, especially to forms of fast tourism. Slow tourism’s meanings comprise sustainability and environmentalism. As an opposite to slow tourism modes, airline travel has conflicting solutions within the airline and tourism industries, their customer preferences, and the global business environment. Similarly, business travelers’ motivations, decision-making, and beneficiaries have moved environmental and sustainability considerations up on their agendas. Multinational companies’ corporate social responsibility endows them with a special role in branding and marketing their sustainability aspirations. Student and youth traveler numbers increase steadily, corresponding to their market relevance and diversity of motives. Finally, religious tourists occupy a central position in global travel considerations, which impacts pilgrimage locations and ecologies. The paper’s third part shows how fast travel forms and industries can be inspired by slow tourism, especially when combining triple bottom line indicators, corporate social responsibility considerations, and slow travel and tourism philosophies and practices. This combined approach shows potential especially for global tourism’s marketing and branding strategies.

Trade Partnerships and Environmental Performance in Developing Countries

A large scholarship surrounds the relationship between trade and the environment, with much of it centering on whether trade produces a race to the bottom or a race to the top in the environments of developing countries. While the effects of trade on key pollutants and on specific environmental policies have been widely attended to, scholars have not yet considered if and how trade impacts developing nations’ environmental performance, broadly speaking. This is a critical matter, as the effects of trade on the environment can only be appreciated fully through holistic assessment of the environment and environmental protection. The study that follows helps to fill this void through analysis of an all-inclusive measure of environmental performance that encompasses indicators of policy and practice. Findings demonstrate that exporting to the United States and the European Union improves environmental performance in developing countries; however, no such effect accompanies trade with other countries.

Perancangan Integrated Environmental Performance Measurement System Di Rumah Sakit

Waste has a negative impact on the environment. Hospital medical waste is a hazardous waste for the environment. Environmental performance measurement systems are used to measure the performance of hospitals in handling waste. The measurement of its environmental performance in the hospital is expected to provide improved sewage treatment systems. AHP (Analytical Hierarchy Process) and OMAX (Objactive Matrix) methods are used to design environmental performance systems at hospitals. The data needed is medical and non medical treatment. Data were collected using pairwise comparison questionnaires. The questionnaire data shows the importance of key environmental performance indicators (KEPI). Results of questionnaires processed using Expert Choice. Expert Choice's output produces weight and consistency ratio. Weighted KEPI results are processed by OMAX method. The OMAX method is used to determine the value of environmental performance. There 41 KEPI aspects of the environment. Based on the results of the environmental performance assessment, liquid waste has the highest weight of 0.229.

Environmental benefits of lean, green and resilient supply chain management: The case of the aerospace sector

This paper aims to investigate the relationship and links between lean, green and resilient supply chain (SC) practices and their impact on environmental performance. To achieve this objective, the aerospace sector is chosen as the study sector. A combined methodology of Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) technique and Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) approach is used in order to identify the relationships' map between practices and performance measures. Lean SC practices appear as drivers for green and resilient SC practices and their impact on environmental performance is higher than that one of the resilient SC practices. In addition, analysis of the findings is especially valuable for practitioners that can gain knowledge on interactions between practices and their impact on environmental performance measures.

Factors Influencing ISO 14001 Firm’s Perceived Environmental Performance in Malaysia

The changes in the global environmental conditions have placed great challenges on governments, industries, and societies. Business organizations are often blamed for being the sources of theseenvironmental problems. This study aimed to examine the factors influencing the perceived environmental performance of firms certified under the ISO 14001 in Malaysia. A total of 268 manufacturing companies responded to the questionnaires. In this study, structural equation modeling was applied to test the hypotheses. It was found that the “environmental policy”, “environmental training”, “regulatory stakeholder’s pressures”, and “customer pressures”, influence the firm’s perceived environmental performance in which “customer pressures”, was found to be the dominant factor. The measure of environmental performance was self-reported due to the lack of available data. Therefore, perceived environmental performance was employed for this study which is aperceived measure based on the dimensions of the ISO 14001 definition. This study provided a model to synthesize both internal (environmental policy and environmental training) and external (regulatory stakeholder’s pressure and customer pressures) constructs that influenced a firm’sperceived environmental performance. The empirical results and insights from interviews shed lights on the practitioners as to how to enhance a firm’s environmental performance through green practices.

Corporate Carbon and Financial Performance: A Meta‐analysis

SummaryWe use meta‐analytical techniques to address the question“When does it pay to be green?” Existing meta‐studies in this research field cover a range of ecological issues and synthesize a variety of environmental performance measurements. This precludes a detailed examination of how differences in measurement approaches account for variations in empirical results. In order to conduct such an examination, we focus on only one ecological issue, climate change, and one particular operational performance dimension: corporate carbon performance as expressed by a firm's level of carbon dioxide (CO2) emission equivalents. Our sample comprises 68 estimations from 32 empirical studies, covering a total of 101,775 observations. In addition to our examination of the causal relationship, we analyze whether differences in operationalizations of carbon performance and financial performance predetermine empirical outcomes. The meta‐analytic findings indicate that carbon emissions vary inversely with financial performance, indicating that good carbon performance is generally positively related to superior financial performance. The results show that relative emissions are more likely to produce statistically significant results than absolute emissions. Furthermore, market‐based measures of financial performance are more positively related to carbon performance than accounting‐based measures. We conclude that measurement characteristics, which were not analyzed in detail by previous meta‐studies, may present a great source of cross‐study variability.

Assessing redundancies in environmental performance measures for supply chains

Incorporating environmental sustainability into production systems and supply chain management perspectives is a growing issue; this requires thorough efforts in measuring the environmental performance of such systems and benchmarking these against industry standards, through the usage of appropriate indicators.The usage of environmental indicators in order to monitor and manage sustainability issues is an ongoing topic of debate and deliberation in the scientific community, which has generated the development of several methodological and conceptual approaches, often incorporated into Life Cycle Assessment frameworks, enabling the evaluation and monitoring of cumulative polluting impacts resulting across the whole product supply chain. In this field, the main challenge is to identify indicators to be employed in environmental assessments, in such a way that a precise account of sustainability issues is given without overloading end-users with overly complex and redundant information.By utilising well-established environmental indicators measuring the sustainability performance of supply chains, this paper aims at critically assessing the amount of redundancy embedded in current performance measurement systems, also identifying the subset of environmental indicators that, if employed, could cover a wide amount of environmental impact categories without redundancies and providing decision-makers with a clear perspective.

Using triple bottom line metrics and multi-criteria methodology in corporate settings

With the growing importance of environmental sustainability in the corporate sector, businesses are compelled to progress from assessing and benchmarking their environmental impact to making decisions on how to prioritize impact reduction alternatives. Most often, business decisions are driven by financial metrics, but with sustainability improvements becoming a business goal, it is also important to assess metrics from environmental and social spheres; nevertheless, practically and systematically performing such an assessment is challenging. We present an application of a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) method that addresses the aforementioned challenges in a corporate setting. Our case study company – one of the largest inland marine freight carriers in the United States – promotes a business culture focused on financially viable, yet socially and environmentally responsible solutions. Thus, we combine life cycle analysis (LCA), financial calculation methods, and corporate surveys to quantify environmental, economic, and social performance measures, respectively. Multiattribute utility theory is integrated with analytic hierarchy processes (AHPs) and fuzzy analysis to create a carefully designed framework for corporations with diverse groups of stakeholders. With company leadership, implementation is feasible and successful at prioritizing alternatives among diverse stakeholders. The process provides a platform for negotiation and promotes discussions on decision drivers. The use of MCDA methodologies promoted the inclusion of a suite of metrics that aligned with the company's sense of social and environmental responsibility, generating an in-depth analysis of the alternatives that factored in other things besides economics. Return-on-investments (ROI) calculations, the typical approach used in the corporate setting, would have required significantly less time and effort from the company, but the results of our MCDA application indicated that inclusion of triple bottom line metrics delve deeper into stakeholder preferences. Thus, our case study company gained a holistic view of the candidate alternatives, in addition to creating a platform for structured discussions about company goals and priorities.