Sustainability Performance Evaluation Research Articles

Comprehensive literature review on stakeholder prospects, responsibilities, and quality performance measurement in sustainable supply chain governance

The sustainable Governance of supply chains has become essential for businesses trying to balance economic success and ecological and ethical imperatives in an era of increased environmental awareness and social responsibility. Many stakeholders are pressuring companies to integrate sustainability into their supply chains as environmental degradation and social inequality worsen. Therefore, it is essential to include non-traditional supply chain stakeholders, such as competitors and non-governmental organizations, in supply chain operations to produce an SSCG. This comprehensive literature review synthesizes and examines the current body of information on stakeholder prospects, responsibilities, and measuring quality performance in sustainable supply chain governance. Therefore, this study's primary objective is to clearly show how SSC practices are related to stakeholder roles and responsibilities. A thorough literature examination was conducted, and 40 peer-reviewed journal publications from 2019 to 2023 were included. In this work, expectations, as stated in scholarly literature, are methodically categorized, and any gaps are reviewed critically. A reasonable explanation for stakeholders' discontent with the sustainability performance measurement and evaluation methods used nowadays is that, as the literature review demonstrates, stakeholder expectations have yet to be considered. The findings indicate that many external and internal supply chain stakeholders drive, enable, or check the application of sustainable supply chain Governance techniques.While governments and non-governmental organizations are essential drivers of sustainable supply chain Governance techniques, research can also help with their implementation. Furthermore, proactive interaction with external supply chain stakeholders improves organizational learning by boosting understanding and awareness of sustainability and developing knowledge.

Evaluation of sustainable manufacturing performance – A case illustration with multistakeholder perspective

Increasing awareness on achieving the targets of sustainable development goals led to the various discussions on sustainability in manufacturing applications. Sustainable manufacturing has been considered as one of the key factors for achieving sustainable consumption and production. Considering the advantages, sustainable manufacturing has been discussed with various perspectives in order to improve the sustainable manufacturing performances. This study considers one of the perspectives where other studies are limited within the context of sustainable manufacturing performances, multi-stakeholder perspectives. The sustainable manufacturing performances has been collected and evaluated with multi criteria decision making methodology, best worst method. The three multi stakeholder perspectives have been considered for this study which includes manufacturer perspective, customer perspective and government perspective. The collected sustainable manufacturing performances were evaluated based on these different multi-stakeholder perspectives, in order to understand the similarities and differences among multiple stakeholders in the implementation of sustainable manufacturing through its performances. The detailed discussion of obtained results was explored and acknowledged with existing literature support along with the response from case industrial managers. The similarities and differences of opinion among different stakeholders has been explored to provide fruitful contributions to both academic and scientific community. The key managerial implication of this study is that assisting the industrial managers to focus on influential sustainable manufacturing performances instead of focussing less influential ones based on the opinions of different stakeholders.

Sustainability performance evaluation in the organic durum wheat production: evidence from Italy

Sustainability performance evaluation in the organic durum wheat production: evidence from Italy

Screening of sustainable supply chain performance evaluation indicators based on the ill-conditioned index cycle method.

The establishment of an evaluation indicator system that can accurately assess the sustainability of a supply chain while further enhancing its performance is vital and relevant. Based on the connotation of sustainable supply chains and triple bottom line theory, indicators are initially proposed from economic, environmental, and social dimensions. To increase the explanatory power of the indicator system and decrease information redundancy, the coefficient of variation is applied to identify the indicators with weak interpretation intensity, the ill-conditioned index cycle method is utilized to filter out indicators with redundant information, and data on 100 Chinese listed companies from 2019 to 2021 are used as samples. A performance evaluation indicator system of sustainable supply chains with 16 indicators is ultimately established. The information interpretation strength index and cumulative information contribution rate verify the rationality of the final indicator system. The outcome demonstrates that this screening method can strengthen the representativeness of the indicator system and rapidly reduce redundancy, leading to the better discrimination of the evaluation results. The findings of this study provide an indicator system and a methodological reference for both companies and policymakers and can aid in the transformation of supply chains toward sustainability.

Sustainability performance efficiency in the banking sector

Traditional sustainability reporting is based on an internally developed methodology and does not fully cope with the sustainability performance evaluation, especially from an external perspective. This study aims to fill this gap by offering a tool that may be used to assess the company’s performance based on the results presented to external users. For this purpose, a two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) is proposed, that enables a comparison of the sustainability performance disclosed in non-financial reports in the banking industry in Poland, Croatia, and Romania. The findings of our study identify differences between the efficiency of sustainability performance in the banking sectors of all three countries. The proposed approach to compare hard-to-compare sustainability performance may significantly contribute to the decision-making process for stakeholders and, therefore, to the advancement of sustainability performance measurement research.

Spatial neighborhood sustainability assessment for urban planning, Cuenca, Ecuador

The accelerated processes of urbanization produce an explosive occupation of the land, creating scattered cities, with great demands for infrastructure and high consumption of raw materials and energy, affecting natural territories and increasing the emission of pollutants. The city of Cuenca-Ecuador as well as several Latin American cities are not strangers to this problem, as it reflects a dispersed growth towards the peripheries that have caused an expansion of the urban landscape. The above situation requires sustainable planning, which contributes to decision-making to identify what measures are needed to regulate the growth of the city. Accordingly, the present research proposes combining the set of indicators of the Neighborhood Sustainability Assessment tool with the spatial analysis of GIS, so that the sustainability assessment can be extended at the city level to support urban planning in Cuenca. For this purpose, a 3-step methodology was proposed: selection of sustainable indicators, evaluation of sustainable performance, and design of a model that integrates SIG+NSA, which allowed incorporating spatial analysis in the sustainable assessment of neighborhoods, by designing a model adapted to Cuenca. This model consists of 15 variables, 12 indicators, and 4 evaluation categories, which result in the sustainable performance level of 149 planning sectors. The developed model makes it possible to automate the analysis processes and generate a complement to the ArcGIS geoprocessing tools for evaluating urban sustainability, as a support tool for planners and decision-makers in city planning processes.

Evaluation of the Corporate Sustainability Performance of Manufacturing Companies in the BIST Sustainability Index with Multi-Criteria Decision Making Methods

This study aims to evaluate the corporate sustainability performance of manufacturing companies listed in the Borsa Istanbul (BIST) Sustainability Index using multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods. For this purpose, by examining the literature, 11 criteria, including economic, social, and environmental, were determined and the criteria were weighted with method based on the removal effects of criteria (MEREC), one of the objective MCDM methods. According to the weights obtained through the MEREC method, the most important criteria were "return on equity", "operating profitability", and "asset profitability", while the least important criteria were "employee turnover rate", "training hours per employee" and "proportion of female employees". Subsequently, using the weights derived from the MEREC method, the companies were ranked using the CoCoSo (Combined Compromise Solution) method. According to the rankings, the companies demonstrating the highest corporate sustainability performance are Türk Traktor, Ford, Tofaş, and Otokar, while the companies with the lowest corporate sustainability performance are Kerevitaş, Coca-Cola, Petkim, and Tüpraş, respectively. Sensitivity analysis is carried out to test the consistency of the results obtained. Although these results contribute to the literature, in subsequent studies, MEREC and CoCoSo methods can be used to measure different performance criteria of companies. The fact remains that corporate sustainability performances of companies can be measured by using combinations of different MCDM methods.

Research on the Evaluation of Sustainable Development Performance of Mining enterprises Based on ESG

In recent years, stakeholders have increasingly emphasized enterprise’s environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) performance. As one of the industries in urgent need of green transformation, the coal mining industry faces difficulties on the topic of sustainable development that should not be underestimated. In this regard, this paper integrates the concept of ESG into the sustainable development performance evaluation of enterprises and utilizes the entropy weight-TOPSIS model to evaluate the performance of S-mining enterprises, to help them identify the deficiencies and better achieve the goal of sustainable development.

Performance evaluation of sustainability in a textile firm via multi-criteria decision-making method

Today, the sustainability approach is an integral part of business life. Especially, considering the damage that various events can cause to the environment, environmental sustainability (ES) is getting much more attention. From this aspect, the textile industry which can cause serious environmental damage, should integrate a sustainability approach into its management concept. Therefore, decision-makers and practitioners need to evaluate the sustainability performance of the industry. Multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods help them to evaluate sustainability performance usefully. This paper evaluates the sustainability performance of a selected company in the textile industry over the years by environmental performance indicators. The technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) methodology is used to evaluate sustainability performance.

Key Challenges and Strategies Towards Sustainable Infrastructure Development in Malaysia

The world is fixated on climate change because of its damageto the environment and the ripple effect it can have on people's health and the economy. This study aims to delve into research focusingon sustainable infrastructure development in Malaysia, as well as the main obstacles and approaches to taking on such a task. This study used a mixed-methods system, which allowed for the collectiona large amount of data and made it easy to compare results from different settings. The study found that more people are aware of sustainable impact assessment in infrastructure projects and familiar with resilient,sustainable development than sustainable performance evaluation. The studies also showed that the main problems in implementing sustainability include minimising adverse hazards, financial and budget investment issues, as well as inadequate governance and management. The proposed measures are broken down into monetary, institutional, and organisational themes. Possible steps toward a more sustainable infrastructure involve increasing green investment and financing, fostering green policies and environmental regulations, promoting green technologies and materials, andgrowing capacity through improved awareness andtraining. The findings of this study provide construction stakeholders with insight into an analysis of existing methodologies and strategies for integrating sustainable infrastructure development. Resolving obstacles and refining implementation tactics facilitated the effectiveness of the transformation towards a more sustainable infrastructure.

Optimizing Organizational Performance: A Human Resource Management Approach in Higher Education

This paper aims to analyze organizational performance optimization through human resource management at one of the tertiary institutions in Banjarmasin. This study uses a descriptive qualitative approach. Data were obtained from the results of interviews, observation, and documentation. The data analysis was carried out in stages, starting with data reduction, data presentation, and conclusion. The study results show that optimizing organizational performance through human resource management at UNISKA Banjarmasin is carried out using; a focus on achieving vision and mission targets, competitive recruitment and selection policies, employee career development, sustainable performance appraisal policies, monitoring, and evaluation. This research has implications that there are various challenges in implementing human resource management in tertiary institutions, such as limited human resources, differences in culture and values, and difficulties in flexibility. Therefore, several solutions are needed to deal with these problems, such as using technology and automation, increasing awareness of values and culture, and developing employee engagement programs.

Corporate Sustainability Performance Evaluation and Firm Financial Performance: Evidence from Pakistan

The study purports to search the corporate sustainability practices of the companies in Pakistan. This study is novel research in the context as it tries to capture corporate sustainability practices in a market where these practices involve a high divergence among the companies amidst a voluntary disclosure requirement. Total sustainability efforts by the companies in Pakistan have been assembled over an index based on Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) reporting guidelines and some context-specific indicators. Corporate sustainability has been calculated by applying the quality of disclosure (CSQI) along with the level of disclosure (CSLI). The average CSLI disclosure is 47% and CSQI disclosure is 27%. The quality of disclosure is lower as the companies do not disclose too much data in quantitative or statistical form. The disclosure is also described as inconsistent among the companies. The study finds a relationship between corporate sustainability scores and corporate financial performance by applying a step-by-step approach likely to lead to a generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation for controlling the endogenous nature of such a relationship. Regression results have confirmed that there exists a positive relationship between corporate sustainability and accounting and market-based financial performance. The stakeholder theory seems to have roots in the context. The study has some policy implications and will guide the regulation of sustainability at the corporate level in Pakistan.

Sustainable Performance Measurement in Manufacturing Process of Textile Industry by using Analytical Hierarchy Process

Sustainable manufacturing practices in textile industry have become a crucial topic for managers of manufacturing organizations to remain competitive in the market. The textile sector is well known for consuming a large amount of natural resources, raw materials, energy, and fossil fuels, and for being a significant contributor to pollution. Evaluating sustainability performance of textile manufacturing companies is therefore important. To address this, a study has developed an Analytical hierarchy process (AHP)-based model for assessing sustainable manufacturing performance. The study identifies performance measures for sustainable manufacturing based on economic, environmental, social, and technical factors, and confirms their relevance through a survey. The findings demonstrate that all measures are extremely important and are suggested as key performance measures for textile sector. Then, AHP is used to evaluate sustainable manufacturing performance based on these measures, results in quality and employee ranking as highest critical factors, and complexity and flexibility as least important. The study offers hierarchical model for evaluating sustainability performance of five case organizations, providing guidance for production managers to assess strengths and weaknesses of their organizations. These findings encourage researchers and practitioners to study more about sustainability evaluation.

Sustainability performance evaluation of renewable energy systems using a new multi-expert multi-criteria interval type-2 fuzzy distance to ideal solution approach

The transition from energy systems based on fossil fuels and toward those based on renewable resources is very necessary for sustainable development. Evaluation of the current sustainability level is known to be the first step toward sustainability improvements. With the use of multi-expert multi-criteria decision making and interval type-2 fuzzy sets, this research suggests a novel method for determining the current degree of sustainability through renewable energy systems based on distance to ideal solution concept. The presented approach draws attention to components that are underperforming, which assists decision-makers in recognizing the barriers to sustainable growth. A numerical example that illustrates the use of the proposed approach in renewable energy systems demonstrates the implementation methods and benefits of the strategy. The results of the sustainability performance evaluation indicate three individual dimensions of sustainability indicators for social, economic, and environmental aspects, as well as an overall sustainability indicator which is calculated as ((2.91, 4.70, 4.70, 6.47; 1.00, 1.00), (3.85, 4.70, 4.70, 5.60; 0.90, 0.90)) and according to its distance to ideal solution value 5.297 corresponds to “weakly sustainable” for the illustrative case. Also, the underperforming criteria can be determined, which for our case study are filling station availability, NOx emissions, need for waste disposal, land requirements, and social acceptability. The proposed methodology has the potential to facilitate the development of more effective policies and strategies for sustainable development on a global scale. This can be accomplished by enhancing the quality of linguistic judgments made by experts and by providing a comprehensive understanding of the sustainability of renewable energy systems worldwide.

Coal resource-based cities at the crossroads: Towards a sustainable urban future

Coal resource-based cities (CRBCs) represent a significant portion of resource-based cities in China, accounting for 40 % of prefecture-level cities. However, existing research on CRBCs primarily focuses on outcome-based sustainability analysis, neglecting production-based evaluation. To bridge this gap, our study investigates sustainability of CRBC using the inclusive wealth index (IWI), IWI per capita, and IWI density. We find substantial variations in CRBCs' inclusive wealth influenced by regional distribution and life stages. Regionally, sustainable development capacity follows the sequence “east > west > central > northeast”, with the northern region benefiting from abundant non-renewable natural capital. In terms of life stage sustainable development, the sequence is “growing > regenerative > grown-up > recessionary”. The decline in wealth performance from growing to recessionary types confirms the negative impact of the “resource curse” phenomenon, where resource dependence hampers growth. However, the regenerative type demonstrates the potential for transformation through sustainable development strategies. Our study presents practical strategies to enhance regional policies by adopting the IWI accounting indicator system proposed by the United Nations Environment Programme and localizing it to align with the characteristics of CRBCs in China. This innovative approach facilitates the evaluation of CRBCs' sustainable development performance.

A Sustainable Development Evaluation Framework for Chinese Electricity Enterprises Based on SDG and ESG Coupling

In 2021, China’s power generation industry took the lead in launching carbon emissions trading, ushering in a major challenge and opportunity for the sustainable development of power enterprises. Assessing the sustainable development performance of power enterprises has become the key to the sustainable financing and development of power enterprises in this new developmental stage. Based on the integration of the long-term UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) evaluation indicators of listed companies, this paper constructed an index system for the evaluation of the sustainable development of electric power companies consisting of 75 indicators corresponding to four dimensions: economic, social, environmental, and governance. Given the vision for the sustainable development of electric power companies, the assessment thresholds for each indicator were determined by the practical exploration and typical progress assessment of SDGs. Aggregate assessment and dashboard assessment techniques for the sustainable development of electric power companies were established, and we conducted a robustness analysis of the evaluation system. The results revealed the following details: (1) The disclosure of sustainable development indicators of Chinese electricity enterprises was 94.13%, among which the four dimensions of economy, environment, society, and governance were 99.89%, 82.62%, 94.00%, and 97.71%, respectively. (2) The aggregate sustainable development index for Chinese power companies was 59.34, and the environment, society, governance, and economic scores were 62.10, 64.49, 76.79, and 41.37, respectively. (3) Based on the results of the dashboard, investment in innovation, public welfare, emissions of greenhouse gases, and economic sustainability are the key factors limiting the achievement of sustainable development. (4) The framework’s robustness analysis showed that the results of the evaluation of this paper’s indicator framework fell within a reasonable range of variation using different ranking and weighting systems. Chinese electricity companies should comprehensively control costs and expenses, strengthen capital management, expand funding channels, focus on enhancing R&D capabilities, enhance their scientific and technological innovation management systems, and improve their disclosure of information about greenhouse gas emissions, resource consumption and use, and employee issues to improve the overall level of sustainable development. The evaluation system developed in this paper further enriches the evaluation of corporate sustainability performance. This paper explored the application of the SDG index and dashboard construction methods at the national level to the evaluation of sustainability at the corporate level, providing a clear picture of corporate performance with respect to various dimensions, issues, criteria, and indicators.

Sustainability performance of small and medium dairy enterprises in Brazil

The sustainability performance of dairy enterprises can be improved using specific assessments indicators and indices. However, selecting a set of indicators and creating a specific sustainability index for dairy enterprises is challenging. This study aimed to assess the sustainability performance of small and medium dairy enterprises using an indicator set and indices encompassing the three dimensions of the triple bottom line approach. Hence, a specific indicator set was selected based on the literature, and a sustainability index was structured based on the process of normalisation, mean weight, aggregation, and sensitivity analysis. Empirical validation was carried out with 32 small and medium dairy enterprises in Brazil using a questionnaire to evaluate sustainability performance. The results demonstrate that the indicator set, sub-indices (environmental, social, and economic), and index are adequate and consistent for diagnosing and identifying areas of improvement in the sustainable performance of small and medium dairy enterprises. In our sample, the highest efficiency regarding sustainability performance was related to economic sub-index indicators, whereas the lowest efficiency appeared in environmental and social sub-index indicators. The application of the sustainability index delivered essential information to consultants and managers of dairy enterprises to improve resource use and minimise the environmental and social impacts of their companies. The study posits that the specific sustainability index for small and medium dairy enterprises is a powerful management resource that can diagnose positive and negative points in a company related to the triple bottom line dimensions. Furthermore, the study provides suggestions for the use of the sustainability index, contributions to sustainability performance improvement, and limitations.

A hybrid multi-criteria decision-making approach for hospitals’ sustainability performance evaluation under fuzzy environment

PurposeHospital structures serve to protect and improve public health; however, they are recognized as a major source of environmental degradation. Thus, an effective performance evaluation framework is required to improve hospital sustainability. In this context, this study presents a holistic methodology that integrates the sustainability balanced scorecard (SBSC) with fuzzy Delphi method and fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making approaches for evaluating the sustainability performance of hospitals.Design/methodology/approachInitially, a comprehensive list of relevant sustainability evaluation criteria was considered based on six SBSC-based dimensions, in line with triple-bottom-line sustainability dimensions, and derived from the literature review and experts’ opinions. Then, the weights of perspectives and their respective criteria are computed and ranked utilizing the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process. Subsequently, the hospitals’ sustainable performance values are ranked based on these criteria using the Fuzzy Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution.FindingsA numerical application was conducted in six public hospitals to exhibit the proposed model’s applicability. The results of this study revealed that “Patient satisfaction,” “Efficiency,” “Effectiveness,” “Access to care” and “Waste production,” respectively, are the five most important criteria of sustainable performance.Practical implicationsThe new model will provide decision-makers with management tools that may help them identify the relevant factors for upgrading the level of sustainability in their hospitals and thus improve public health and community well-being.Originality/valueThis is the first study that proposes a new hybrid decision-making methodology for evaluating and comparing hospitals’ sustainability performance under a fuzzy environment.

Sustainability performance evaluation of fruit chip SMEs

Due to increasing competition in various business sectors, business actors must adopt modern and effective management methods and tools to maintain their competitive advantage. Sustainability indicators are a key factor in maintaining competitive advantage and successful performance of Fruit Chips SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) in Malang City. This study adds environmental and social perspectives as part of the sustainability balanced scorecard (SBSC), so that performance measurement is identified using six perspectives. This study contributes to theory and practice by creating a model to measure the sustainability of the performance of Fruit Chips SMEs. Then, the results of the calculation of the sustainability performance index are classified based on the sustainability category so that the sustainability status of the Fruit Chips SMEs can be obtained by 87%. This percentage is included in the category of good sustainability performance.

Evaluation of sustainable supply chain performance on apple chips using the integration of quality function deployment, fuzzy analytical network process, and data envelopment analysis

Batu City is the largest apple producer in Indonesia, producing around 55,891 tons. One way to optimize supply chains is sustainable supply chain performance in the economic, social, and environmental fields. Problems in apple chip small- and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) are the price of apples increases in the dry season, accumulation of apple peel waste, and poor employee work performance. This study aimed to analyze the level of importance variables in measuring the supply chain performance level and the strategies to improve the supply chain of apple chips SMEs in Batu City. The integration of quality function deployment (QFD) and Fuzzy analytical network process (FANP) was used to obtain the level of cooperation interest. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) was used to determine the efficiency of each stakeholder's interest. The results showed that the three highest important cooperative behavior factors were production costs (0.16), raw material costs (0.15), and raw material inventory (0.14). The efficiency level of partner cooperation and apple chip SMEs from 17 SMEs indicated that two partners were inefficient, with an efficiency score of 0.973 (D3) and 0.957 (D4). The improvement strategies proposed to apple chip SMEs were reducing production costs, revising agreements between suppliers and farmers, and implementing information technology.