Suchergebnisse

Part I Sustainability: challenges and opportunities -- Chapter 1: Business Challenges in the Transition to Sustainability -- Chapter 2: The CapSEM Model -- Chapter 3: Sustainable Development Goals and CapSEM -- Part II The Toolbox: Methodologies and Theories -- Chapter 4: Input-output Analysis and Cleaner Production -- Chapter 5: Looking Beyond the Factory Gates -- Chapter 6: Communicating Product Life Cycle Performance through Labels and Declarations -- Chapter 7 : Environmental Management Systems -- Chapter 8: Analytical frameworks, indicators and performance evaluation -- Chapter 9: Reporting Schemes -- Chapter 10: Business Models for Sustainability -- Chapter 11: Closing the loop: Industrial Ecology, Circular Economy and Material Flow Analysis -- Chapter 12: Systems Engineering. Introduction, Methods and Tools -- Part III From Theory to Practice: Case Studies -- Chapter 13: Introduction to the Case Studies -- Chapter 14: From Waste to Value – a story about Life Cycle Management in the Furniture Industry (Case study 1) -- Chapter 15: The Role of Public Sector Buyers: Influencing Systemic Change in the Construction Sector (Case Study 2) -- Chapter 16: CapSEM Applied to the Construction Sector (Case Study 3) -- Chapter 17: Material Flow Analysis: Mapping Plastics within the Fishing Sector in Norway (Case Study 4) -- Chapter 18: Environmental Management at Fiskerstrand Verft AS: a 30 year Journey (Case Study 5) -- Chapter 19: A Transportation Planning Decision Support System (Case Study 6) -- Chapter 20: First Steps towards Sustainable Waste Management (Case Study 7) -- Part IV The Road Ahead -- Chapter 21: Transition to Sustainability -- Chapter 22: Helping business contribute to a sustainability transition: Archetypes of business models for sustainability -- Chapter 23: Building Decision Support Systems for Sustainable Transformation -- Chapter 24: The Way Forward?.

ABSTRACTReporting on corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance to external stakeholders is a key element of corporate and value chain accountability. This paper identifies gaps in existing value chain reporting practices and examines options for how a CSR product declaration can be developed to address these gaps. The characteristics of six state‐of‐the‐art accountability management, reporting, and certification approaches are identified and the pairwise correlations are assessed statistically. Findings show that the overall correlation is low; there is no low‐hanging fruit for combining existing elements. Missing allocation and aggregation methods are a particular challenge, especially concerning social aspects in the value chain. Three options for a CSR product declaration based on the Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) are presented. Building on the strength of the EPD (transparency, quantification, and verification), a scientific consensus building approach is recommended. Indicator development becomes a balancing act between satisfying internal management requirements and keeping connected with the scientific development. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Business research is placing increasing focus on the relationship between the natural environment and the political concept of sustainable development. Within this nexus, one area, labelled 'Corporate Sustainability', emphasizes the interactions between economic, environmental and social values. The need to consider multiple values has contributed to a blur in the conceptual landscape. This is partly due to the fact that authors often address epistemological challenges on an implicit level. Moreover, hidden ideologies, e.g. the profit maximization paradigm, can explain the conceptual obscurity. The contribution of this article is twofold. Firstly, a conceptual framework is developed based on the dichotomy of positivism and constructivism. A relation is established between these epistemological positions and the analytic treatment of environmental and social values. The framework can be applied to increase transparency on epistemological challenges and thereby strengthening construct validity in the field. Secondly, an analysis of the most influential literature from the last 50 years shows that there is a trend of clustering theoretical positions and value constructs without any critical awareness of their philosophical assumptions. The authors hope that acknowledgement of a multi-paradigmatic approach can help to clarify the epistemology of the research area by establishing pluralism as an explicit position. ; acceptedVersion ; © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. This is the author's accepted and refereed manuscript of the article. Locked until 24 March 2019 due to copyright restrictions. Author's post-print is released with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives License.

The construction sector is progressively becoming more circular by reducing waste, re-using building materials and adopting regenerative solutions for energy production and biodiversity protection. The implications of circularity on construction activities are complex and require the careful evaluation of impacts to select the appropriate path forward. Evaluations of circular solutions and their environmental efectiveness are often performed based on various types of life cycle-based impact assessments. This paper uses systemic thinking to map and evaluate diferent impact assessment methodologies and their implications for a shift to more circular solutions. The following systemic levels are used to group the methodologies: product (material life cycle declarations and building assessments), organisation (certifcation and management schemes) and system (policies, standards and regulations). The results confrm that circular economy is integrated at all levels. However, development and structure are not coordinated or governed unidirectionally, but rather occur simultaneously at diferent levels. This recursive structure is positive if the methods are applied in the correct context, thus providing both autonomy and cohesion in decision making. Methods at lower systemic levels may then improve production processes and stimulate the market to create circular and innovative building solutions, whereas methods at higher systemic levels can be used, for example, by real estate builders, trade organisations and governments to create incentives for circular development and innovation in a broader perspective. Use of the performance methods correctly within an actor network is therefore crucial for successful and efective implementation of circular economy in the construction sector. ; publishedVersion