IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/orinte/v30y2000i3p107-124.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Stepping Towards Sustainable Business: An Evaluation of Waste Minimization Practices in US Manufacturing

Author

Listed:
  • Iain J. Clelland

    (Department of Management, 408 Stokely Management Center, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996-0545)

  • Thomas J. Dean

    (College of Business and Administration, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0419)

  • Thomas J. Douglas

    (School of Business Administration, University of Evansville, Evansville, Indiana 47722)

Abstract

Central to the movement of organizations toward environmental sustainability is the financial viability and environmental effectiveness of the techniques for improving environmental performance. While waste-minimization practices (WMPs) have been touted as a key element in moving manufacturing organizations toward sustainability, we know little about their utilization and effectiveness across a range of industrial and organizational contexts. Using waste-minimization data collected as part of the Toxics Release Inventory, we studied 250 manufacturing firms to provide empirical evidence to enable plant managers to prioritize waste-minimization options. We found clear evidence of a corporate double bonus WMPs can provide through pollution reduction and enhanced operational efficiency relative to traditional end-of-pipe solutions. In the array of ecologically sustainable business practices, it appears that WMPs provide immediate environmental and operational benefits and build momentum for further steps toward environmentally sustainable economic development.

Suggested Citation

  • Iain J. Clelland & Thomas J. Dean & Thomas J. Douglas, 2000. "Stepping Towards Sustainable Business: An Evaluation of Waste Minimization Practices in US Manufacturing," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 30(3), pages 107-124, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:orinte:v:30:y:2000:i:3:p:107-124
    DOI: 10.1287/inte.30.3.107.11661
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/inte.30.3.107.11661
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/inte.30.3.107.11661?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. A. Ghobadian & H. Viney & J. Liu & P. James, 1998. "Extending linear approaches to mapping corporate environmental behaviour," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(1), pages 13-23, February.
    2. Stefan Schaltegger, 1997. "Economics of life cycle assessment: Inefficiency of the present approach," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(1), pages 1-8, February.
    3. Stuart L. Hart & Gautam Ahuja, 1996. "Does It Pay To Be Green? An Empirical Examination Of The Relationship Between Emission Reduction And Firm Performance," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(1), pages 30-37, March.
    4. Daniel C. Esty & Michael E. Porter, 1998. "Industrial Ecology and Competitiveness: Strategic Implications for the Firm," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 2(1), pages 35-43, January.
    5. Suresh Kotha & Daniel Orne, 1989. "Generic manufacturing strategies: A conceptual synthesis," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(3), pages 211-231, May.
    6. Omar A. El Sawy & Thierry C. Pauchant, 1988. "Triggers, templates and twitches in the tracking of emerging strategic issues," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(5), pages 455-473, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Caroline Flammer, 2015. "Does Corporate Social Responsibility Lead to Superior Financial Performance? A Regression Discontinuity Approach," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(11), pages 2549-2568, November.
    2. Nilanjana Dutt & Andrew A. King, 2014. "The Judgment of Garbage: End-of-Pipe Treatment and Waste Reduction," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(7), pages 1812-1828, July.
    3. Lanndon A. Ocampo, 2019. "Applying fuzzy AHP–TOPSIS technique in identifying the content strategy of sustainable manufacturing for food production," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 21(5), pages 2225-2251, October.
    4. Hall, Jeremy K. & Daneke, Gregory A. & Lenox, Michael J., 2010. "Sustainable development and entrepreneurship: Past contributions and future directions," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 439-448, September.
    5. Marios Bisilkas & Iván Barreda Tarrazona & Aurora García-Gallego, 2012. "Sustainability Requirements Dynamics in New Product Development," Working Papers 2012/19, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).
    6. Cristian Mejia & Yuya Kajikawa, 2021. "The Academic Landscapes of Manufacturing Enterprise Performance and Environmental Sustainability: A Study of Commonalities and Differences," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(7), pages 1-16, March.
    7. Ryan W. Buell & Basak Kalkanci, 2021. "How Transparency into Internal and External Responsibility Initiatives Influences Consumer Choice," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(2), pages 932-950, February.
    8. Markus Hang & Jerome Geyer‐Klingeberg & Andreas W. Rathgeber, 2019. "It is merely a matter of time: A meta‐analysis of the causality between environmental performance and financial performance," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 257-273, February.
    9. Tony Pickford & Liz Ellis, 2015. "The creation of interactive activity pods at a Recycling Education Centre," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 30(3), pages 370-381, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. J. Emil Morhardt & Sarah Baird & Kelly Freeman, 2002. "Scoring corporate environmental and sustainability reports using GRI 2000, ISO 14031 and other criteria," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 9(4), pages 215-233, December.
    2. Hayam Wahba, 2010. "How do institutional shareholders manipulate corporate environmental strategy to protect their equity value? A study of the adoption of ISO 14001 by Egyptian firms," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(8), pages 495-511, December.
    3. Christian Schwens & Marcus Wagner, 2019. "The role of firm-internal corporate environmental standards for organizational performance," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 89(7), pages 823-843, September.
    4. Knud Sinding, 2000. "Environmental management beyond the boundaries of the firm: definitions and constraints," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(2), pages 79-91, March.
    5. Marcus Wagner & Nguyen Van Phu & Théophile Azomahou & Walter Wehrmeyer, 2002. "The relationship between the environmental and economic performance of firms: an empirical analysis of the European paper industry," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 9(3), pages 133-146, September.
    6. Joaquín Cañón-de-Francia & Concepión Garcés-Ayerbe, 2019. "Factors and Contingencies for the “It Pays to Be Green Hypothesis”. The European Union’s Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) and Financial Crisis as Contexts," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(16), pages 1-15, August.
    7. Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki & Goto, Mika, 2010. "Measurement of a linkage among environmental, operational, and financial performance in Japanese manufacturing firms: A use of Data Envelopment Analysis with strong complementary slackness condition," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 207(3), pages 1742-1753, December.
    8. Werner Bönte & Christian Dienes, 2013. "Environmental Innovations and Strategies for the Development of New Production Technologies: Empirical Evidence from Europe," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(8), pages 501-516, December.
    9. Karvonen, Minna-Maari, 2001. "Natural versus manufactured capital: win-lose or win-win? A case study of the Finnish pulp and paper industry," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 71-85, April.
    10. Xiaoguang Zhou & Yadi Cui, 2019. "Green Bonds, Corporate Performance, and Corporate Social Responsibility," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(23), pages 1-27, December.
    11. Mohammed Bouaddi & Mohamed A. K. Basuony & Neveen Noureldin, 2023. "The Heterogenous Effects of Carbon Emissions and Board Gender Diversity on a Firm’s Performance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(19), pages 1-20, October.
    12. Théophile AZOMAHOU & Phu NGUYEN VAN & Marcus WAGNER, 2001. "Determinants of Environmental and Economic Performance of Firms: An Empirical Analysis of the European Paper Industry," Working Papers of BETA 2001-22, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    13. Van Meensel, Jef & Lauwers, Ludwig H. & Van Huylenbroeck, Guido & Van Passel, Steven, 2009. "Exploring production-theoretical insights for analyzing trade-offs between economic performance and environmental pressure at firm level," 2009 Conference, August 16-22, 2009, Beijing, China 51725, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    14. Elisabeth Albertini, 2014. "A Descriptive Analysis of Environmental Disclosure: A Longitudinal Study of French Companies," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 121(2), pages 233-254, May.
    15. Olaf Weber & Roland W. Scholz & Georg Michalik, 2010. "Incorporating sustainability criteria into credit risk management," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(1), pages 39-50, January.
    16. Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki & Goto, Mika, 2009. "Can environmental investment and expenditure enhance financial performance of US electric utility firms under the clean air act amendment of 1990?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(11), pages 4819-4826, November.
    17. Marcus Wagner, 2009. "Innovation and competitive advantages from the integration of strategic aspects with social and environmental management in European firms," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(5), pages 291-306, July.
    18. Khaled Elsayed & David Paton, 2009. "The impact of financial performance on environmental policy: does firm life cycle matter?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(6), pages 397-413, September.
    19. Denise M. Keele & Susan DeHart, 2011. "Partners of USEPA Climate Leaders: an Event Study on Stock Performance," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(8), pages 485-497, December.
    20. Franck Brulhart & Sandrine Gherra & Bertrand V. Quelin, 2019. "Do Stakeholder Orientation and Environmental Proactivity Impact Firm Profitability?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 158(1), pages 25-46, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:orinte:v:30:y:2000:i:3:p:107-124. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.