Environmental Management in the Indian Fertiliser Industry

School of Management Studies, Cochin University of Science and Technology

Environmental management in Brazil: is it a completely competitive priority?

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Barriers to environmental management in clusters of small businesses in Brazil and Japan: from a lack of knowledge to a decline in traditional knowledge

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Green teams: Understanding their roles in the environmental management of companies located in Brazil

Green teams are frequently considered in the state-of-the-art literature as an essential factor for companies aiming to implement and improve environmental management approaches and practices. However, most of the available literature on green teams is conceptual and theoretical by nature. Therefore, the main purpose of this article is to evaluate the main characteristics of green teams in Brazilian companies and to analyse the relationships between green teams and the maturity level of environmental management in those companies. Based on a conceptual background on corporate environmental management and green teams, a research was done in two complementary phases: a survey of 94 companies with ISO 14001 certification; and a multiple case study of four industrial companies. Survey results suggest that 82% of the studied companies have cross-functional green teams, i.e. involving various companies' departments; and 65% have functional green teams, i.e. individual department teams. The results of the case study suggest that the use of green teams is an instrument to the greening of companies with ISO 14001 in Brazil. The company with the most proactive and advanced environmental management is the same company which uses green teams more intensely. Green teams are especially necessary for implementing more technical environmental management practices, e.g. Life Cycle Assessment. Since this is one of the first studies analysing green teams, the results presented can be useful for companies and public policies aiming to implementation of environmental initiatives. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Mixed methodology to analyze the relationship between maturity of environmental management and the adoption of green supply chain management in Brazil

The aim of this research is to verify the relationship between the maturity levels of environmental management and the adoption of green supply chain management (GSCM) practices by electro-electronic companies in Brazil. In this work a two-phase research was conducted, with one quantitative and the other qualitative. The quantitative phase aimed to test whether a relationship between the maturity levels of environmental management and GSCM exists, while the qualitative phase tried to detail the characteristics of this relationship. The quantitative phase was conducted through a survey with 100 Brazilian electro-electronic companies and the collected data were processed using Structural Equation Modeling. For the qualitative phase, a multiple case study was conducted with three companies located in Brazil. The results indicate that: (1) The main hypothesis was confirmed and considered statistically valid, indicating that, indeed, the maturity level of environmental management influences the adoption of GSCM practices; (2) a coevolution tends to occur between the environmental maturity and the GSCM practices; that is, the more developed is the company's environmental management, more complex GSCM practices are adopted; and (3) the GSCM internal practices tend to present a greater relative adoption than the external practices; these external practices of GSCM tend to be adopted when the company is inserted in a higher environmental stage and/or operates under a scenario of stronger normative environmental pressure. By the way, this is the first research mixing survey and case studies on GSCM in Brazil. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Environmental management in Brazil: is it a completely competitive priority?

Current studies indicate a need to integrate environmental management with manufacturing strategy, including topics like cross-functional integration, environmental impact, and waste reduction. Nevertheless, such studies are relatively rare, existing still a need for research in specific regional contexts. At the same time, the results found are not unanimous. Due to these gaps, the objective of this article is to analyze if environmental management can be considered a new competitive priority for manufacturing enterprises located in Brazil. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with Brazilian companies certified by ISO 14001. Sixty-five valid questionnaires were analyzed through Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). The first conclusion is that environmental management presents a preventive approach in the sample analyzed, focused on eco-efficiency, what potentially do not to create a competitive advantage. This preventive approach inhibits environmental management from being regarded as a new competitive manufacturing priority, in the full sense as defined by the literature. Another important result is that environmental management, although following a preventive focus, may influence positively the four manufacturing priorities: cost, quality, flexibility and delivery. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Sustainability indicators for environmental management and decision making

The general objective of this research is to explore theories and methodologies of sustainability indicators, environmental management and decision making disciplines with the operational purpose of producing scientific, robust and relevant information for supporting system understanding and decision making in real case studies. Several tools have been applied in order to increase the understanding of socio-ecological systems as well as providing relevant information on the choice between alternatives. These tools have always been applied having in mind the complexity of the issues and the uncertainty tied to the partial knowledge of the systems under study. Two case studies with specific application to performances measurement (environmental performances in the case of the K8 approach and sustainable development performances in the case of the EU Sustainable Development Strategy) and a case study about the selection of sustainable development indicators amongst Municipalities in Scotland, are discussed in the first part of the work. In the second part of the work, the common denominator among subjects consists in the application of spatial indices and indicators to address operational problems in land use management within the territory of the Ravenna province (Italy). The main conclusion of the thesis is that a ‘perfect’ methodological approach which always produces the best results in assessing sustainability performances does not exist. Rather, there is a pool of correct approaches answering different evaluation questions, to be used when methodologies fit the purpose of the analysis. For this reason, methodological limits and conceptual assumptions as well as consistency and transparency of the assessment, become the key factors for assessing the quality of the analysis.

Quality management, environmental management and firm performance in the Spanish hotel industry

Comunicación presentada en el XVI Simposio Internacional de Turismo y Ocio, ESADE, 23 mayo 2007.

Environmental management system and human resource practices: is there a link between them in four Brazilian companies?

The aim of this article is to analyze the theoretical model proposed by [Jabbour CJC, Santos FCA. Relationships between human resource dimensions and environmental management in companies: proposal of a model. Journal of Cleaner Production 2008;16(1):5 1-8.] based on the data collected in four Brazilian companies. This model investigates how the phases of the environmental management system can be linked to human resource practices in order to attain continuous improvement of a company`s environmental performance. Our aim is to contribute to a field, which has little empirical evidence. Although the interaction between the phases of the environmental management system and human resource practices is recommended by the specialized literature [Daily BE Huang S. Achieving sustainability through attention to human resource factors in environmental management. International Journal of Operations and Production Management 2001:21(12):1539-52.], the results indicate that most of the theoretical assumptions could not be confirmed in these Brazilian companies. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Relationships between human resource dimensions and environmental management in companies: proposal of a model

This work deals with the main contributions of human resource dimensions for the environmental management in a company. While the specialized literature concerning the technical aspects of environmental management expands, there is a gap in the bibliography: integrated approaches between human resource dimensions and environmental management. An extensive bibliographical review was undertaken in order to systematize the human resource dimensions and their contributions concerning the effectiveness of the environmental management system. A model that analyses the relationships between these dimensions and the typical phases of an environmental management system is presented, within a perspective of application for academicians and managers. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Contributions of HRM throughout the stages of environmental management: methodological triangulation applied to companies in Brazil

The purpose of this research is to analyze the contribution of human resources management throughout the evolutionary stages of environmental management in Brazilian companies. A theoretical framework concerning environmental management and its evolution and the `greening` of the functional and competitive dimensions of human resource management were developed. A methodological triangulation was developed in two complimentary phases. In the first phase, data were collected from 94 Brazilian companies with ISO 14001 certification. The data collected were analyzed and processed using statistical techniques. The conclusions of the first phase supported the second phase of this empirical research. The second phase consisted of a study of multiple cases in four Brazilian companies. The results show evidence of the first known empirical study of contributions of human resource dimensions throughout the stages of environmental management in Brazilian manufacturing companies.

Non-linear pathways of corporate environmental management: a survey of ISO 14001-certified companies in Brazil

A study was conducted to verify whether the theory on the evolution of corporate environmental management (CEM) is applicable to organizations located in Brazil. Some of the most important proposals pertaining to the evolution of CEM were evaluated in a systematic fashion and integrated into a typical theoretical framework containing three evolutionary stages: reactive, preventive and proactive. The validity of this framework was tested by surveying 94 companies located in Brazil with ISO 14001 certification. Results indicated that the evolution of CEM tends to occur in a manner that is counter to what has generally been described in the literature. Two evolutionary stages were identified: 1) synergy for eco-efficiency and 2) environmental legislation view, which combine variables that were initially categorized into different theoretical CEM stages. These data, obtained from a direct study of Brazilian companies, suggest that the evolution of environmental management in organizations tends to occur in a non-linear fashion, requiring a re-analysis of traditional perceptions of CEM development, as suggested by Kolk and Mauser (2002). (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Determining factors of environmental management practices in portuguese local entities

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to analyse the development of environmental management practices by Portuguese local entities and their determining factors. Design/methodology/approach: The data were collected by sending a postal questionnaire. In order to measure the degree of development of environmental management practices an index of environmental management practices (EMPI) was developed, which reflects the extent to which a set of 16 environmental management practices have been implemented by the entities included in the sample. Four variables are considered in this study as possible factors that drive the development of environmental management practices by local entities, namely type of entity, size, proactive environmental strategy and Local Agenda 21 Findings: Results indicate the degree of development of environmental management practices in Portuguese local entities is low. Additionally, entity size, the adoption of proactive environmental strategies and the implementation of Local Agenda 21 are explaining factors of the degree of development of such practices. Originality/value: This study adds to the international research on environmental management in public sector by providing empirical data from a country, Portugal, where empirical evidence is still relatively limited.