A Proposed Approach to Monitor and Control Sustainable Development Strategy Implementation
Abstract
:1. Introduction
- A survey based on a designed questionnaire which aimed to characterize the decision-making process, the strategic management, risk mitigation, and organizational efficiency (preliminarily considered as the main dimensions of green enterprise development) in the case of 374 industrial companies’ top management representatives (mainly from the automotive industry located in the west and the central regions of Romania) [17]. The research results underline managers’ strong need for tools, frameworks, methods, or systematic integrative methodologies to measure and monitor organizations’ progress in SD and for the support of green enterprises’/companies’ transformation; they also complained of an existing knowledge gap in SD and risk management assessment and they recognized a strong need for professional training in these areas. Furthermore, the survey results were considered as an extended knowledge base for the development of the integrated SD management strategy and the Green Enterprise Model (first research phase, see Section 3.1, Section 4.1 and Section 4.2).
- A survey based on a designed questionnaire for the assessment of training needs in the field of leadership for sustainable development [18]. The research aim was to characterize the SD skills and competencies of managers and specialists included in the sample, which consisted of 207 respondents who were employees of different companies (from Austria, France, Romania, and Slovenia), with a balanced structure of management position and distribution of age. The research results (complementary to those achieved in the first survey) characterized different hierarchical level managers’ needs for specific knowledge and/or topics in the SD field. Thus, based on the questionnaire structure (having questions related to the same topics as will be considered for the LeadSUS assessment approach), we gained an understanding of the needs of operational-level managers who are key employees in the green transformation of their companies. The results show managers’ and specialists’ SD knowledge levels and reveal knowledge gaps, clarifying if managers and specialists are well trained and have the right skills for operating with an SD assessment tool. The survey results were considered for the LeadSUS assessment approach design (second research phase, see Section 3.2 and Section 4.3) and for providing a complex and coherent training schema for educating SD leadership skills and competencies. This research was related to the implementation of the “LeadSUS—Leadership in Sustainability” project (LLP-LdV/TOI/2013/RO/022) and the “TeachSUS—Teaching and Educating for Sustainability” project (2018-1-RO01-KA204-049253), founded with support from the European Commission and which allow the international dimension of the investigation.
2. Literature Review
2.1. Sustainability Management
- Environmental issues: Risks of climate change [16], especially in urban agglomerations [19], water resources [20], energy [21], soil pollution [22,23], or biosphere imbalances [24,25,26,27], which are just a few cases. Human activities’ environmental impact seems to still be of high concern [16,28], together with emergent topics such as circular economy [8],
- Economic and social issues: Studies draw attention to the dangers of the increase in the percentage of carbon emissions and other gases in the atmosphere [5,25,26,27,28]. The economic dimension of SD is usually associated with organizational performance management and competitiveness, by defining aggregate indexes or a system of indicators to measure and evaluate the level of development [1,3,15,24]. Social responsibility management has been approached using ergonomics and OHS knowledge as efficient and effective tools for improving the human side of enterprises [10,11,12,13,14].
- From the strategic perspective (short, medium, and long term to satisfy “the needs of present and future generations”), discussions are frequently associated with business models valorizing sustainability-oriented innovation approaches [2,3,12] or with impacts on achieving higher performances in the SD field [1,3,15,17].
- Overall, sustainability-based risk management is always considered in association with SD dimensions, with organizations’ development and strategy. Researchers have agreed on considering in their research a large typology of risks: emergent risks (such as environmental, from the supply chain, cyber, and pandemic risks), risks related to business processes (mainly at the operational level), and social risks [29]. Each category of risks is approached and managed with specific methods and tools, actions, and skills, but it seems that there is a gap in considering the interdependencies between them and the cumulative effects [29]. Moreover, the transferability of specific sustainability-based risk management methods and tools into organizational practices is sometimes difficult [3,6,29].
2.2. Integration of Ergonomics with SD
- Design: Streamline design activity by adopting the commitment to SD [53,54,58], and, particularly significant, “Ergonomics is now an essential component of design culture and a key factor for both product and production process innovation, capable of guiding design processes toward the real needs and expectations of individuals and the community. Ergonomics also provides the necessary methodological content and an intervention philosophy that allow the construction of a user-oriented design process, and, at the same time, the design offers solutions capable of interpreting needs and expectations and suggesting new behaviors and lifestyles” [59].
- Manufacturing: Illustrates, to some extent, how ergonomics or human factors contribute to sustainable manufacturing [4,11,60,61,62,63]. Furthermore, the study presented by [41] emphasizes: “The conditions of the social dimension that must be evaluated for sustainable manufacturing are workplace accidents, physical workload, physiological workload, psychological workload, organizational workload, working conditions, system security, workplace safety, and defective tools, equipment, or supplies”.
3. Methods
3.1. First Phase of the Research—Knowledge and Wisdom Capitalization
3.2. Second Phase of Research—The Proposed Model to Assess the Level of Sustainability Maturity of an Organization
- The level of guiding principles and values related to SD (principles and values, organizational culture, mission and vision of the organization, leadership);
- The level of management strategies for SD (consisting of the organization and management model of the organization, and the standards and the norms on which it is founded); and
- The level of operational models for SD (consisting of the implementation of sustainability concepts in organizational practices).
- APi—notation for practical implementation/in practice implementation, %, ;
- P—aspects/practices assessed, ;
- R—score received for assessment, numerical, ; and
- MaxR—maximum possible score possible per appearance, numerical, .
- LeadSUS—the degree of maturity in sustainability management (total score) for the organization and expressed in percentages, ; and
- D—relevant areas assessed, , considering that the assessment is focused on 6 relevant areas and 23 specific issues.
- Level 1—Low level, Low LeadSUS (LeadSUS ≤ 50%): uneven implementation, without the basics transferred to the strategy, without a clear vision of sustainability;
- Level 2—Average level, Medium LeadSUS (50% < LeadSUS ≤ 70%): sufficient implementation of SD concepts, core elements of social and environmental responsibilities in the strategy;
- Level 3—High level, High LeadSUS (70% < LeadSUS 85%): relatively high implementation of SD concepts, incorporation of key elements of social and environmental responsibility in the strategy, orientation toward innovation and stakeholder management activities; and
- Level 4—Level of Excellence, Excellent LeadSUS (85% < LeadSUS 100%): high performance implementation of sustainability concepts, inclusion of elements converging to all principles of social and environmental responsibility in the strategy, continuous innovation practices within the organization, a sustainable business model with practices interconnected with stakeholders’ interests.
- ECV (%)—Economic coverage: coverage of the economic dimension (%);
- CVM (%)—Environmental coverage (%); and
- SOV (%)—Social coverage: coverage of the social dimension (%).
- Administrators—Manage different service organizations or divisions of a large corporation or network;
- Content providers—Maintain the content of the application through an easy-to-use interface to introduce new aptitude models or process evaluation models;
- Organizations/Companies—Manage an unlimited number of assessments and create assessments for different organizations or locations with different workspaces;
- Participants—Make self-assessments, collect evaluation notes, and records. To extract recommendations for improvement related to a formal evaluation, participants can view or print the report and ask for suggestions from an independent evaluator (adviser);
- Evaluator/Auditor—Organizations can maintain their own group of evaluators. Evaluators are designated to assess organizations as third parties and have their own online interface, which is also organized in the form of a workspace assigned to the evaluator.
4. Results and Discussion
4.1. Integrated SD Management Strategy
- Ergonomics ensures physical, cognitive, and organizational working conditions for all the employees so that jobs are safe, in a healthy climate, with processes that are comfortable (with minimum movement, adequate rhythm, relaxed position, etc.), with minimal or zero risks of accidents and illness through prevention, and bring satisfaction to all stakeholders.
- Sustainability ensures the responsible and efficient use of natural resources (land, water, air, and ecosystem), of energy from clean sources (renewable) and non-polluting processes (cleaner production), garbage waste control, and recycling, ensuring safe and healthy working and living conditions for employees and other stakeholders and supporting the community through social responsibility actions.
- Common actions supported are, on the one hand, the strategic goals (economic performance and people’s well-being) and, on the other hand, optimizing risk management, in the sense of analyzing, monitoring, taking responsibility, and reducing potential risks to the minimum.
- ISO 9001: 2015 Quality Management System;
- ISO 14001: 2015 Environment Management System;
- ISO 45001: 2018 Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems;
- ISO/IEC 27001 Information Security Management Systems; and
- ISO 26000: 2010 Guide to Social Responsibility.
- Safe workplace on land, in buildings, workshops, and offices (ergonomics in the facility management area);
- Healthy climate in terms of air, water, and energy quality;
- Comfortable processes in manufacturing, warehouses, transportation, and offices;
- Creating safety products using appropriate materials and recycling;
- Risks assessed include physical and psychological incidents, waste, carbon, and other pollution particles;
- Prevention procedures for ergonomics, quality, environmental, and information security; and
- Satisfaction of employees and other stakeholders.
- Protecting the environment through projects and the complete activity;
- The quality of the products/services offered;
- Job security for employees, suppliers, and customers;
- OHS of the employees;
- Product safety;
- Partnership relations with suppliers and customers;
- Permanent internal and external communication;
- Effective monitoring and management control;
- Business ethics;
- Risk assumption and management;
- Providing community support through social responsibility; and
- Performance and continuous improvement.
4.2. The Integrated Green Enterprise Model
- Zero carbon emissions: Through clean processes and non-polluting equipment;
- Zero defects: Automated and computerized processes, robotics, synchronized control of systems and processes, and the application of total quality management (TQM);
- Zero stocks of raw materials, materials, and products: Supply and sale according to the JIT principle;
- Zero waste of natural materials: Use of the principles of circular economy (recycling, reuse, waste management);
- Zero work incidents: Application of ergonomic principles, implementation of the occupational health and safety management system (OHSAS) and of the informational management system (IMS);
- Zero customer complaints: Offering and selling products/services according to the announced specifications; and
- Zero waste of time: All activities must be performed within the time provided in the procedures.
- Integrated Strategies Block—This block is similar to the general meeting of shareholders (associates, owners), intended to develop/approve the company’s strategies (development, financial, personnel, social responsibility, etc.). The elaborated/approved strategies must consider the continuous protection of the natural environment; the permanent protection of the employees, the enterprise, and the other stakeholders; as well as the increase in the green competitiveness of the enterprise.
- Green Integrated Management System (GIMS) Block—The GIMS block comprises the top management who, based on the approved strategies, execute the plans and programs for implementing the strategy and make operational decisions. The whole block is an integrated system in which primary and support activities are managed according to the company’s green and ergonomic strategies and principles, with the main purpose of developing a green organizational culture. At the same time, this block continuously maintains relations with the economic–social environment of the community in which the enterprise carries out its activities. Thus, including the natural environment, the information and communication flows are sustained in both directions.
- Basic Operational Block—The basic operational block comprises the basic activities that create added value and are continuously supervised and guided by the GIMS block and supported by the Support Activities Block.
- Support Activities Block—This block includes all support activities, and in turn consists of other blocks based on the functions of the enterprise: logistics, human resources, health and safety of the employees, computer security, quality, environment, research and development, marketing, financial, maintenance, social responsibility, as well as supervision of outsourced activities (if applicable). In addition, the entire block supports collaboration with the socioeconomic environment (suppliers, customers/beneficiaries/wholesalers/retailers, public institutions, and competitors) in the sense of carrying out green activities through the GIMS block or directly.
4.3. Research Results on Assessing SD Maturity Level
- General observation: The organization has a high, advanced implementation of the concepts of sustainable development; has in its strategy the essential elements of social and environmental responsibility; is oriented toward innovation and stakeholder management activities, with the organization’s behavior highlighting a high degree of active social responsibility.
- Specific comments and recommendations:
- The organization relies on the involvement of its managers in SD management. Organizational management is heavily based on the values of individuals. Recently, the company adopted a new type of organizational management, based on a holacratic/circular structure, considering roles and responsibilities at the level of each employee, thus triggering a major change and evolution toward better performance. Also, voluntary allocations of roles were exercised to support individual participation of employees. The purpose of this initiative is to encourage and generalize self-management practices, constructive collaboration in joint teams, and the creation of new development perspectives at the individual and organizational level. Within this structure, the process that is considered a priority (the core process) is the sales one, based on the formation of three teams led by “sales force runners” who interact and work with the “supporters” and the “sales force owner” of the basic process.
- The company has a medium-level approach to environmental issues, considering that the environmental impact of its activity is not significant. However, the organization should have a systematic process to address environmental issues that could have a potential impact and should act accordingly to balance the environmental dimension.
- Even if it operates under the umbrella of well-supported system processes, the company does not have certification in the context of two standards on which its activity is based: ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. The certification process has started, in the context of the new requirements of the 2015 standards, with the two certificates obtained in 2018. Recognition of schemes by third-party bodies may add value to certain stakeholders and bring recognition of the organization as a center of quality and performance orientation.
- Even if it has very good stakeholder management, the company fails to meet all their needs. Instead, there are elements and objectives within its strategy that launch different activities that are aligned with the needs of stakeholders on the one hand, but also address relevant issues resulting from the company’s materiality analysis on the other.
- General observation: The organization has sufficiently implemented SD principles and values, still being oriented towards economic stability, the focus being on social responsibility, but also on environmental responsibility, with more emphasis on the former. Unfortunately, the core elements of social and environmental responsibility are not sufficiently supported in the strategy, as environmental responsibility elements are at an early stage of formulation compared to social ones. There is a powerful motivation policy, with the management of the organization making efforts to stabilize and balance activity, and directly reducing production costs by improving processes with priority impacts on the environment is a key concern.
- Specific comments and recommendations:
- The organization is based on an integrated environmental and quality management system with well-defined and functional operational and system processes and procedures.
- Even though the system still works, the organization is at an early stage in innovation processes in both the management segment and the segment supporting operational sustainability, very much considering the economic and social elements and aspects, and creating constructive synergies in balancing the two dimensions, but with minor environmental measures, even though in terms of the specificity of its activity, it provides direct support to all sectors of activity and directly productive companies in the integrated waste management segment.
- The analysis of stakeholders and their needs in close correlation with potential interests and influences on business is still in its early stage and not very well structured so that they can address certain opportunities from the external environment; moreover, potential risks that may adversely affect business processes are managed.
- Analyzing the values and principles on which the organization is based is essential, as it can bring about a change in the direction of business in terms of stabilizing and balancing the three dimensions, but it can also bring about a major change in the business model.
- General observation: The organization has high implementation of SD principles and includes essential elements of social and environmental responsibility in the strategy, focusing on potential innovations and considering outputs from product life cycle analysis. Stakeholder management is still at an early stage of development, but is already included in the business strategy as a priority. There is concrete motivation towards performance, with the management of the organization making efforts to stabilize and balance economic, social, and environmental responsibility. The SD performance progress over the past 5 years has been positive, and the organizational strategy incorporates clear objectives on environmental and social performance in addition to the usual economic ones.
- Specific comments and recommendations (related to the LeadSUS footprint in Figure 8):
- The organization is based on an integrated environmental and quality management system (compliant with the related standards) with well-established and functional operational and system processes and procedures.
- The organization has assessed the environmental impact of the product from a life cycle perspective and has developed a strategy to continuously optimize the environmental dimension and progress towards performance in this area. Moreover, the company has used consultants and external experts to identify the best options that can lead the business towards performance and SD.
- Even if there are clear elements of implementation of SD principles at the organizational level, the company failed to integrate an efficient stakeholder management process, and communication with them (especially external ones) is not fully supported in a balanced way. Future priorities are already in favor of radical changes that will lead to easy communication with all stakeholders, and a recommendation would be to make permanent use of the LeadSUS approach, methodology, and means, with the sustainability report drawn up at defined timeframes as support for decision-making and communication processes, ensuring transparency in detailing environmental, social, and economic performance.
5. Conclusions
- SD management is an important subject, and organizations need simple tools to diagnose their progress in this field. The presented research demonstrates the effectiveness of the LeadSUS assessment approach as an original collection of methods and tools that could help SD managers/leaders pursue continuous greening of their organizations.
- The presented integrated SD management strategy approach and the Green Enterprise Model could offer feasible ways for better business alignment to the actual legal framework and requirements (as policy makers’ decisions). Through green organizational systems and processes and defining international green supply chains, there will be a generalization of these practices worldwide.
- Ergonomics and sustainable development (SD), as reflected in [10,14,40,41,54,55,56,57,58,59,65,66,67,68], which mainly explain the way knowledge and principles of these two different fields could be integrated. All the previous studies presented in the above-mentioned references have underlined that ergonomics is a valuable “knowledge tool” that could support SD improvements in an organization.
- SD and business model development (including SD strategic management), as reflected by [2,31,33,34,35,36,37,38,69,70,71,72], which support the core idea of sustainability-oriented innovation (SOI) to support organizations’ competitiveness in a strategic manner [70,72]. These references constitute the basis for the LeadSUS assessment tool design, which is simple and easy to use even by a non-professional or non-skilled employee.
- It can be applied for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) without a long period of assessor preparations (learning and training for understanding how to operate), with the aim of monitoring and controlling the enterprise’s greening process. This is a contribution to the gap identified by [73], but the authors limited their research to the companies’ engagement and contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) reporting and Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) indicators. The already existing standards and reporting procedures are difficult for SMEs to adopt (too expensive) but are effective tools for multinational companies, which frequently conduct their reporting activities with external experts or consultants [74,75].
- It is focused on and the operational level of the SD strategic management and thus, a bottom-top approach for SD continuous improvement is proposed and strongly supported; it promotes the green culture through the leadership pro-sustainability behavior at all hierarchical levels of management. Also, it is simpler and more effective from the practical perspective (at the operational level of the SD strategic management) than other solutions presented in the literature, such as [1,3,5,72,73].
- It is versatile to be adopted to different types of organizations. The proposed approach could be easily adapted to public organizations and institutions (e.g., already tested in the case of a university to diagnose green university development).
- It is associated with a bottom-up approach to evaluation (contrary to the presented research of [1,3,72,73]), offering the top management and leaders concrete and suggestive presentations of the state of their greening organization development. Consequently, the proposed approach could be considered a veritable support of decision-making processes.
- It can support the dynamic analysis of the continuous improvements related to the organizational SD, as it is associated with predefined steps as SD maturity levels.
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Main Areas | Related Core Aspects |
---|---|
| Understanding and commitment |
Standard and norms (including those related to ergonomics and OHS) | |
Context analysis | |
| Evaluation methodology |
Energy efficiency assessment | |
Assessment of water efficiency | |
Waste and material management | |
| Life cycle concept |
Life cycle analyses | |
Eco-design (including ergonomic aspects) | |
| Adoption of general social responsibility principles |
Stakeholder management | |
Social impact analyses (including occupational health and safety (OHS) and workplace well-being) | |
Materiality aspects (ergonomic processes) | |
| Competence, training, and development |
Employees’ rights, diversity, and opportunity | |
Communication | |
Documentation requirements | |
Operational control | |
Sustainable procurement | |
| Corporate culture, values, and leadership |
Goals and strategy | |
Management review |
Evaluation Result (Score/Rate Value) | Coverage–Applicability–Evidence Available |
---|---|
N/A—0 | Not applicable |
None—1 | No clear evidence of implementation |
Partly—2 | Partial results available, not documented, and recorded |
Mostly—3 | Results are available, documented, and recorded but not communicated to stakeholders |
Full implementation—4 | Evidence exists, procedures, and results are well documented and recognized; best practices and results/performance are communicated and shared with all stakeholders |
Relevant Domains (DCV) | Aspects under Assessment (PA) | No. of Questions | Type of Questions |
---|---|---|---|
General Requirements/Aspects |
| 2 | Simple |
| 2 | Simple | |
| 2 | Simple | |
Resource Management |
| 2 | Simple |
| 2 | Simple | |
| 2 | Simple | |
| 2 | Simple | |
Sustainable Products and Services |
| 2 | Simple |
| 2 | Simple | |
| 2 | Simple | |
Social Responsibility |
| 2 | Simple |
| 2 | Simple | |
| 2 | Simple | |
| 2 | Simple | |
Implementation and Operation |
| 1 | Complex |
| 1 | Complex | |
| 1 | Complex | |
| 1 | Complex | |
| 1 | Complex | |
| 1 | Complex | |
Management/Leadership and Strategy |
| 2 | Complex |
| 2 | Complex | |
| 2 | Complex |
Indicators | Dimensions | Details |
---|---|---|
In the context of sustainability, the profit aspect should be seen as the real economic benefit for society, the organization having a positive economic impact on its economic environment. This is directly influenced by management practices, values and organizational culture, operational control, application of standards and norms that require day-to-day compliance, etc. | ||
PA1, % | Understanding and commitment | |
AP2, % | Standard and norms | |
PA3, % | Documentation requirements | |
AP4, % | Operational control | |
PA5, % | Materiality aspects | |
PA6, % | Corporate culture, values, and leadership | |
PA7, % | Goals and strategy | |
AP8, % | Management review | |
This refers to the natural capital, the sustainable environmental practices that the organization practices. An organization that has environmentally responsible practices strives to minimize its environmental impact throughout the life cycle of the product or service and to increase its natural capital. The reduction in the carbon footprint is achieved through the careful management of energy consumption, the use of renewable sources, and the efficient use of water and materials so that waste generation is minimal. | ||
PA9, % | Evaluation methodology | |
AP10, % | Energy efficiency assessment | |
AP11, % | Assessment of water efficiency | |
AP12, % | Waste and material management | |
AP13, % | Life cycle concept | |
AP14, % | Life cycle analyses | |
AP15, % | Ecodesign | |
AP16, % | Sustainable procurement | |
This includes fair and labor-friendly business practices in the community and region where the organization operates. A sustainable company identifies its social impact and designs a social structure in which the well-being and interests of shareholders are interdependent with the interests of all stakeholders, and works with them to identify and manage them. | ||
AP17, % | General SR principles | |
AP18, % | Stakeholder management | |
AP19, % | Social impact analyses | |
AP20, % | Context analyses | |
AP21, % | Competence, training, and development | |
AP22, % | Employees’ rights, diversity, and opportunity | |
AP23, % | Communication |
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Negulescu, O.H.; Draghici, A.; Fistis, G. A Proposed Approach to Monitor and Control Sustainable Development Strategy Implementation. Sustainability 2022, 14, 11066. https://doi.org/10.3390/su141711066
Negulescu OH, Draghici A, Fistis G. A Proposed Approach to Monitor and Control Sustainable Development Strategy Implementation. Sustainability. 2022; 14(17):11066. https://doi.org/10.3390/su141711066
Chicago/Turabian StyleNegulescu, Oriana Helena, Anca Draghici, and Gabriela Fistis. 2022. "A Proposed Approach to Monitor and Control Sustainable Development Strategy Implementation" Sustainability 14, no. 17: 11066. https://doi.org/10.3390/su141711066