how environmentally sustainable are sustainable supply
TRANSCRIPT
How environmentally sustainable are Sustainable
Supply Chain Management strategies? A critical
evaluation of the theory and practice of Sustainable
Supply Chain Management
A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in the Faculty of Humanities
2016
Lee Matthews
Alliance Manchester Business School
2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS 2
LIST OF FIGURES 5
LIST OF TABLES 6
ABSTRACT 7
DECLARATION 8
COPYRIGHT STATEMENT 9
DEDICATION AND ACKNOWEDGEMENTS 11
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 12
CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 20
2.1 Problematization Strategy
2.2 Sustainability
2.2.1 The spectre of ‘collapse’
2.2.2 Sustainability, from utopianism to ecological modernization
2.2.3 Resource Productivity
2.2.4 Environmental Effectiveness
2.2.5 The Four Paradigms of Corporate Sustainability Framework
2.2.5.1 Sustainability Dimension
2.2.5.2 Change Dimension
2.2.5.3 Utilitarian Paradigm
2.2.5.4 Constructionist Paradigm
2.2.5.5 Systemic Paradigm
2.2.5.6 Critical Paradigm
2.3 Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM)
2.3.1 Supply Chain Management (SCM)
2.3.2 Overview of Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM)
2.3.3 SSCM and the Four Sustainability Paradigms
2.3.3.1 Utilitarian perspectives on SSCM scholarship
2.3.3.2 Constructionist perspectives on SSCM scholarship
2.3.3.3 Systemic perspectives on SSCM scholarship
2.3.3.4 Critical perspectives on SSCM scholarship
2.4 Conclusions
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3. METHODOLOGY 69
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3.1 Research strategy
3.1.1 Philosophical Assumptions
3.1.2 Relationship between Theory and Research
3.2 Research design
3.2.1 Case Study Method
3.2.2 Collection of empirical material
3.2.3 Data Analysis
3.2.4 Evaluation criteria
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4. FINDINGS 93
4.1 Case Study Context
4.2 Members’ Sustainable Supply Chain Management Strategies
4.2.1 Win-Win versus Trade-offs Framing
4.2.2 Construction of Scale of Sustainability Strategies
4.2.3 Construction of Scope of Sustainability Strategies
4.2.4 Classification of members’ sustainability strategies
4.2.5 Construction of Solution space for members’ sustainability strategies
4.2.5.1 Alternatives to eco-efficiency
4.2.5.2 Supplier Engagement
4.2.5.3 Emissions Reductions in the External Supply Chain
4.2.6 The Problem of Growth: Business Growth versus Eco-efficiency
4.2.7 Environmental Performance of Members’ Climate Change Mitigation Strategies
4.2.7.1 ‘Less unsustainable supply chains’
4.2.7.2 ‘More unsustainable supply chains’
4.2.8 Going Forwards: Towards an environmentally effective SSCM strategy
4.3 A reflection on the fruitfulness of the concept of ‘Environmental Effectiveness’
4.4 Conclusion
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5. DISCUSSION 149
5.1 Alternative explanations for the findings: a non-paradigmatic discussion
5.2 How environmentally sustainable are sustainable supply chain management
strategies? A paradigmatic discussion of the findings
5.2.1 A ‘Utilitarian’ discussion of the findings
5.2.2 A ‘Constructionist’ discussion of the findings
5.2.3 A ‘Systemic’ discussion of the findings
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5.2.4 A ‘Critical’ discussion of the findings
5.3 Conclusion
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6. CONCLUSION 173
6.1 Concluding comments
6.2 Limitations of Research
6.3 Future Research Ideas
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REFERENCES 180
APPENDICES 216
Appendix A. Descriptive statistics on CDP Supply Chain Program Members
Appendix B. Example of sensitising analysis
Appendix C. Codemapping process
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Word Count: 56,495
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Relationship between economic and natural systems (based on diagrams
from Daly, 1996)
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Figure 2. The Sustainability Paradigms Framework (Matthews et al., 2016) 37
Figure 3. Conservative climate stabilization scenario based on IPCC (2007) and
UNFCCC (2010)
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Figure 4. Model of Corporate Climate Change Mitigation (based on WRI/WBCSD,
2013)
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Figure 5. Symbolic versus Environmentally Effective Climate Change Mitigation
Strategies
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Figure 6. Emissions reductions targets for member corporations 108
Figure 7. Members’ SSCM strategies for climate change mitigation 121
Figure 8. Climate change mitigation practices adopted by members 124
Figure 9. CDP’s model of member-supplier collaboration 128
Figure 10. Climate change mitigation strategies for members’ external supply
chains
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Figure 11. How Business and Supply Chain Growth Affect Members’ Climate
Change Mitigation Strategies
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Figure 12. An environmentally effective SSCM strategy 144
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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. Planetary boundaries and planetary ‘must haves’ (adapted from Rockstrӧm
et al., 2009 and Griggs et al., 2013)
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Table 2. Measurement of environmental performance within SSCM 60
Table 3. Other texts included within the case study database 82
Table 4. Members for which empirical material was publically available 84
Table 5. Corporate sustainability frameworks adopted by members 102
Table 6. Contribution of win-lose strategies towards climate change mitigation (based
on 2014 disclosures)
104
Table 7. Members with targets that will result in emissions increases 109
Table 8. Members with emissions reductions targets that will result in an increase in
emissions
114
Table 9. How program members use climate science (based on 2014 disclosures) 119
Table 10. Members with emissions reductions targets for the external supply chain 135
Table 11. Members struggling with production growth 136
Table 12. Classification of Members based on the environmental effectiveness of
their SSCM strategies
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The University of Manchester
Lee Matthews
Doctor of Philosophy
How environmentally sustainable are Sustainable Supply Chain Management strategies? A
critical evaluation of the theory and practice of Sustainable Supply Chain Management
March 31 2016
ABSTRACT
This thesis is a critical evaluation of the theory and practice of Sustainable Supply Chain
Management (SSCM). It seeks to understand why SSCM theory has so little to say about
environmental sustainability and to explore how SSCM practice is contributing towards the
transition towards sustainable development. I conjecture that SSCM scholars have not
engaged sufficiently with the broader sustainability literature and other constructions of
sustainability, which has led to a lack of theory development within SSCM. The
sustainability paradigms framework that forms the core of the thesis was developed in order
to broaden the discussion around sustainability within SSCM. Specifically, it embraces the
contested nature of the concept of sustainability and uses multiple sustainability paradigms to
construct future directions for theory development. In order to put the concept of
environmental sustainability at the centre of SSCM theory, the concept of ‘environmental
effectiveness’ was developed which seeks to differentiate between environmentally
sustainable strategies and those that merely seek to achieve reductions in unsustainability. In
order to evaluate the practice of SSCM, a case study was conducted. The concept of
‘environmental effectiveness’ is operationalized through the use of non-perceptual measures
related to carbon emissions and evaluates the extent to which SSCM practices contribute
towards climate stabilization, a key sustainability objective. It is found that those SSCM
practices that have been shown to improve ‘environmental performance’ within the extant
SSCM literature did not deliver ‘environmentally effective performance’ within the case
study. This raises the possibility that the literature has mistaken reductions in unsustainability
for sustainability proper and that we may need to go back to basics. The findings are
discussed with reference to the sustainability paradigms framework and multiple
opportunities for theory development within SSCM are explored.
8
Declaration
I declare that no portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of
an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other
institute of learning apart from this one.
9
Copyright Statement
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property (the “Intellectual Property”) and any reproductions of copyright works in the thesis,
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http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/DocuInfo.aspx?DocID=487), in any relevant Thesis
restriction declarations deposited in the University Library, The University Library’s
10
regulations (see http://www.manchester.ac.uk/library/aboutus/regulations) and in The
University’s policy on Presentation of Theses.
11
Dedication
To my little family. I did this for you Suselita and Mister Hector.
Acknowledgements
I could not have done this thesis without the support of my wife, Susel. Thank you so much
for your support and patience, which I know I have tried.
Thank you Hector for making me care once again about the world you were born into four
years ago.
Thank you to Leo, Damien and Anne for believing in my ideas at a time when I had almost
lost all faith in what I was doing.
My gratitude to the ESRC for funding my work.
But more than anybody I have to thank Professor Paul Jackson. Without you, this thesis, and
all that has resulted from it, would, quite literally, not have been possible. You saved me and
you will always be my hero.
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Many believe that the environmental ‘crisis’ is worsening (Griggs et al., 2013; IPCC, 2013;
Meadows et al., 2005; Randers, 2012; Rockström et al., 2009; UNDP, 2013; Whiteman et al.,
2013; World Bank, 2012; WWF, 2014). Since ‘Limits to Growth’ was first published in
1972, it is estimated that humanity’s environmental footprint has increased by 50% (WWF,
2014), which is believed to be undermining the planetary ‘‘must haves’’ that we need to
sustain our societies, such as: ecosystem services, biodiversity, and climate stability (Griggs
et al., 2013: p. 306).
Of the nine planetary boundaries, it appears that three have already been transgressed
(Rockström et al., 2009). Currently, the rate of species extinction is at least 10 times higher
than the natural rate of extinction and the nitrogen cycle is being undermined by human
activity (Whiteman et al., 2013). The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is
now 400ppm (NOAA, 2015b), 120ppm above pre-industrial levels, and 50ppm above the
safety threshold (Hansen, 2009). As natural capital is a source of direct and indirect welfare
(Costanza and Daly, 1992; Costanza et al., 1997; Daly and Cobb Jr, 1989; Daly and Farley,
2004; Ekins, 2000; Ekins et al., 2003; Neumayer, 2003), its destruction is believed to threaten
the possibilities for eradicating poverty in the ‘developing’ world through sustainable
development (UNDP, 2013), and for some raises the spectre of ‘collapse’ in the ‘developed’
world (Huesemann and Huesemann, 2011; Jackson, 2009; Meadows et al., 2005).
Ironically, the environmental ‘crisis’ appears to be worsening at a time when sustainability
has become a buzzword within the international business community (Engelman, 2013).
Businesses are engaged in a plethora of sustainability initiatives, many of which are related to
their supply chains (e.g. participation in the CDP Supply Chain Program) but it is often
difficult to make sense of this whirlwind of corporate activity and determine to what extent
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these initiatives are contributing towards sustainable development. For example, in 2015
Walmart announced that it has worked with its suppliers to cut 20 million tonnes of carbon
dioxide from its supply chains since 2010 (Walmart, 2015). This figure is impressive and
initially seems like cause for celebration but when we consider that this represents only 5% of
their supply chain emissions (Walmart, 2014b), it gives us pause for thought. This leaves us
with a difficult question to answer: Are businesses such as Walmart and their supply chain
partners transitioning toward environmental sustainability or merely reducing the
unsustainability of their activities?
Scholarship in the field of corporate sustainability has the potential to play an important role
in distinguishing between symbolic strategies, i.e. those that merely reduce the
unsustainability of the corporation and those strategies that seek to make the corporation truly
sustainable. However, many scholars believe that sustainability research has often failed to
differentiate between symbolic and sustainable corporate strategies and has tended to
uncritically accept symbolic strategies as being sustainable (Ehrenfeld, 2008; Gladwin, 2012;
Montabon et al., 2016; Pagell and Shevchenko, 2014; Welford, 1997). Consequently, there
have been numerous calls for business and management scholars to adopt what Ӓhlstrӧm et al
(2009) call a ‘reflective’ orientation towards corporate sustainability, i.e. to conduct research
that reflects upon the contribution that corporate sustainability strategies are making towards
environmental sustainability (Banerjee, 2008; Banerjee, 2012; Gladwin, 2012; Welford,
1997).
Much of a corporation’s environmental impact is generated by its supply chain (CDP, 2012d;
Trucost, 2012). The field of Supply Chain Management has produced a stream of scholarship
to address this problem, known as Sustainable Supply Chain Management (Carter and
Rogers, 2008). However, despite the complexity of the challenges posed by sustainability, it
is believed that there is a lack of theory development in the area of SSCM (Carter and Easton,
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2011; Montabon et al., 2016; Pagell and Shevchenko, 2014), which reflects a similar problem
within the broader field of Supply Chain Management (Burgess et al., 2006; Carter et al.,
2015; Naslund, 2002; Voss et al., 2002). This may be because SSCM scholarship does not
appear to have sufficiently reflected upon the assumptions of the field and the extent to which
they are compatible with the study of corporate sustainability.
As Gladwin et al (1995) observed two decades ago, ‘‘little theoretical progress can be made
regarding the nature of sustainable enterprise on unquestioned grounds. The underlying
assumptions about the world in which it is to exist must be surfaced and confronted’’ (p.
881). In order for theory to develop, I believe it is necessary for SSCM scholars to follow
Gladwin et al’s (1995) advice and confront the assumptions that bound our understanding of
the world. In order to do this, this thesis experiments with the method of problematization, an
alternative to the typical process of ‘gap-spotting’ research in which supply chain scholars
typically engage. Problematization is an approach that attempts to ‘‘illuminate and challenge
those assumptions underlying existing theories (including one’s own favourite theories) about
a specific subject matter’’ (Alvesson and Sandberg, 2013: p. 53). To my knowledge, this
thesis represents the first attempt to adopt this approach to theory development within SSCM.
This thesis has three principal objectives. The first objective is to ‘‘illuminate and challenge’’
the assumptions that have bounded SSCM scholarship to date and to open up new avenues
for theory development. This is done through a dual process of problematization which
consists of the following two scholarly activities. First, the method of problematization is
applied to the extant literature on SSCM. Second, ‘reflective’ research is conducted that seeks
to critically evaluate the environmental effectiveness of real world SSCM strategies.
The second objective is to produce resources that can be used by SSCM scholars to facilitate
problematization and reflective research. In order to facilitate problematization, I developed
the sustainability paradigms framework, which was published in the Journal of Supply Chain
15
Management this year (Matthews et al., 2016). To facilitate reflective research, I introduce
the concept of ‘environmental effectiveness’ into SSCM and have produced a typology of
SSCM strategies based on the concept of environmental effectiveness. I believe these
resources will also be of use to practitioners formulating and implementing SSCM strategies
and other relevant stakeholders seeking to evaluate the effectiveness of SSCM strategies.
The third objective is to put the relationship between the environmental impact of supply
chain activity and the natural environment at the centre of SSCM scholarship (Matthews et
al., 2016; Montabon et al., 2016). In this thesis, I examine this relationship using the
planetary boundaries framework developed by Rockstrӧm et al (2009) and introduced into
management theory by Whiteman et al (2013). Using this framework, it is possible for SSCM
researchers to determine the scale of the harm that supply chains are doing to natural systems
and to plot sustainable trajectories for supply chain strategies. While I draw upon the broad
‘umbrella’ concept of sustainability, this thesis is concerned with the specific problem of
climate change. Climate change was chosen for the following three reasons. First, it is one of
the three planetary boundaries that have already been crossed (Rockstrӧm et al., 2009) and
has a powerful effect on a number of planetary ‘must haves’ such as a stable climate,
biodiversity and ecosystem services (Griggs et al., 2013). Second, climate stabilization has
been made one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (UN, 2015). Third, there are
protocols available for the corporate disclosure of supply chain emissions of carbon dioxide
(most notably the 2007 and 2013 WRI/WBCSD GHG Protocols), which increases the
availability of data. Fourth, there is little reflective research upon this phenomenon, and none
that I am aware of from within the field of supply chain management.
In order to meet the three objectives, a single case study was conducted based on secondary
data produced through the CDP Supply Chain Program. This is a collaboration between CDP,
a not for profit organization, and 65 global corporations that use the program as a means to
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engage their suppliers on the issue of climate change mitigation. Given CDP’s importance
generally (Winston, 2010) and the importance of the CDP Supply Chain Program in
particular (OECD, 2010), the case is considered to be of intrinsic as well as instrumental
interest (Stake, 2000). I decided to conduct a case study on the CDP Supply Chain Program
for a number of reasons. First, I was following the principle that one should seek out
secondary data sources that are able to answer one’s research questions before collecting
primary data (Calantone and Vickery, 2010). Second, CDP is recognised as a leading member
of the international ‘discourse coalition’ (Hajer, 1997) on climate change (OECD, 2010,
Winston, 2010). Third, the empirical material allowed me to produce a longitudinal case
study covering a period of five years (2010-15), which represents a novelty within SSCM
scholarship as studies tend to be cross-sectional (Touboulic and Walker, 2015).
Based on the problematization of the assumptions that bound the extant literature on SSCM
and after conducting reflective research into SSCM strategies, the following thesis has been
produced: The theory and practice of SSCM appear to be out of alignment. The theory of
SSCM is based on an instrumental logic that stresses the possibilities for win-win SSCM
strategies. However, SSCM strategies appear to have a limited ability to produce wins for the
natural environment, which suggests that an instrumental logic towards SSCM is
problematic. This represents a significant anomaly. While this anomaly questions the value of
much extant SSCM scholarship, it also presents a number of exciting opportunities for theory
development.
The thesis makes the following contributions. First, it presents a number of resources that
were developed in order to facilitate problematization and reflective research within SSCM
scholarship. These include: one, the sustainability paradigms framework presented in the
literature review chapter, which can be used in order to ‘‘illuminate and challenge’’
assumptions; two, the concept of environmental effectiveness is introduced into SSCM,
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which can be used as a means to conduct reflection research; three, a typology of SSCM
strategies is presented in the findings chapter that can be used to evaluate the environmental
effectiveness of SSCM strategies.
Second, the thesis problematizes the assumption that sustainability is a scientific concept. By
arguing that sustainability is an essentially contested concept and by exploring other
constructions of sustainability, the thesis offers a way out of the impasse within SSCM in
relation to theory development by opening up multiple opportunities for theory development.
The combination of the sustainability paradigms framework and the case study findings
establishes the potential for constructionist, critical and systemic theories of SSCM and for
rethinking how SSCM scholarship is conducted within the utilitarian paradigm.
Third, it is the first supply chain study that empirically operationalizes Pagell and
Shevchenko’s (2014) distinction between reducing the unsustainability of supply chains and
creating ‘truly’ sustainable supply chains. It does this by using the Planetary Boundaries
framework, which the thesis establishes as a useful resource for future SSCM scholarship.
The thesis is structured as follows. In the second chapter, the literature is reviewed. The aim
of this chapter is to achieve objective one. The problematization method is used to
‘‘illuminate and challenge’’ the assumptions that have bound SSCM scholarship to date. In
this chapter, two important resources are developed: one, the sustainability paradigms
framework, and two, the concept of environmental effectiveness. These two resources are
used to problematize the assumption ground of SSCM. In different ways, the inability of
SSCM scholarship to demonstrate the environmental effectiveness of SSCM strategies
represents a problem for each of the four sustainability paradigms. At the end of the chapter,
the analysis of the literature is used to produce the eponymous research question: How
environmentally sustainable are Sustainable Supply Chain Management strategies?
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In the third chapter, the research strategy and methods are presented and justified. The project
is based on qualitative research strategy consisting of a constructionist epistemology and an
abductive approach towards theorizing. The study is based on a single case study, which is
analysed using qualitative data analysis. The constructionist criteria of authenticity,
plausibility and criticality are presented as the criteria used to evaluate the quality of the case
study findings. While this is an unusual choice for SSCM scholarship, it is consistent with the
constructionist epistemology adopted and problematization approach employed.
In the fourth chapter, the findings are presented. The aim of this chapter is to achieve
objective two. The findings from the study further problematize the SSCM literature.
Reflective research using non-perceptual measures produces very different findings to those
of previous SSCM studies that have evaluated the effect of SSCM strategies on
environmental performance. The case study produces two major themes. One, the case study
corporations are struggling to develop environmentally effective SSCM strategies within the
constraints posed by the win-win framing of corporate sustainability. Two, there is an
opposition between the discourse of the program studied and the environmental performance
of the case study corporations. The findings meet the criterion for ‘interesting’ research, i.e.
they challenge ‘‘existing propositions’’ but are also plausible (Davis, 1971). Within the
findings chapter, a typology of SSCM strategies is presented.
In the fifth chapter, the findings are discussed. The aim of this chapter is to achieve objective
three and answer the research question ‘How environmentally sustainable are SSCM
strategies?’ The findings are discussed from multiple paradigmatic perspectives. The
combination of the findings with the sustainability paradigms framework opens up a number
of possibilities for theory development. These include opportunities within paradigms and for
the development of multi-level theories across paradigms. In the final chapter, conclusions
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are drawn, the limitations of the thesis are discussed, and future research opportunities are
presented.
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CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
The aim of this chapter is to achieve objective one. The problematization method is used to
‘‘illuminate and challenge’’ the assumptions that have bound SSCM scholarship to date. In
this chapter, two important resources are developed: one, the sustainability paradigms
framework, and two, the concept of environmental effectiveness. These two resources are
used to problematize the assumption ground of SSCM. In different ways, the inability of
SSCM scholarship to demonstrate the environmental effectiveness of SSCM strategies
represents a problem for each of the four sustainability paradigms. At the end of the chapter,
the analysis of the literature is used to produce the eponymous research question: How
environmentally sustainable are Sustainable Supply Chain Management strategies?
2.1 Problematization Strategy
It has been claimed that there is a lack of theory development within the field of SCM
generally (Burgess et al., 2008; Carter et al., 2015) and the area of SSCM in particular (Carter
and Easton, 2011; Montabon et al., 2016; Pagell and Shevchenko, 2014). Two explanations
have been offered for the lack of theory development. First, Burgess et al (2008) claim that
theory is not being developed because of the dominance of the ‘positivist research program’
within the field of Supply Chain Management, of which SSCM scholarship is a part. Welford
(1997) believes that positivism is poorly suited for the study of sustainability, which may
partly explain some of the difficulties that SSCM scholars are having in dealing with the
conceptual and empirical challenges presented by sustainability. As SSCM scholarship also
appears to be embedded within the positivist research paradigm (Touboulic and Walker,
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2015), this does suggest that we may have one candidate for the lack of theory development
with SSCM.
An alternative explanation is provided by Pagell and Shevchenko (2014) and Montabon et al
(2016) who believe that SCM has not engaged sufficiently with the concept of sustainability
and its implications, not only for SSCM scholarship but for SCM in general. Specifically,
these authors believe that SSCM has limited itself to answering the question of whether it
‘‘pays to be green’’ and have thus ignored more fundamental and more interesting questions.
Montabon et al (2016) claim that SSCM is based exclusively on an ‘instrumental logic’ that
subjects environmental performance to economic objectives and that alternative approaches
have been ignored, leading to SSCM developing a limited and one sided focus on the
economic dimension of sustainability.
A recent review of the field of Business and the Natural Environment (BNE) appears to
confirm the concerns expressed above. The authors, two major figures within the field of
BNE, found that SSCM was not producing influential theories, i.e. theories that were of
interest to scholars outside of the field of SCM (Hoffman and Georg, 2013). As SCM
scholars typically consider a contribution to theory to be the ultimate aim of scholarship, the
inability of SCM and SSCM scholars to develop influential theories represents a significant
problem. Clearly, there does appear to be some support for the idea that something different
needs to be done. This literature review aims to explore the possibilities for doing things
differently within SSCM scholarship.
In order to think differently about SSCM, I decided to take a different approach to theory
development to that which is typical within the field of SCM. The typical approach is what
Alvesson and Sandberg (2013) call ‘gap-spotting’, i.e. identifying and filling gaps within the
literature. While this is a vitally important strategy for theory development, its utility appears
22
to be greatest for the activity of what Kuhn (2012) calls ‘normal science’, which can only
occur when there is broad agreement on the fundamental problems that need to be worked on
(Ibid.). If SSCM is not at that stage of development, this approach would be unlikely to lead
to the development of interesting theories1 (Alvesson and Sandberg, 2013). I therefore
decided to take a different approach, that of ‘problematization’ (Astley and Van de Ven,
1983; Alvesson and Sandberg, 2013; Wickert and Schaefer, 2015), which is an approach that
attempts to ‘‘illuminate and challenge those assumptions underlying existing theories
(including one’s own favourite theories) about a specific subject matter’’ (Alvesson and
Sandberg, 2013: p. 53). To my knowledge, this represents the first attempt to adopt this
approach to theory development within SSCM.
I consider theory development to be a paradigmatic activity (Burrell and Morgan, 1979;
Kuhn, 2012). A paradigm consists of the taken for granted assumptions that inform, whether
consciously or unconsciously, scholarship within a field (Burrell and Morgan, 1979).
Advocates of problematization believe that assumptions can inhibit theorizing as well as
facilitate it (Alvesson and Sandberg, 2013). One of the greatest difficulties in illuminating
and challenging our own paradigmatic assumptions is that they are taken for granted
(Alvesson and Sandberg, 2013). In order to challenge these assumption they need to be made
explicit, which requires us to engage in a ‘‘dialectical interrogation of one’s own familiar (or
home) position’’ (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2013: p.49), which requires that scholars ‘‘adopt a
1 The term theory is used throughout this thesis and therefore needs definition. There are a plethora of
definitions of theory but my own understanding of theory is based on Bacharach’s (1989: p. 496)
definition, which is “a statement of relations among concepts within a boundary set of assumptions
and constraints. It is no more than a linguistic device used to organize a complex empirical world.” I
use this definition as it recognizes the importance that assumptions play in the development of theory
(Alvesson and Sandberg, 2013) and for its recognition that theory is an act of interpretation (Alvesson
and Skӧldberg, 2009).
23
counter-stance to their preferred understanding of the world’’ (Alvesson and Sandberg, 2013:
p. 50).
There is a risk with the strategy of problematization however, which is that scholars will
engage in an act of ‘pseudo-problematization’ (Alvesson and Sandberg, 2013). This involves
scholars problematizing those assumptions that the scholar was already opposed to (Alvesson
and Sandberg, 2013). Instead, it is one’s own assumptions that need to be problematized
(Alvesson and Sandberg, 2013; Feyerabend, 2010). The process of problematization I have
engaged in has very much been a genuine one. When I started researching SSCM in 2012, I
was a firm believer in the possibilities for eco-efficiency and firmly embedded within what I
would later call the ‘utilitarian’ paradigm.
The problematization strategy was an iterative process. Initially, I started to question the
assumptions underpinning SSCM as a result of a comprehensive literature review on
sustainability. Engagement with theories such as ‘ecocentric management’ (Shrivastava,
1995a; Shrivastava, 1995c) and ecological economics (Daly and Farley, 2004) allowed me to
start illuminating the assumptions underpinning SSCM, such as its reliance upon an
‘instrumental logic’ (Hahn et al., 2014b) based on win-win framing (Pagell and Shevchenko,
2014). Any doubts I had concerning these assumptions were sharpened when I engaged with
the empirical material and found that the SSCM strategies that corporations were engaging in
were not environmentally effective and saw that in many cases supply chains were actually
becoming more unsustainable.
This incipient and unintended process of problematization became formalized as I realized
that my theorizing efforts were taking me in unexpected directions. After rejecting the
assumption ground of SSCM, I struggled throughout much of the research project to find a
construction of corporate sustainability that would allow me to make sense of the empirical
24
material and facilitate a paradigm shift with SSCM. At the end of the problematization
process, I have come to believe that the assumption that there is a single paradigm that can
provide all the answers is precisely the assumption that is most in need of being
problematized when sustainability is the focus of the study.
It is for this reason that I have embraced the idea of sustainability as an ‘‘essentially contested
concept’’ (Ehrenfeld, 2008; Matthews et al., 2016), which has become the principal means
through which I have problematized the assumption ground of SSCM scholarship. Essentially
contested concepts are concepts which are ‘‘persistently vague’’, (Gallie, 1956: p. 172) and
over which there will inevitably be ‘‘endless disputes’’ (Gallie, 1956: p. 169). This means
that it is not possible to engage in ‘normal science’ when sustainability is being studied.
Instead, constructing sustainability as an essentially contested concept opens up a number of
alternative constructions of sustainability, all of which can potentially be used as ‘counter-
stances’ to one’s own preferred perspectives and reflect upon how sustainability is
constructed within SSCM.
The rest of the chapter is based on the problematization process. Sections 2.2 and 2.3 lay the
ground for the problematization of the SSCM literature that is presented in section 2.4. To my
knowledge, the literature review that follows represents the first attempt to adopt a systematic
problematization approach towards theory development within SSCM. I hope the reader will
consider that the struggle has produced some interesting ideas, at least in the interim.
2.2 SUSTAINABILITY
This section represents the first stage of the problematization approach. As we shall see later
in section 2.3, SSCM has a narrow perspective on the issue of sustainability. In order to
broaden this perspective, concepts that are marginal or are conspicuous by their absence
25
within SSCM are foregrounded within the literature review, e.g. carrying capacity and
environmental limits to growth.
2.2.1 The spectre of ‘collapse’
Sustainability can be defined as ‘‘the capacity for continuance more or less indefinitely into
the future’’ (Ekins, 2000: p. 70). In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a remarkable stream of
literature emerged that began to question whether our economic system had this capacity
(Daly, 1977; Goldsmith et al., 1972; Meadows et al., 1974, Schumacher, 1973). This
literature claimed that the relationship between the economic system and the natural system
had become problematic and that both systems were in danger of collapsing.
The central hypothesis upon which this literature was based was that the economic and social
systems ultimately depend upon the natural system and that as the natural system is non-
growing, there had to be limits to the growth of the economic system. Further, it was believed
that these ‘‘limits to growth’’ would be reached within the twenty-first century (Meadows et
al., 1974). It should be noted before we proceed any further that the definition of growth that
is being used within this thesis relates to increases in material and energy throughput (Ekins,
2000; Daly, 1996). In theory, growth in value creation can continue indefinitely provided it is
decoupled from material and energy throughput (Ekins, 2000), although the possibilities for
such decoupling are much debated (see Huesemann and Huesemann, 2011 for an excellent
overview of these debates).
These early theorists considered that the continued expansion in the scale of the economic
system beyond the boundaries of the natural system would be unsustainable for both systems
and raised the spectre of collapse. Figure 1 below captures the relationship between the
economy and the ecosystem that is central to these early theories of sustainability. The
diagram on the left of the figure shows the unproblematic relationship that exists at low levels
26
of material and energy throughput (i.e. before the industrial revolution), while the figure on
the right shows the situation that is believed to exist today. The difficulty with achieving
sustainability is to convince people that the relationship has changed from that represented in
the diagram on the left to that represented in the diagram on the right (Meadows et al., 2005).
Figure 1. Relationship between economic and natural systems (based on diagrams from
Daly, 1996)
The initial debate about the sustainability of the economic system in relation to the
environmental system was framed in terms of the depletion of natural resources, which were
believed to be being consumed at a rate that could not be sustained and would lead to
economic collapse if consumption patterns were not changed (Meadows et al., 1974). This
idea was challenged by a number of economists, many of which questioned the assumptions
upon which the Meadows et al.’s (1974) ‘Limits to Growth’ model was constructed.
Beckerman (1974) and Nordhaus (1973) claimed that the Meadows et al (1974) model
excluded the possibility of technological solutions to resource scarcity and that if innovation
was included within the model, the limits to growth appeared to be less of a constraint upon
economic activity. The treatment of technological innovation by Meadows et al (1974) has
been defended by numerous scholars however. Their argument rests upon the uncertain
27
nature of innovation (e.g. Lecomber, 1975; Ekins, 2000; Huesemann and Huesemann, 2011).
Ultimately however, the ability of technology to solve environmental problems is a matter of
belief. Consistent with Meadows et al (1992), my own opinion is that innovation represents a
significant hope but that it cannot be taken for granted.
In 1992, the ‘Limits to Growth’ model was updated and pollution was constructed as a new
limit to growth, alongside the unsustainable use of natural resources (Meadows et al., 1992).
While the new report by Meadows et al (1992) was not without its critics (e.g. Nordhaus,
1992), there appeared to be substantial evidence to support the claim that pollution levels
were becoming problematic. In the 1970s and 1980s, acid rain was a major problem (Hajer,
1997). In the 1980s, the ozone layer became a major concern, which resulted in the 1987
Montreal Agreement, an international treaty that aimed to eliminate the use of ozone
depleting substances. In 1988, the United Nations formed the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) and its first report was published in the same year as ‘Beyond the
Limits to Growth’ (Meadows et al., 1992), which gave the authors’ claims concerning
atmospheric pollution considerable legitimacy.
By constructing pollution as a limit to growth, the construction of fossil fuels has changed
considerably. While the original ‘Limits to Growth’ report (Meadows et al., 1974) was
concerned that the consumption of fossil fuels was unsustainable and that the economic
system would collapse as it depleted its principal sources of energy, the ‘Beyond the Limits
to Growth’ report (Meadows et al., 1992) was equally concerned that the pollution caused by
fossil fuels would be greater than the absorptive capacity of the atmospheric system. A claim
supported by the IPCC’s (1990) first assessment and by their subsequent assessments in
1996, 2001, 2007 and 2013.
28
Many still believe that the relationship between the economic and natural systems is
unsustainable (IPCC, 2013; McKibben, 2006; Rockstrӧm et al., 2009; WWF, 2014). Indeed,
many believe that the limits to growth have already been transgressed. They claim that the
environmental impact of human activity now exceeds the carrying capacity of the planet
(Griggs et al., 2013; Rockstrӧm et al., 2009), which is a state of affairs known as ‘overshoot’
(Wackernagel and Rees, 1995; Wackernagel and Rees, 1997). It is estimated that the
throughput levels of the current economic system are 50% higher than the natural system can
sustain (WWF, 2012).
The environmental limits to economic activity have recently been conceptualised as nine
‘planetary boundaries’ (Rockstrӧm et al, 2009; WWF, 2014), three of which have already
been crossed (Ibid.) and are represented in Table 1 below. This confirms previous research
that has claimed that humanity is in a state of ecological overshoot (Wackernagel & Rees,
1995; WWF, 2012). A different construction is provided by Griggs et al (2013) who argue
that there are planetary ‘must haves’ that need to be safeguarded in order for the economic
system to become sustainable. These ‘must haves’ include clean air and climate stabilisation.
Table 1. Planetary boundaries and planetary ‘must haves’ (adapted from Rockstrӧm et
al., 2009 and Griggs et al., 2013)
Natural system
process
Boundary Level Current Level Affected Planetary
‘must haves’
Climate Change 350 parts per million
CO2 in atmosphere
400ppm - Ecosystem
services
- Biodiversity
-Climate stability
Biodiversity Loss 10 species per
million per year
>100 - Ecosystem
services
- Biodiversity
Nitrogen Cycle 35 million tonnes
removed for human
use per year
121 Nutrient nitrogen
and phosphorous
cycle
29
Whereas there is a consensus among sustainability scholars that the relationship between the
economic and natural systems has become problematic, a consensus has not yet emerged
regarding the resolution of this problem. Four decades after the publication of ‘Limits to
Growth’ there is much greater agreement on what constitutes unsustainability rather than
what a sustainable society would look like. In the next section, the different visions of the
sustainable society will be discussed.
2.2.2 Sustainability, from utopianism to ecological modernization
The sustainable society is a utopian vision of a human society living within the carrying
capacity of the planet, i.e. they are visions of worlds that do not yet exist (Frankel, 1998). The
utopian nature of the concept of sustainability has an important consequence for those who
are trying to work with the concept theoretically and practically. By definition, sustainability
is not a phenomenon that can be observed by those of us living in an unsustainable society. It
is a concept that expresses our values, and our hopes and dreams, and as such it is highly
subjective (Frankel, 1998; Gladwin et al., 1995; Speth, 2008).
The majority of these utopias imagine that the sustainable society will be fundamentally
different to the societies that we live in in the North today (Commoner, 1971; Daly, 1977;
Goldsmith et al., 1972; Meadows et al., 1974; Schumacher, 1973). A common theme across
all the utopian visions is that the sustainable society would be based on a non-growing
political economy based on the principle of sufficiency. Goldsmith et al (1972) called the
sustainable society a ‘stable society’, Meadows et al (1974) were looking for ‘equilibrium’,
while Daly (1977) reintroduced John Stuart Mill’s vision of the ‘steady state economy’ back
into political-economic discourse. In these utopias the reimagined industrial organization
would become smaller in scale and organized around local supply and demand networks
30
(Ehrenfeld, 2008; Gladwin et al, 1995; Goldsmith et al., 1972; Schumacher, 1973;
McKibben, 2007).
The utopias of the sustainable society eventually gave way to pragmatism however. The
discourse of ‘ecological modernization’ emerged in the 1980s with the more reassuring claim
that the environmental ‘crisis’ was a problem that could be managed within existing
institutional arrangements (Hajer, 1997). The key text of the discourse of ecological
modernization is ‘Our Common Future’, a report produced for the United Nation’s World
Commission on Environment and Development in 1987. The report was concerned with the
issue of sustainable development, which it defined as development that ‘‘meets the needs of
the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It
contains within it two key concepts: the concept of ‘needs’, in particular the essential needs
of the world's poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and the idea of limitations
imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to
meet present and future needs’’ (WCED, 1987: p. 43). The above definition has been
criticized for being vague (Daly, 1996) and while that may be true,2 the analysis and
recommendations contained within the WCED (1987) report have profound consequences.
Unfortunately, these consequences are often ignored (Barkemeyer et al., 2014), which is why
they shall be considered here.
The report argues that for development to be sustainable it needs to be able to protect the
resource base upon which the economic system ultimately depends (WCED, 1987). However,
in order to deal with the poverty problem in the South, it advocates a ten-fold increase in
industrial activity (WCED, 1987). Given that the global economy had already overshot the
carrying capacity of the environment by the 1980s, this growth - if it were to be sustainable –
2 It is believed that the definition established by the Brundtland Commission was kept deliberatively vague in
order that an international consensus could form on the issue of sustainability (Daly, 1996).
31
would need to occur without further increases in material and energy throughput. With the
state of ecological overshoot now being 50% (WWF, 2014), further economic development
in the South will need to take place while reducing global throughput levels by at least a
third.
The WCED (1987) was clear that if the economic output of the South were to increase by a
factor of ten, then economic activity would need to be decoupled from increases in material
and energy throughput. This decoupling would need to be greatest in the affluent North
(WCED, 1987). It was imagined that the countries of the North would end their reliance on
imported resources from the South so that these could be used in the South for their own
development. Without using the term, it appears as if the commission were advocating a
‘steady state economy’ for the North. It is often not acknowledged but the ‘sustainable
growth’ model that is presented by the commission is a growth model for the South, not for
the North.
The model of development presented in ‘Our Common Future’ is not the model that has been
pursued in the years since its publication however. Instead, development has been driven by
the process of economic globalization (Gladwin, 1998; Goldsmith and Mander, 2001; Korten,
2009), which Gladwin (1998) believes is based on the principle of ‘hypergrowth’.
Unfortunately, the principle of ‘hypergrowth’ is being simultaneously employed within both
the North and the South (Gladwin, 1998) and has resulted in the environmental crisis
escalating rather than improving (IPCC, 2013; WWF, 2014).
Due to the worsening environmental situation, there has been a recognition that the WCED
(1987) definition of sustainability needs to be made more concrete. In 2013, a group of
ecologists and economists developed a new definition of sustainable development and
defined it as development that ‘‘meets the needs of the present while safeguarding Earth’s
32
life-support system, on which the welfare of current and future generations depends” (Griggs
et al., 2013: p. 306). This will be the broad definition of sustainability that will be used in this
thesis.
2.2.3 Resource Productivity
There is broad agreement among sustainability theorists that sustainable development will
require radical increases in resource productivity, although there is considerably less
agreement upon how these increases are to be achieved. The WCED (1987) was clear that the
path to sustainable development required ‘‘doing more with less’’ and advocated efficiency
as the means through which this would be achieved.
The construction of resource productivity as the means for transitioning towards sustainable
development was accepted by the Business Council for Sustainable Development (now the
World Business Council for Sustainable Development), which is one of the most influential
organizations within the discourse coalition that has formed around corporate sustainability
(Welford, 1997; Banerjee, 2012). In the run up to the Earth Summit in 1992, the Business
Council for Sustainable Development developed the concept of eco-efficiency, which was
intended to ‘‘sum up the business end of sustainable development’’ (WBCSD, 2000: p. 3).
The prefix ‘eco’ in eco-efficiency refers to both economy and ecology (Schmidheiny, 1992).
Eco-efficiency is a concept that equates economic and ecological efficiency. This concept
opposes the idea that economic growth and ecology are necessarily at odds. Instead it
believes that the growth model can actually be maintained through decoupling business
activity and ecological impact. Indeed, such decoupling can be the very source of the savings
and revenue that will sustain the next round of ‘sustainable growth’. This confluence of
sustainability and profitability is known as the ‘sustainability principle’ and it is this principle
33
which is supposed to transform corporations from ‘externalising machines’ (Bakan, 2004;
Speth, 2008) into sustainability leaders (Hawken et al., 1999).
The definition provided by WBCSD (2000: p. 4) of eco-efficiency, and presented below,
seems a hard one to argue with. Its explicit goal is to reduce the environmental impact of
corporate activity to a level “in line with the earth's estimated carrying capacity”.
“Eco-efficiency is achieved by the delivery of competitively-priced goods and
services that satisfy human needs and bring quality of life, while progressively
reducing ecological impacts and resource intensity throughout the life-cycle to a level
at least in line with the earth's estimated carrying capacity. In short, it is concerned
with creating more value with less impact.”
There are three main criticisms of eco-efficiency. First, it has been questioned whether the
increases in resource productivity required to return corporate activity to a level “in line with
the earth’s estimated carrying capacity” are achievable (Huesemann and Huesemann, 2011;
Jackson, 2008). Second, it has been said that the focus on reducing the environmental impacts
of goods and services is the wrong approach. Instead, advocates of ‘eco-effectiveness’ argue
that new products and services are needed that do not cause environmental damage in the first
place (Braungart and McDonough, 2009). It is not clear that the concept of eco-effectiveness
is substantially different to that of eco-efficiency however. Eco-efficiency strategies do
include the development of new environmentally friendly products and services
(Schmidheiny, 1992). The focus on win-win outcomes that unites eco-efficiency and eco-
effectiveness suggests that they have much in common and that the latter can be seen as a
subcategory of the former.
34
The third problem with eco-efficiency is believed to be the ‘win-win’ philosophy that informs
it (Banerjee, 2012; Welford, 1997), which is presented in the second quotation from WBCSD
below (2000: p. 8).
“Eco-efficiency is a management philosophy that encourages business to search for
environmental improvements which yield parallel economic benefits. It focuses on
business opportunities and allows companies to become more environmentally
responsible and more profitable.”
In the above definition, it is quite clearly stated that eco-efficiency strategies will be those
that are able to achieve wins for both the environment and economic bottom lines of the
corporation. Clearly, there is money to be made from reducing unsustainability but many
believe that the win-win framing of eco-efficiency will act as a considerable constraint upon
the scale and scope of environmental action as it effectively rules out environmental
strategies that have a negative impact upon the financial bottom line. It is for this reason that
some theorists consider the concept of eco-efficiency to be ideological, as it only focuses on
the internalisation of a limited number of costs that it is in the interests of the corporation to
manage (Banerjee, 2012; Huesemann & Huesemann, 2011). This has led to eco-efficiency
strategies being dismissed as “business as almost usual” (Ehrenfeld and Hoffman, 2013).
Despite the criticisms of eco-efficiency presented above, there are many besides WBCSD
who believe that it is capable of delivering the radical increases in resource productivity that
are required (Elkington, 1998; Reijnders, 1998; Schmidheiny, 1992; Von Weizsäcker et al.,
1998). Von Weizsӓcker et al (2009) believe that factor five increases in resource productivity
are not only possible but can be achieved profitably at current levels of technology. Others
are even more optimistic and believe that factor ten increases are possible (e.g. Elkington,
1998). Ultimately however, the question of whether eco-efficiency strategies can produce the
35
radical increases in resource productivity required in order to effect a transition towards a
sustainable economy is an empirical question. While it is beyond the scope of this thesis to
resolve this issue empirically, von Weizsӓcker et al’s (2009) factor five scale does represent a
useful criterion against which eco-efficiency strategies can be evaluated.3
2.2.4 Environmental Effectiveness
It is axiomatic within the discourse of corporate sustainability that corporate activity can be
scaled back to a level that is within the carrying capacity of the planet (Schmidheiny, 1992;
Von Weizsäcker et al., 2009; WBCSD, 2000). In order to conduct research that is able to
evaluate this claim, it is necessary to conduct what Ӓhlstrӧm et al (2009) call ‘reflective
research’, which is defined as research that reflects upon the contribution that sustainability
strategies are making towards sustainable development (Ӓhlstrӧm et al., 2009).
Unfortunately, Ӓhlstrӧm et al (2009) do not provide a criterion for evaluating the contribution
of a sustainability strategy towards sustainable development. The criterion I have come to use
is the concept of ‘environmental effectiveness’. I have seen this term used in several texts on
corporate sustainability (e.g. Pinkse and Kolk, 2009) but have not seen it defined anywhere,
possibly because it intuitively makes sense. My own definition of environmental
effectiveness is a meaningful contribution towards environmental sustainability. What
constitutes a meaningful contribution is likely to be contested but sustainability scholars
should at least state what they consider to be meaningful and why. The planetary boundaries
framework presented in section 2.2.1 is one way in which environmental effectiveness could
be constructed.
3 As we shall see later in chapter four, such increases in resource productivity would be consistent with the
IPCC’s (2007b) recommendations for reducing GHG emissions to a level that allows dangerous,
anthropocentric climate change to be avoided.
36
2.2.5 The four paradigms of corporate sustainability framework
In order to problematize the assumptions of a field, we need to find ‘external standards of
criticism’, which are to be found in alternative paradigms to our own (Alvesson and
Sandberg, 2013). I initially used the Burrell and Morgan’s (1979) ‘sociological paradigms
and organizational analysis’ framework to position and reflect upon the different theories of
corporate sustainability. I found it to be inappropriate for the task in hand however. The
sociological paradigms framework (Burrell and Morgan, 1979) was published at a time when
sociology scholars were primarily concerned with the question of social change and were
debating issues such as whether reform or revolution was the best means to effect social
change. However, sustainability is very rarely couched in such terms. While many
sustainability theorists advocate radical political economic reforms, few believe that the best
means to produce a sustainable society is through revolution. While many theorists suggest a
‘revolution’ at the level of consciousness (Speth, 2008), very few believe that the solution lies
in replacing the capitalist ‘mode of production’. For such theories, the Burrell and Morgan
(1979) framework may still be the best tool available as they will likely have more in
common with other radical theories, such as the ‘radical structuralist’ and ‘radical humanist’
varieties of Marxism (Burrell and Morgan, 1979).
After my initial experiments with the Burrell and Morgan (1979) framework, I realized that I
would need to develop my own framework. The framework presented in this chapter and
published in the Journal of Supply Chain Management this year (Matthews et al., 2016), was
inspired by Burrell and Morgan (1979) framework but has been developed specifically to
‘‘map and reflect upon the theories of sustainability within, and relevant to, the field of
business and management’’ (Matthews et al., 2016: p. 84).
37
The sustainability paradigms framework is presented in Figure 2 below. It has been
constructed using the dimensions of sustainability and change (Matthews et al., 2016). The
two dimensions together produce four sustainability paradigms. There are multiple
constructions of the concept of paradigm, even within Kuhn’s (2012) original thesis. My own
interpretation of what constitutes a paradigm was presented in Matthews et al (2016) and is
that a paradigm ‘‘defines what problems are legitimate for a community of researchers and
theorists to work on. It determines what questions can be meaningfully asked, how they can
be purposefully answered, and how those answers should be evaluated’’ (p. 85).
Figure 2. The Sustainability Paradigms Framework (Matthews et al., 2016)
In the rest of this section, the two dimensions of the framework will be presented first,
followed by an initial presentation of the four paradigms.
38
2.2.5.1 Sustainability Dimension
In order for the economic system to be sustainable it must be able to ‘‘maintain at least a non-
declining stock of capital for future generations’’ (Matthews et al., 2016: p. 85). The concept
of sustainability represents a departure from neo-classical economics in that it considers the
needs of future generations and includes natural capital within its definition of capital stock,
with natural capital considered to be a source of both direct and indirect welfare (Ekins, 2000;
Neumayer, 2003). However, there are still considerable disagreements about the levels of
welfare generated by natural capital, the degree to which it should be protected, and
consequently the extent to which it should act as a limit to growth (Ekins, 2000).
By constructing natural resources and ecosystem services as natural capital and seeing it as a
source of welfare for future generations, the construction of the natural capital has undergone
a radical change. From being an abundant resource to be used to fuel endless economic
growth (as in neoclassical economics), it has become constructed as a potential limit upon the
growth of the economic system.
There are two perspectives on sustainability, weak and strong (Ekins, 2000; Neumayer, 2003;
Roome, 2012; Speth, 2008). The difference between the two perspectives lies in their
construction of natural capital (Ekins, 2000; Neumayer, 2003). The fundamental difference
between strong sustainability and weak sustainability is that the former constructs
manufactured capital and natural capital as complementary, whereas weak sustainability
constructs the two forms of capital as being interchangeable (Ekins, 2000; Neumayer, 2003).
Weak sustainability represents a synthesis of neoclassical economics and the limits to growth
argument. The weak perspective on sustainability has less faith in the efficacy of markets for
the valuation of natural capital than neoclassical economic theory. Markets are considered to
be an unreliable mechanism for protecting natural capital as they tend to favour the needs of
39
present generations over the needs of future generations, as “future generations cannot
participate in today’s markets” (Speth, 2008, p. 90). Nevertheless, advocates of weak
sustainability share the neoclassical belief that markets are the best available means for the
coordination of economic activity. The question for them is how to reform markets so that
they can better manage the trade-off between protecting natural capital for future generations
and generating the wealth that is needed to lift the world’s poor out of poverty. As Robert
Solow (1974: p. 41) puts it ‘‘earlier generations are entitled to draw down the pool (optimally
of course!) as long as they add (optimally of course!) to the stock of reproducible capital.’’
Weak sustainability emerged when sustainability was constructed as primarily a source
problem, i.e. sustainability theorists were concerned with resource scarcity and the
unsustainable consumption of natural resources. It has more to say on ‘source’ problems than
‘sink’ problem, such as pollution. It is for this reason that it is a perspective that is considered
to be more appropriate to the analysis of natural resource use.
For advocates of weak sustainability, natural capital has less intrinsic value than for
advocates of strong sustainability. Scholars with a weak sustainability perspective are
concerned that the strong emphasis given to the protection of natural capital by advocates of
strong sustainability may lead to missed opportunities to resolve social problems in the
present (Solow, 1974; Solow, 1993).
The strong sustainability perspective provides a more powerful critique of industrial society
in the age of globalization than that of weak sustainability. Strong sustainability has its roots
in those early discourses on environmental sustainability which imagined that sustainability
would require humanity to fundamentally change its relationship to nature (Daly, 1996).
Strong sustainability theories, such as ecological economics (Daly and Farley, 2004), place a
higher value upon natural capital than advocates of weak sustainability. For example,
40
Costanza et al (1997) estimated that the minimum value generated by natural capital was $54
trillion, while the value generated by economic system capital was estimated to be $18
trillion. As advocates of strong sustainability place a greater value on natural capital, they
construct it as a greater constraint on economic activity than advocates of weak sustainability.
Because of the higher importance they give to natural capital as a source of welfare,
advocates of strong sustainability recommend more radical economic reforms than advocates
of weak sustainability. Indeed, many theorists with a strong perspective on sustainability are
advocates of the ‘steady state society’ in which levels of material and energy throughput are
limited to levels that can be supported by the carrying capacity of the planet (Daly, 1991).
Presently, this would require reducing throughput levels by a third (WWF, 2014). The
definition of sustainability adopted by advocates of strong sustainability is “development
without growth beyond environmental carrying capacity, where development means
qualitative improvement and growth means quantitative increase” (Daly, 1996, p. 9).
There have been attempts by business and management scholars to apply the concepts of
weak and strong sustainability at the level of the corporation (Roome, 2012; Speth, 2008).
For Roome (2012), the weak form of corporate sustainability seeks to ‘‘bring environmental
concerns into the framework provided by the structures and systems of business’’ (p. 620),
whereas strong sustainability aims to ‘‘integrate the company into environmental or socio-
ecological systems, so that the patterns of production and consumption to which the company
contributes are with the carrying capacity of the Planet to sustain’’ (p. 621).
To conclude, there are two perspectives for thinking about sustainability, those of weak and
strong sustainability. Weak sustainability is concerned with the optimum allocation of
resources within and between generations, while strong sustainability is concerned with the
optimum scale of resource consumption, with the goal of protecting natural capital for present
41
and future generations. In the words of Gustave Speth, the founder of the World Resources
Institute, ‘‘in strong sustainability, the environment is sustained. Natural capital is sustained.
In weak sustainability, it is the prospect for long-term economic growth that is sustained’’
(2008: p. 179).
Both perspectives of sustainability are incommensurable and neither can be falsified (Ekins,
2000; Neumayer, 2003). It has been suggested that weak sustainability may be the better
approach to source problems and strong sustainability to sink problems (Neumayer, 2003),
but this statement has yet to be proven. This means that we cannot presently have a single
authoritative definition of sustainability and it is not therefore possible to know with certainty
whether we are advocating the correct course of action. As a result, it seems to me that the
best way forward may be for scholars to adopt one of the perspectives on sustainability but to
engage in continuous dialogue with advocates of the opposed perspective.
2.2.5.2 Change Dimension
The second dimension in the framework concerns change. In order to effect the transition
towards sustainability, the structures of the political economy of growth will likely need to
change, with the extent of the change required depending on whether one has a weak or a
strong perspective on sustainability. Depending upon the theory of sustainability, these
structures can be political-economic structures such as the institutions of capitalism (markets
and corporations), or they can be cultural phenomena, such as political-economics discourses,
for example neoclassical economics, neo-liberalism, or globalization.
Specifically, the change dimension is concerned with the potential for change and the loci of
change. The dimension is based on the theory of structuration, the reciprocal relationship
through which structure and agents interact to produce and change structures (Giddens,
1979). While the theory of structuration emphasizes the mutually constitutive roles of
42
structure and agency (Giddens, 1979), most theories of change will give greater emphasis to
one of the two elements in their models. There are two perspectives on change, ‘structuralist’
and ‘agency’ perspectives, with the former giving greater weight to structure (e.g.
structuralism) and the latter to agency (e.g. post-structuralism).
Structuralist perspectives construct structuration as a stronger process than agency
perspectives on change. Consequently, agents have less autonomy within structuralist
theories. At the most extreme end of the dimension, agency has negligible autonomy and the
behaviour and consciousness of agents is fully determined by the social structures of which
they are a part (e.g. Althusserian structuralism). Structuralist theories see structures as the
locus of change. For some theories of sustainability, the process of structuration is
unproblematic as the political-economic structures of contemporary capitalism are seen to be
effective mechanisms for effecting the transition towards sustainability (Schmidheiny, 1992;
von Weizsӓcker, 2009). Other theories of sustainability consider that it will be difficult to
stop unsustainable patterns of behaviour without radically reforming the structures of the
political-economy of growth (Daly, 1991).
While structuralist theories of sustainability are concerned with the structures of the
corporation and corporate globalization, sustainability theories with an agency perspective on
change believe that the problem is, at least in part, one of consciousness. One of the reasons
that corporations are not taking a leadership position on sustainability is because they are
believed to be embedded within a ‘technocratic’ rationality that is fundamentally
incompatible with the concept of sustainability, which has its origins in enlightenment
thinking and which celebrates humanity’s distinctness from and growing mastery over nature
(Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979; Colby, 1989; Ehrenfeld and Hoffman, 2013). From an
agency perspective, the environmental crisis cannot be solved by using a technocratic
43
rationality and a new consciousness is required in order to effect the transition towards a
sustainable economic system.
Sustainability theories with an agency perspective on change see structures as being emergent
and consider change to be a bottom-up process. Agents have high levels of autonomy, at least
in theory, and can effect significant changes in structures. For agency theories of change, the
phenomenon of interest is often agents’ unwillingness to effect change. The locus of change
is often constructed at the level of discourse (Foucault, 1980) or consciousness (Adorno and
Horkheimer, 1979), with concepts such as ideology (Marcuse, 1991) and rationality (Adorno
and Horkheimer, 1979) being important conceptual resources.
2.2.5.3 Utilitarian Paradigm
Those working in the ‘utilitarian’ paradigm believe that sustainability is broadly consistent
with the current political economy of growth. The primary concern of utilitarian scholars is
how corporations can use their resources to drive the radical increases in resource
productivity that will produce wins for both the environment and the economic bottom lines
of the corporation (DeSimone and Popoff, 1997; Elkington, 1998; Schmidheiny, 1992).
Growth is the means through which poverty can be eradicated but they recognize that the
quality of growth needs to change (Schmidheiny, 1992; WCED, 1987). The concept of
‘sustainable growth’ is an important resource for utilitarian theorists of sustainability. For
them, the corporation is constructed as an effective mechanism for the organization of
environmentally sustainable production (Hart, 1995; Hart 2005). Within this paradigm,
corporations, due to their substantial resources, are best able to take a leadership position on
sustainability. The literature on corporate sustainability is replete with examples of
corporations that have used their considerable resources to either transition towards more
environmentally friendly business models or have internalized some of their negative
44
environmental externalities. Such examples include 3M, Dow Chemical, DuPont, GE,
Interface, and Patagonia (Hawken et al., 1999; Hart, 1995; Hart, 2005; Shrivastava, 1995b).
Within the utilitarian paradigm, it is not only believed that corporations are capable of
delivering radical increases in resource productivity, but that it is also in their interests to do
so (DeSimone and Popoff, 1997; Elkington, 1998; Schmidheiny, 1992). Indeed, these
increases could be in the order of factor five (Weizsӓcker et al., 2009), or even factor ten
(Elkington, 1998). However, it is recognized that this will more likely be the case when the
corporation is supported by an efficient market mechanism, i.e. markets that are not distorted
by negative environmental externalities (Ekins, 2000; Hawken et al., 1999; Porter and van der
Linde, 1995). In those instances when markets encourage the unsustainable use of natural
resources, reforms will need to be made (Ekins, 2000). However, the recognition that markets
are subject to failure does not challenge the fundamental belief that they are the best means to
effect the transition towards a sustainable economy (Porter and van der Linde, 1995). Instead,
regulation is constructed as a means to encourage corporations to make the innovations that
could be a source of competitive advantage, which is the basis of the so called ‘Porter
Hypothesis’ (Porter and van der Linde, 1995).
2.2.5.4 Constructionist Paradigm
Scholars working with the constructionist paradigm have a weak perspective on sustainability
and ‘‘an agency perspective on change’’ (Matthews et al., 2016). The primary concern of
constructionist theories of corporate sustainability is how stakeholders make sense of, and
construct strategies in response to, sustainability challenges. The forces of structuration are
assumed to be weaker within this paradigm than within the utilitarian paradigm, which raises
the possibility that corporations will not necessarily adopt win-win environmental strategies.
45
Consequently, constructionist theories of sustainability are concerned with how sustainability
is framed and the effects of the framing process.
As with utilitarian theories of corporate sustainability, constructionist theories assume that the
political economic structures of global capitalism are consistent with the principles of
sustainable development. However, radical increases in resource productivity will only be
taken if they are framed as opportunities (Hart and Dowell, 2011). If this is the case and the
discourse of eco-efficiency is correct concerning the win-win opportunities available by
increasing resource productivity, then the inability to construct factor five eco-efficiency
strategies is not only failing to mitigate environmental deterioration but it is also leading to
corporations missing out on opportunities to improve their economic bottom lines.
An interesting problem within the constructionist paradigm concerns the ‘paradox of
corporate sustainability’ (Hart, 2005). While it is recognized that corporations will be key
players in the transition towards sustainability, and that it is in their interests to play this role,
many believe that the efforts being made in this direction by corporations are lagging behind
what is required to avert an environmental crisis. Theories in this constructionist paradigm
are well placed to make sense of this ambivalence as they are concerned with how supply
chain stakeholders make sense of sustainability.
The exemplary theories within this paradigm have sought to explore the ‘paradoxes’ of
corporate sustainability, many of which are produced by tensions within the business case for
sustainability (Hahn et al., 2014a). These theories use sensemaking and paradoxical framing
as theoretical lenses (Hahn et al., 2014b). While the win-win framing of the business case for
sustainability is still the organizing logic of this scholarship, it is recognized that seeking to
simultaneously achieve economic and environmental wins will be the cause of tensions as
46
organizations struggle to manage conflicting short-term and long-term pressures (Hahn et al.,
2014a).
Hahn et al (2014b) argue that due to the dominant framing effects within corporate
sustainability, sustainability strategies are more likely to be ‘pragmatic’ or ‘prudent’ than
radical. They define ‘pragmatic’ strategies as those that construct sustainability as being a
routine problem that can be solved using existing resources and capabilities. Pragmatic
strategies will be adopted when sustainability is framed in terms of an instrumental logic, i.e.
sustainability strategies make an unambiguous contribution towards the economic bottom
line. ‘Prudent’ strategies are likely to be adopted when there are tensions between the
different dimensions of sustainability, e.g. between the economic and environmental bottom
lines. In such cases, there is often uncertainty concerning the economic benefits of adopting a
sustainability strategy and so the corporation proceeds cautiously. Worryingly, as of yet,
there are not any studies that provide an insight to the framing required to produce radical
sustainability strategies within the business case for sustainability.
2.2.5.5 Systemic paradigm
Scholars working in the systemic paradigm have a ‘system level view of sustainability’
(Matthews et al., 2016). Corporations are embedded within a broader political economic
system, which determines the rules according to which they operate. If the political-economic
system is geared towards growth in material and energy throughput, this will likely be
reproduced at the level of the corporation. Contrary to utilitarian and constructionist
perspectives, a systemic theory of SSCM would consider there to be an irreconcilable tension
between the economic and the environmental bottom lines of a corporation, which will likely
act as a significant barrier to the adoption of environmentally effective corporate
sustainability strategies (Banerjee, 2012; Dietz and O'Neill, 2013; Gladwin, 2012; Speth,
2008). Consequently, systemic theories of corporate sustainability are likely to be highly
47
sceptical of the possibilities for developing win-win SSCM strategies that are
environmentally effective.
Systemic theorists of sustainability tend to be advocates of a ‘steady state economy’ (Czech,
2013; Daly, 1996; Dietz and O'Neill, 2013), which is defined as an economy that eschews
quantitative growth in favor of qualitative development (Daly, 1996). For them, the challenge
is to transition the global economy away from growth towards a steady state, i.e. one in
which global throughput levels are returned to a level that is within the carrying capacity of
the natural system and are kept at this level. In order to achieve the radical increases in
resource productivity that are needed for the economic system to function within the planet’s
carrying capacity, the ecological economist Herman Daly has constructed a set of operating
principles for the economic system known as the principles of sustainability (Daly, 1990).
These principles state that the harvest rate of a renewable resource should be equal to the
regeneration rate of that resource and the rate of waste emissions should not exceed the
assimilation rate of the relevant ecosystems (Daly, 1990).
Contrary to the discourse of ecological modernization, the adoption of such principles would
surely hurt the bottom line of the vast majority of corporations. For this reason, the locus of
change for systemic theories of sustainability is not to be found at the level of the
organization but at the level of the nation state, which will need to limit the scale of material
and energy throughput within the economic system to a level that can be supported by the
carrying capacity of the planet. In order to achieve a steady state economy, governments will
need to operationalize the three principles of sustainability through regulations. To date,
governments have shown great reluctance to do this. For example, the Kyoto Protocol proved
48
to be an ineffective mechanism for reducing absolute levels of carbon dioxide at the global
level.4
For a systemic theory of corporate sustainability it is not clear what sustainability means at
the level of the corporation. For many sustainability theorists, the corporate structure in its
current form is believed to be fundamentally incompatible with sustainability. Corporations
are thought to be inherently unsustainable due to their structural imperatives to make profits
and to grow in size. Due to the political-economic discourse of economic globalization, the
short-term economic performance of a corporation will take priority over concerns about the
environmental sustainability of the broader political-economic system. This means that there
is currently little pressure on corporations to engage in environmentally effective actions.
Conventional, short-term priorities such as business growth and profit maximization will be
given greater importance than the management of environmental risks (Barton and Wiseman,
2014). Corporations will avoid the internalization of those negative environmental
externalities that hurt the economic bottom line. Contrary to the claims of the discourse of
eco-efficiency, systemic theories of sustainability believe that corporations are less likely to
be rewarded for increases in resource productivity than they are for increases in labor
productivity, which are believed to be throughput increasing (Dietz and O’Niell, 2013).
Consequently, the opportunities to increase resource productivity may be less numerous or
less attractive than more conventional economic opportunities that involve increasing
material and energy throughput, e.g. increases in sales volumes. Further, those sustainability
strategies that are adopted are likely to be undermined by conventional, short-term economic
priorities.
4 While those nations of the North that committed to reducing emissions have been able to do, it has only been
through increasing imports with nations that have not made commitments as part of the Protocol, e.g. China. If
imported emissions are included in national GHG inventories, emissions for North have increased.
Unfortunately, some observers believe that the commitments made by the international community at the Paris
Conference in November 2015 are unlikely to result in the successful mitigation of dangerous, anthropogenic
climate change, even if achieved.
49
For systemic theorists of corporate sustainability, the structure of the corporation needs to be
radically reformed before it can contribute towards sustainability. Such reforms were
presented at the 1992 Earth Summit and include: periodic reviews of a corporation’s
environmental performance to determine whether its license to operate should be renewed,
reduce the scale of limited liability so that executives and managers can be made liable for
environmental damage, and to reform corporate lobbying so that they are unable to influence
environmental policies (Speth, 2008). Such measures seem unlikely, perhaps even
undesirable, within the current climate, but they represent an important normative trend
within the discourse on corporate sustainability.
2.2.5.6 Critical Paradigm
Critical sustainability scholars adopt a strong sustainability perspective, which is sceptical of
the possibilities to deliver environmentally effective outcomes through the business case for
sustainability. Unlike systemic theories however, theories in the critical paradigm have a
bottom-up perspective of change. The forces of structuration are assumed to be weaker and
agents are assumed to have greater potential for reflexive action. Consequently, stakeholders
can effect changes in corporate strategies despite the tendencies of the political-economic
system. In turn, the changes at the corporate level have the potential to effect changes in the
broader political economy.
Like constructionist theories of sustainability, critical theories are concerned with how
sustainability is framed and the effects of the framing process. However, unlike
constructionist theories of sustainability, there is less optimism concerning the ability to
resolve these framing effects within the business case for sustainability. From a critical
perspective, the framing provided by the business case for sustainability acts as a
considerable constraint upon the environmental effectiveness of SSCM strategies (Banerjee,
50
2012). Consequently, the adoption of the natural case for sustainability is a pre-requisite for
the transition towards a sustainable, economy (Shrivastava, 1995a; Montabon et al., 2016).
The natural case for sustainability questions the technocratic notion that the environment is
little more than an object to be mastered (Gladwin et al., 1995). The natural world has an
intrinsic value as well as the instrumental value of providing the foundations of our economic
and social subsystems. It is for this reason that Shrivastava (1995a, p. 127) argues that
management scholars should try to represent the stake of the natural environment as it is “the
stakeholder that bears the most risks from industrial activities”. While the adoption of the
natural case for sustainability by corporations may appear unrealistic from a conventional
economic perspective, solving complex environmental problems such as climate change
without fundamentally changing the model of corporate behavior seems similarly unrealistic
from a critical perspective.
The natural case for sustainability is based on a fundamentally different construction of the
corporation to that of the business case. Shrivastava (1995a: p. 134) has argued that
corporations ‘‘must be seen as systems of destruction because they systematically destroy
environmental value. This destruction cannot be dismissed as an ‘‘externality’’ of production
that the firm need not account for. It must be treated as a central and systematic feature of
organized economic activity.’’ While this statement may seem highly rhetorical, a recent
exercise by the German sportswear manufacturer Puma gives us a glimpse at the extent to
which corporations can be considered to be ‘‘systems of destruction’’. In 2011, Puma
mapped their operations and supply chain to produce an Environmental Profit and Loss
Account (Puma, 2011). Their annual environmental externalities were estimated to be €145m,
or about three quarters of their posted profits for 2010 (Ibid.). It would appear that Puma is
only able to post profits in the area of €200m because it and its suppliers are not currently
required to pay for €145m worth of natural capital that they are consuming in the production
51
of their goods. Needless to say, if the actors within the Puma supply chain were required to
internalise these costs, the impact on their profitability would be extremely damaging. It is for
this reason that firms have been called ‘externalising machines’ by critical sustainability
theorists (Bakan, 2004; Huesemann and Huesemann, 2011; Speth, 2008).
Corporations cannot operate in such a way if we are to make a transition towards a
sustainable society. Instead, managers will need to stop treating environmental risks as
externalities and treat them as the ‘‘core problems of management’’ (Shrivastava, 1995a: p.
127). The question is therefore transformed from whether it pays to be green into how
corporations are able to make profits whilst paying the total cost of ownership of their
operations and supply chains.
In order to internalize their externalities, responsible corporations and their stakeholders will
likely need to accept lower levels of profitability, at least in the short-term. This will require
relevant stakeholders to start thinking in terms of ‘‘right-sized profits’’ (Dietz and O’Neill,
2013). The emergence of the B-Corp movement within the United States is encouraging from
this perspective. Such notions as ‘‘right-sized profits’’ will likely appear idealistic to some
readers but idealism is an important resource for critical theories of sustainability as it allows
them to see beyond what is the case to what should be the case.
From a critical perspective, sustainability requires a ‘paradigm shift’ in both managerial
practice and management theory. The ‘paradigmatic’ literature of the mid-1990s attempted to
effect such a paradigm shift but the required shift is happening more slowly than is required
by the deteriorating environmental situation (Gladwin, 2012). While critical theories of
sustainability advocate the natural case for sustainability, it is the business case for
sustainability that has come to dominant both management practice and theory (Gladwin,
52
2012). From a critical perspective therefore, the scholarship on corporate sustainability can be
seen as ‘business as almost usual’.
2.3 SUSTAINABLE SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT (SSCM)
In the previous sections, I argued that sustainability is an essentially contested concept and
looked at how theories of corporate sustainability have been constructed within four different
paradigms. I have argued for the need for reflective scholarship and introduced the concept of
environmental effectiveness, which I believe should be central to scholarship on corporate
sustainability. In this section, I will use these conceptual resources to explore the construction
of sustainability within the field of supply chain management. SSCM will be positioned in
relation to the four sustainability paradigms in order to explore the assumptions upon which it
is constructed. Based on this analysis, opportunities for theory development will be explored
and research questions will be developed. This section is structured as follows: First, there is
an overview of the field of Supply Chain Management (SCM). Second, trends within
Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) are discussed. Third, the research questions
are presented.
2.3.1 Supply Chain Management
Supply Chain Management (SCM) emerged as a field in the period of globalization that was
initiated with the establishment of the Bretton Woods system in 1944 and which accelerated
in the 1990s following the Uruguay round of GATT and the establishment of the World
Trade Organization (Johnsen et al., 2014). Many of the globalizing trends, e.g. increased
competitive pressures, opening up of markets to trade, and offshoring, have made supply
chains a strategic issue and a potentially interesting phenomenon to study (Harland et al.,
1996). The field of SCM represents the integration of the fields of operations, purchasing,
and physical distribution (Christopher, 2011). This integrationist perspective can be seen in
53
the definition below from Mentzer et al. (2001: p. 18), which, according to Johnsen et al
(2014), is the most commonly cited definition of supply chain management within the
literature:
‘‘The systematic, strategic coordination of the traditional business functions and
tactics across these business functions within a particular company and across
businesses within the supply chain, for the purposes of improving the long term
performance of the individual companies and the supply chain as a whole.’’
There are two approaches to theory development within the field of Supply Chain
Management. One approach is to draw upon existing theories outside of the field, e.g.
Transaction Cost Economics. The second approach is to treat supply chain management as a
distinct phenomenon that requires its own unique theory. The first approach has been the
most commonly taken of the two, while the second approach remains the aspiration for
theory development with the field of Supply Chain Management (Carter et al., 2015).
The field of Supply Chain Management has largely been built upon the theories of
Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) and the Resource Based View of the Firm (RBV)
(Cousins et al., 2008; Johnsen et al, 2014), which have provided the field with its principal
foci, cost minimization (from TCE) and competitive advantage (from RBV). Although other
theoretical lenses have been adopted in recent years, e.g. social capital theory, these two foci
have remained the dominant concerns with Supply Chain Management. When sustainability
became a theme within Supply Chain Management, it too was constructed as a means to meet
the objectives of cost minimization and/or competitive advantage. Indeed, TCE and RBV are
the most commonly used theoretical lenses for the study of SSCM (Touboulic & Walker,
2015).
54
A distinctive, ‘fully-fledged’ theory of supply chain management has yet to emerge. A basic
theoretical framework has been produced by Carter et al (2015) based on the construction of
supply chains as ‘complex adaptive systems’ (Choi et al., 2001; Carter et al., 2015), which
are systems that are ‘‘dynamic, complex, and difficult to predict and control’’ (Carter et al.,
2015: p. 90). Because of the complexity of supply chains, it is believed that it is a difficult,
resource intensive process to effect meaningful changes within them (Choi et al., 2001;
Carter et al., 2015). This construction may be a useful conceptual resource for the SSCM
stream of SCM research as it is concerned with the process of adaptation but it does suggest
that changes such as those required to develop sustainable supply chains may be more
difficult than has been assumed to date within the literature.
Despite the strong emphasis that the field of Supply Chain Management places upon theory
development, it is believed that there has been limited theory development within the field
and that the products of its scholarship are not widely disseminated beyond the fields of
Operations Management and Supply Chain Management (Burgess et al., 2006; Naslund,
2002; Voss et al., 2002). It has been suggested that the reason for this is that the field of
Supply Chain Management is embedded within the ‘‘positivist research paradigm’’ (Burgess
et al., 2006: p. 717).
2.3.2 Overview of Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM)
To its credit, the field of Supply Chain Management has been concerned with environmental
and social issues since its earliest days in the 1990s, e.g. Green Supply Chain Management
and Socially Responsible Supply Chain Management. There are two trends within SSCM
scholarship. The first constructs sustainability as one topic among many within the field of
Supply Chain Management, i.e. it is of secondary interest. The second trend constructs
sustainability as the primary phenomenon of interest, with supply chain management being of
55
secondary interest (Pagell and Shevchenko, 2014; Montabon et al., 2016). The first trend is
by far the most common within SSCM scholarship.
The difference between the two approaches to theory development within SSCM has been
constructed as two contrasting logics. Montabon et al (2016) argue that there is an
‘‘instrumental logic’’ and an ‘‘ecologically dominant logic’’ of sustainability. In the former
logic, the goal is competitive advantage, while in the second the goal is environmental
sustainability. They conjecture that SSCM has been dominated by the instrumental logic and
propose a shift towards an ‘‘ecologically dominant logic’’ of sustainability. Whether one
agrees with this perspective or not, the construction of an alternative logic for SSCM should
be welcomed by SSCM scholars as it allows us to start thinking of sustainability as a
contested concept.
The ecologically dominant perspective represents an incipient trend within SSCM. The term
was only introduced into SSCM this year in an as yet unpublished article in the Journal of
Supply Chain Management. This concept builds upon the work of Mark Pagell, who in
collaboration with Wu (2009) and Shevchenko (2014), has attempted to put the concept of
environmental sustainability at the centre of theory development within SSCM.
The ‘instrumental’ perspective on sustainability is the more established within SSCM. The
framework for the instrumental approach to SSCM was developed by Carter and Rogers
(2008). Ostensibly, they introduced the triple bottom line (TBL) framework into Supply
Chain Management and unified the streams of Green and Socially Responsible Supply Chain
Management into SSCM. The most commonly used definition of SSCM is that provided by
Carter and Rogers (2008: p368) and is presented below:
‘‘The strategic, transparent integration and achievement of an organization’s social,
environmental, and economic goals in the systemic coordination of key
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interorganizational business processes for improving the long-term economic
performance of the individual company and its supply chains.’’
While the Carter and Rogers (2008) framework claims to be based on the framework of TBL
performance, the above definition suggests that the framework is based on an instrumental
logic of sustainability in which the environmental and social dimensions of sustainability are
subjected to that of long-term economic performance. This is contrary to the ‘integrationist’
logic of TBL, which argues that no one dimension of sustainability should be prioritized
(Elkington, 1998; Hahn et al., 2014a). As such, the instrumental approach to SSCM
represents a relatively minor shift within the field of Supply Chan Management. Its
importance should not be underestimated however. By introducing the concept of
sustainability into Supply Chain Management, Carter and Rogers (2008) gave the concept
legitimacy and facilitated more radical interpretations of the concept to be developed (e.g.
Montabon et al., 2016).
Unlike Montabon et al (2016), I do not believe that the issue with the dominant perspective
within SSCM is that it is instrumental, as it is ultimately an empirical question whether or not
instrumental perspectives can produce environmentally effective corporate sustainability
strategies. A more significant issue is that there is little recognition that there are alternative
constructions of sustainability. Rather than seeing sustainability as an essentially contested
concept, SSCM scholars have tended to treat the concept of sustainability as if it were a
scientific concept whose meaning could be fixed and upon which there was broad agreement.
I believe this has had a number of consequences for SSCM scholarship and which will be
discussed in the rest of this section.
One consequence of not embracing the contested nature of sustainability has been that SSCM
has thus far failed to engage with those literatures that do not sit comfortably with the
57
instrumental logic upon which it is based. Consequently, SSCM scholarship has become
inward looking. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, a recent view of the BNE literature
found that the literature stream of supply chain management was not well integrated within
the broader BNE literature (Hoffman and Georg, 2013). Indeed, SSCM seems more
interested in reviewing its own literature than engaging with other literatures, as evidenced by
the explosion of systematic literature reviews conducted on SSCM (e.g. Abbasi & Nilsson,
2012; Miemczyk et al., 2012; Touboulic & Walker, 2015). This is unfortunate as the
literature produced within other sustainability paradigms could have helped SSCM to reflect
upon and challenge its own assumptions. Despite being an inward looking field, little
reflection has taken place upon the foundational assumptions of SSCM, for example, the
adequacy of the positivist research paradigm for the study of sustainability.
The failure to engage with other constructions of sustainability, e.g. the ecologically
dominant perspective, is problematic as an essentially contested concept requires that a
particular use of a concept is continually justified in relation to other uses (Gallie, 1956), but,
to date, this is not how the concept of sustainability has been used within SSCM. Many
constructions of the concept emphasize ideas that are alien to those with an instrumental
logic, such as the need for radical changes to the political-economic system and in
consciousness and values. Rather than justify its construction of sustainability in relation to
these other constructions, SSCM has tended not to engage with the other uses and is silent on
the question of the need for radical change.
From the paradigmatic literature of the 1990s the SSCM field took the theories that most
closely resembled its own concerns with competitive advantage, namely NRBV (Natural
Resource Based View) (Hart, 1995) and the TBL (Elkington, 1998), rather than the more
challenging theoretical lenses offered by the ‘paradigmatic’ literature of the 1990s, such as
ecocentrism (Shrivastava, 1995a; Starik, 1995), sustaincentrism (Gladwin et al., 1995), and
58
the theory of the ecologically sustainable organization (Starik and Rands, 1995). But even the
normative content of the theories adopted has been diminished as they have been co-opted by
the concerns of Supply Chain Management scholarship, i.e. cost minimization and
competitive advantage. This was done by bracketing the concept of ecological constraints
that is present in both NRBV and TBL. By doing this, SSCM scholars are unable to state
whether SSCM strategies are able to deliver environmentally effective outcomes. The
resulting research is limited to studies of what is possible within conventional financial
constraints rather than what is necessary to protect natural capital.
Instead of constructing sustainability as a normative concept, the approach has been to
conduct positive research. A number of systematic literature reviews have shown that the
predominant focus has been on empirical research employing primarily surveys or positivistic
case studies (Abbasi and Nilsson, 2012; Carter and Easton, 2011; Miemczyk et al., 2012;
Touboulic and Walker, 2015). This approach is justified if corporations are at the forefront of
the transition to sustainable development, which appears to be a questionable assumption
(Ehrenfeld, 2008; Gladwin, 2012; Speth, 2008).
While positive research within the instrumental stream of SSCM has produced a great deal of
knowledge on what SSCM strategies corporations are implementing to achieve greening
outcomes, e.g. supplier monitoring and buyer-supplier collaboration, SSCM scholarship has
produced little that meets the criteria for interesting research (Alvesson and Sandberg, 2013;
Davis, 1971). This is not surprising given that the strategies presented within the SSCM
literature were already established in other areas of the SCM literature.
To conclude, the inability or unwillingness of those working within SSCM to embrace the
contested nature of sustainability has resulted in a narrow construction of sustainability and a
lack of engagement with alternative constructions. Rather than allowing the concept of
59
sustainability to challenge our assumptions and take our field in new directions, the field of
Supply Chain Management has co-opted the discourse of sustainability, i.e. subjected the
concept of sustainability to an instrumental logic. Indeed, SSCM scholarship has largely
progressed by bracketing the very questions that might have encouraged us to question our
taken for granted assumptions in the first place. This has led to a detachment from the debates
that are occurring in the broader field of sustainability, which I believe could form the basis
for theory development within SSCM. In the next section, I will use the sustainability
paradigms framework to problematize the assumptions of extant SSCM scholarship.
2.3.3 SSCM and the Four Sustainability Paradigms
In this section, SSCM will be positioned in relation to the four sustainability paradigms that
were presented in section 2.2.4. It is intended that the four sustainability paradigms
framework will allow SSCM to embrace the contested nature of sustainability and open up
avenues for future development of theory.
2.3.3.1 Utilitarian perspectives on SSCM scholarship
Utilitarian theories of sustainability are based on a win-win framing. While SSCM research
has been able to show that SSCM strategies can produce economic wins for corporations, it is
less clear in which ways the environment can be said to win from SSCM strategies. Indeed,
SSCM scholarship scarcely seems interested in the consequences of SSCM strategies for the
natural environment. To my knowledge, there are 181 empirical SSCM papers that are
concerned with environmental sustainability,5 less than 10% of which are concerned with
how SSCM strategies can lead to improved environmental performance. In itself, this statistic
5 The data referred to in this section were produced as part of a systematic literature search that was conducted
for my JSCM paper (Matthews et al., 2016). The search covered the period from 1993 to 2013 and used the
following three databases: Business Source Premier, Proquest, and Science Direct). The search string used was
‘‘“supply chain” OR “supply network” OR “supply management” OR purchasing OR sourcing OR
procurement) AND (sustainab* OR green OR environment*’’ (Matthews et al., 2016: p. 86).
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is revealing but when we look at the studies in more detail, we can see that SSCM scholarship
has a limited ability to reflect on the environmental performance of SSCM strategies. The 11
studies that are concerned with ‘environmental performance’ are presented in Table 2 below.
Table 2. Measurement of environmental performance within SSCM
While the papers presented in Table 2 above are ostensibly concerned with environmental
performance, the table shows the limited understanding that SSCM scholarship has of the
environmental performance of SSCM strategies. As can be seen, the items and measures used
to measure environmental performance lack precision. Rather than being based on objective
metrics, e.g. those provided by the planetary boundaries framework (Rockstrӧm et al, 2009),
the items are measured using perceptual measures based on ordinal scales of one to five or
one to seven. While the above research is conducted within the positivist research paradigm,
there is a lack of precision and objectivity in the items and measures used. This lack of
precision takes two forms. First, it is not clear what the items are supposed to be measuring.
Second, it is not clear what constitutes performance improvement.
There is a lack of precision concerning the environmental impacts measured by some of the
items. The constructs used in the 11 papers presented in Table 2 are based on an aggregated
concept of environmental performance that contains insufficient detail about any one
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Reduction of air emissions x x x x x x x x x x x
Reduction of waste water x x x x x x x x
Reduction of solid wastes x x x x x x x x x x
Decrease of consumption of harazdous/harmful/toxic materials x x x x x x x
Decrease of frequency for environmental accidents x x x x x x x
Improve a company's environmental situation x x x x x x x
Improved compliance with environmental laws x x x
Increased level of recycling x
Improved environmental reputation of company x
Energy savings x
Reduction of harzadous waste x
Decreased consumption of e.g. water, electricity, gas and petrol x
Measurement Scale Likert 1-4 Not stated Likert 1-5 Likert 1-5 Likert 1-5 Likert 1-5 Not stated Likert 1-7 Likert 1-5 Likert 1-5 Likert 1-5
61
environmental problem, resulting in items that are quite superficial. For example, the item
measuring air pollution does not state which type of pollution it is concerned with. Does it
concern particulate air pollution, i.e. the emission of particulate such as soot into the air, or
greenhouse gases, or both? In each case it would not be possible to determine which types of
particulates and greenhouse gases were being reduced. The same also applies to the items
concerned with solid waste and consumption of toxic/hazardous/harmful materials.
From the measures used, it is not possible to determine the scale of the improvements being
achieved. It is not even possible to establish whether the improvements are relative or
absolute. It appears to be assumed that any improvement in environmental performance
represents a win for the environment but this is not the case. Relative improvements do not
necessarily result in absolute environment impact increasing (Jackson, 2009). This is because
relative improvements only represent an improvement in the environmental impact of each
unit of production. If the number of units produced increases at a higher rate than the relative
improvements in environmental impact, this can potentially lead to absolute environmental
impact increasing (Jackson, 2009).
The lack of precision makes it impossible to determine what actions are being taken in
relation to specific environmental problems, such as climate change. It would be difficult to
infer much from the measures presented in Table 2 about what has been achieved in terms of
concrete, absolute reductions in environmental impact, or even whether any absolute increase
in environmental impact has even been achieved. Consequently, it cannot be said with any
degree of confidence that the SSCM strategies presented in the literature represent a win for
the natural environment. This represents a significant anomaly problem for a theory of
sustainability.
62
2.3.3.2 Constructionist perspectives on SSCM scholarship
Scholars working within this paradigm are concerned with the sensemaking processes
through which stakeholders construct corporate sustainability strategies and are interested in
how sustainability is framed and the effects of the framing process. The SSCM field appears
to be insufficiently interested in these questions however. While similar tensions to those
constructed by Hahn et al (2010; 2014a; 2014b) have been identified within the SSCM
literature (Gold et al., 2013; Reuter et al., 2012; Wang and Sarkis, 2013), these tensions have
not yet formed the basis of theory development within SSCM.
All of the studies presented in Table 2 were conducted in order to test hypotheses, not to
explore how sustainability is constructed by those developing SSCM strategies. The
constructions of sustainability presented in the studies are therefore the constructions of the
research teams, not the research ‘subjects’ themselves. Consequently, little is known about
how those developing SSCM strategies make sense of environmental problems, for example,
their understanding of the scale of the problems they are facing, which environmental
problems they are most concerned with, or the environmental problems that they have the
most difficulties in attempting to resolve.
The above issues are partly the result of the methodologies employed, i.e. surveys, the use of
which appears to be based on the assumption that constructions of the environment,
environmental sustainability, and environmental performance are uncontested and therefore
unproblematic. If this assumption is incorrect, as many believe (Ehrenfeld, 2008; Hahn et al.,
2014b; Montabon et al., 2016; Roome, 2012; Welford, 1997), SSCM scholarship is missing
the opportunity to explore the multiple constructions of sustainability and explore the effects
that different constructions have upon the environmental effectiveness of SSCM strategies.
The result is scholarship that is not only unable to establish the environmental effectiveness
63
of SSCM strategies but is also one dimensional and lacking in the conceptual resources to
explore complex issues such as the social construction of sustainability.
2.3.3.3 Systemic perspectives on SSCM scholarship
The issues identified in the previous section are more serious from the perspective of
systemic theories of sustainability. While the inability to show whether SSCM strategies can
produce absolute improvements in environmental performance is a concern, an equally
serious issue is that SSCM scholarship does not appear to be concerned with the issue of
‘scale’ (Daly, 1996). While absolute reductions in environmental impact are to be welcomed,
those reductions need to be commensurate with the scale of the environmental problem that
they are trying to resolve (Whiteman et al., 2013). For example, in the case of climate
change, not only do corporations need to reduce their absolute levels of greenhouse gases
emissions but they have to reduce them by a level that is commensurate with the scientific
discourse on climate change, which states that emissions need to be reduced by at least 50%
by 2050 from 2000 levels (IPCC, 2007a).
Within SSCM scholarship, environmental performance is not connected clearly and explicitly
to the concepts of carrying capacity and planetary boundaries. As a result, SSCM largely
brackets the question of ecological limits to growth. Only two papers were found to include
ecological limits within their definitions of SSCM (Pagell and Shevchenko, 2014; Walker
and Brammer, 2009). The Pagell and Shevchenko (2014: p.3) is the more precise of the two
definitions and is presented below.
‘‘SSCM is the designing, organizing, coordinating and controlling of supply chains to
become truly sustainable with the minimum expectation of a truly sustainable supply
chain being to maintain economic viability, while doing no harm to social or
environmental systems.’’
64
It should be noted that this definition is included in a discussion piece published in JSCM and
not a conceptual or empirical paper. The above is a new definition within the field and
provides the opportunity for rethinking our approach towards SSCM scholarship. It has yet to
be operationalized within conceptual or empirical work within the field however. This is a
gap that this thesis attends to address.
Because the work conducted within the field to date has not been concerned with the question
of scale, it has not been able to evaluate the environmental effectiveness of SSCM strategies
and practices. Whilst it is encouraging to see a move within the field to acknowledge that the
environment acts as a constraint upon economic activity, we have yet to see research in our
field that effectively operationalises such definitions in order to situate a given supply chain
within the various eco-systems upon which it has an impact (Whiteman et al., 2013).
2.3.3.4 Critical perspectives on SSCM scholarship
From a critical perspective, perhaps the most significant issue with SSCM scholarship is that
it is organized around an instrumental logic of sustainability (Montabon et al., 2016). SSCM
tends to frame sustainability according to the argument of the business case for sustainability
(Golicic and Smith, 2013), rather than what Dyllick and Hockerts (2002: p. 135) call the
‘natural case’. It is therefore unsurprising that few SSCM studies have been interested in the
question of environmental performance and those that were have not been able to
demonstrate that SSCM strategies are environmentally effective.
The use of the concept of sustainability within SSCM is problematic as it tends to privilege
the perspective of the corporation over that of the environment. This is done by making the
interests of the corporation the principal concern of SSCM scholarship. While this
perspective appears to be beyond question within SSCM, it is a position that is contested
within the sustainability literature and within theories of management based on an
65
‘ecologically dominant logic’ (e.g. Shrivastava, 1995a). An engagement with other literatures
would force SSCM to explain why it is that the stake of the corporation should be privileged
when it is one among many and is far from being the most important (Shrivastava, 1995a;
Speth, 2008). As corporations, like any social organization, ultimately rely upon the resources
and services provided by the natural environment, it would seem more logical to view firms
from the perspective of the environment rather than vice versa (Banerjee, 2012). Indeed, this
change of perspective is what makes sustainability a unique challenge both for managers and
management theorists.
To change perspective in this way represents a significant challenge, especially for scholars
used to working within the positivist paradigm. Encouragingly, there are signs that some
SSCM researchers have recognised that there is a need for change. The Montabon et al
(2016) paper cited previously within this chapter represents the most significant
problematization effort to date. By questioning the instrumental logic informing SSCM
scholarship, they have opened up the space for scholarship informed by an ecologically
dominant perspective. This will hopefully encourage scholarship that considers the extent to
which the environment wins from the SSCM strategies. While the problematization process
within SSCM is currently at an early stage, it allows one to hope that there might be an
audience for further problematization within SSCM, such as this thesis and the journal
articles that it is producing.
2.4 Conclusions
It is my contention that theory is not being developed within SSCM because our scholarship
has tended to bracket fundamental questions such as environmental sustainability, the role of
political economic structures and discourses, and the suitability of the positivist research
paradigm for the study of sustainability. One of the assumptions that is problematized in this
66
thesis is the idea that the there is broad agreement on what sustainability is. It seems to me
that a more productive way to proceed would be for SSCM to embrace the construction of
sustainability as an essentially contested concept (Ehrenfeld, 2008; Matthews et al., 2016).
For theory to reach the next stage of development, one that is commensurate with the
complexity of sustainable development, SSCM researchers will need to engage with
researchers and theorists working in other paradigms. For the field to be vibrant and relevant
such engagement is vitally important. Engagement with theories being developed in other
paradigms is currently the exception but needs to become more commonly accepted as a
means to develop theory.
Within SSCM, a broader range of questions need to be asked than whether ‘it pays to be
green’ (Pagell and Shevchenko, 2014). Instead, SSCM theorists could ask whether SSCM
strategies are environmentally effective. Such an approach would require a more fine grained
approach to sustainability issues than has been taken to date. Future studies concerned with
environmental effectiveness would need to be able to give insights into how specific
environmental problems are being solved, as opposed to studies based on the more
aggregated concept of sustainability that has dominated SSCM scholarship to date.
The central challenge for a theory of sustainability is how to limit the material and energy
throughput within the economic system to a level that can be supported by the carrying
capacity of the natural system. To date, SSCM scholarship has not been able to explain how
SSCM strategies can contribute towards this goal, or even acknowledge that this is a
legitimate goal to work towards. This represents a significant anomaly that needs to be
resolved.
To date, SSCM research, like much research into corporate sustainability (Ӓhlstrӧm et al,
2009), has been insufficiently ‘reflective’, i.e. SSCM researchers have not yet reflect upon
67
the extent to which the SSCM strategies they have researched are contributing towards
environmental sustainability (Ӓhlstrӧm et al., 2009). These contributions should be evaluated
according to whether they are effective from an environmental perspective. All four of the
sustainability paradigms require ‘reflective’ research so the concept of environmental
effectiveness will be useful for all SSCM scholars.
SSCM theorists could
take the perspective of
the natural environment
and instead ask whether
SSCM practices were
environmentally
effective. Such an
approach would require
a more fine grained
approach to
sustainability issues
than has been taken to
date. Future studies
concerned with environmental effectiveness would need to be able to give insights into how
specific environmental problems are being solved, as opposed to studies based on the more
aggregated concept of sustainability that has come to dominate SSCM theory and research.
The conclusions presented above have informed the development of the research question
that this thesis will answer, which is: How environmentally sustainable are sustainable
supply chain management strategies?
Why focus on climate change?
Climate change is one of the most serious man-made
environmental problems (IPCC, 2013). Global average
temperatures have increased by an estimated 1o C since 1850
(IPCC, 2013) and 2011-2015 was the warmest five year period
on record since 1850 (WMO, 2015). This increase in
temperature is believed to be driving an increase in extreme
weather events and causing the sea levels to rise (IPCC, 2013).
Climate change also interacts with other environmental
problems as it is thought to be contributing towards
phenomena such as water scarcity and accelerated rates of
species extinction (WWF, 2014). The use of fossil fuels, which
is the root cause of climate change (IPCC, 2007b), is also
responsible for other environmental problems besides climate
change, such as ocean acidification (NOAA, 2015a).
68
In order to avoid the problems identified within the literature review, I have decided to
answer the above question in relation to a specific environmental problem, dangerous,
anthropogenic climate change. Over the last three decades, climate change has become an
increasingly prevalent issue with the discourse of sustainability. In the Brundtland
Commission report (WCED, 1987), climate change was constructed as one environmental
issue among many, but three decades later, climate change is considered by many to be the
preeminent environmental threat to the project of sustainable development (UNDP, 2013;
World Bank, 2012). In 2015, climate stabilization has been made one of the UN’s Sustainable
Development Goals (UN, 2015). Further, there is broad agreement within the discourse on
sustainability that the sustainable economy will need to be a low-carbon economy (IPCC,
2007a; OECD, 2010; UNEP, 2011; WRI, 1998).
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CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
This chapter is divided into two major sections: Research strategy and Research design. The
first section presents the overall orientation of the research project, which is based on a
qualitative research strategy underpinned by a relativist ontology and constructionist
epistemology and adopts the method of abduction. The second section on research design
presents the research methods adopted, i.e. an instrumental single case study based on
secondary data, which were analysed using qualitative data analysis and evaluated using the
criteria of authenticity, plausibility and criticality.
3.1 Research strategy
A research strategy is defined as a ‘‘general orientation to the conduct of business research’’
(Bryman, 2012: p. 28). There are two types of research strategy: quantitative and qualitative
(Ibid.). According to Bryman (2012), each strategy differs according to two dimensions. The
first dimension concerns the philosophical assumptions upon which the research is
constructed, i.e. the assumptions concerning ontology and epistemology (Ibid.). The second
dimension concerns the ‘relationship between theory and research’, i.e. whether the research
is based on an inductive, deductive, or abductive logic (Ibid.). A qualitative research strategy
was adopted for the research project. Broadly, a qualitative research can be defined as ‘‘a
situated activity that locates the observer in the world. It consists of a set of interpretative,
material practices that make the world visible. These practices transform the world. They turn
the world into a series of representations, including field notes, interviews, conversations,
photographs, recordings, and memos to self. At this level, qualitative research involves an
interpretative, naturalistic approach to the world’’ (Denzin and Lincoln, 2000: p. 3).
A qualitative research strategy means significantly more than working with qualitative data.
Indeed, a qualitative research strategy can incorporate quantitative data provided the
70
researcher can ‘‘avoid the trap of regarding quantitative results as robust and unequivocal
reflections of a reality ‘out there’’’ (Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2009: p. 8).
The rest of this section is divided into two sub-sections. In section 3.1.1, the relativist
ontology and constructionist epistemology at the centre of the thesis are discussed. In section
3.1.2, the abductive logic of the research project is presented and justified.
3.1.1 Philosophical assumptions
This section explains the ontological and epistemological assumptions upon which the
research is based. I am starting with the philosophical assumptions as these are considered to
be the core of any research project (Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2009; Easterby-Smith et al.,
2012). Philosophical assumptions are considered to be at the core of any given research
project because they inform, whether consciously or unconsciously, the decisions about how
the research should be designed, i.e. what type of data should be collected, how it should be
analysed, and what claims can be made based on the analysis (Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2009;
Easterby-Smith et al., 2012; Miles and Huberman, 1994). If we accept this argument, then it
is better to make these decisions clearly and explicitly (Miles and Huberman, 1994). This will
help the researcher to produce a research design that is coherent (Miles and Huberman, 1994)
and reflexive, i.e. aware of its assumptions (Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2009). To do this, it is
first necessary to consider the alternatives in an informed way.
The philosophical assumptions underpinning the work need to be stated in relation to the
branches of philosophy known as ontology and epistemology (Alvesson and Sköldberg,
2009; Bryman and Bell, 2007; Easterby-Smith et al., 2012; Gill and Johnson, 2010).
Ontology is ‘‘a branch of philosophy dealing with the essence of phenomena and the nature
of their existence’’ (Gill and Johnson, 2010: p. 200), whereas epistemology is the philosophy
of knowledge (Gill and Johnson, 2010).
71
There are a number of systems of classification for the different ontological and
epistemological positions, e.g. Bryman and Bell (2007), Easterby-Smith et al (2012) and Gill
and Johnson (2010). The classification produced by Easterby-Smith (2012) will be used
throughout this chapter as it appears to be the most consistent with the terminology used by
the scholars of qualitative research upon whose work I am primarily drawing (e.g. Alvesson
and Sköldberg, 2009; Eisenhardt, 1989; Lincoln and Guba, 1985).
The relationship between reality and knowledge has been a hotly debated topic within
philosophy for over two millennia (Hacking, 1999). Between 462 and 432 B.C., the Ionian
philosopher Anaxagoras considered the relationship between ‘mind’ (knowledge) and
‘matter’ (reality) (Russell, 2009). For millennia, philosophers have debated whether or not
matter was independent of the mind – for the record, Anaxagoras thought they were not
(Russell, 2009). The view that the mind creates reality was most vehemently espoused by the
philosopher Berkeley with his philosophy of ‘idea-ism’, which later became known as
‘idealism’. The debate then became constructed as one between idealists and materialists
(Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979). In our time, the debate is being conducted between realists
and constructionists (Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2009; Easterby-Smith et al., 2012).
A realist ontology assumes that there is a single reality ‘out there’ in the world that exists
independently of our knowledge of it. It has an objective ‘truth’ that is knowable, although
there is disagreement on the extent to which this truth is believed to be knowable (Easterby-
Smith et al., 2012; Gill and Johnson, 2010). The corresponding epistemology is that of
‘positivism’, which concerns itself with the extent to which knowledge is able to reproduce
the single ‘truth’ of reality (Easterby-Smith et al., 2012; Gill and Johnson, 2010). For this
reason, positivist epistemology is said to be based on a ‘correspondence theory of truth’ (Gill
and Johnson, 2010).
72
Constructionists do not accept the binary distinction between reality and knowledge that
underpins positivism (Berger and Luckmann, 1991; Gergen, 1999; Hacking, 1999).
Constructionism is based on the explicit rejection of the ‘correspondence theory of truth’
(Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2009; Gergen, 1999). For this reason, ontology has less importance
for constructionists and the focus tends to be on epistemological questions (Gergen, 1999;
Hacking, 1999). Nevertheless, there is an implicit ontology, which can be described as
relativist (Easterby-Smith et al., 2012).
There appears to be much confusion concerning what a relativist ontology means however,
with many assuming that it is based on a form of Berkeleyan idealism (Hacking, 1999). This
confusion arises because constructionists have a different concept of ‘reality’ to positivists
(Gergen, 1999). For positivists, reality means the mind-independent world that exists ‘out
there’ (Gill and Johnson, 2010), whereas for constructionists something is considered to be
real if it has meaning (Gergen, 1999). Therefore when constructionists refer to the ‘social
construction of reality’, they do not mean, as Berkeley did, that the mind constructs matter
(Russell, 2009). Instead, their argument is more prosaic and consists of the claim that the
meaning of reality is socially constructed (Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2009; Berger and
Luckmann, 1991; Gergen, 1999; Hacking, 1999; Lincoln and Guba, 1985).
The inability to understand what constructionists mean by reality has often led to caricature
(Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2009; Hacking, 1999). For example, the physicist Alan Sokal
famously invited relativists to jump from the window of his 21st storey flat to show that the
law of gravity was merely a social construction and not an objective reality (Alvesson and
Sköldberg, 2009; Hacking, 1999). Contrary to the caricatures, those with a relativist
perspective on ontology do believe that there are phenomena that exist. Relativists will often
speak about paradigms (e.g. Kuhn, 2012), language (e.g. Lyotard, 1984), power (Deleuze and
Guattari, 2013), social relations (Berger and Luckmann, 1991), and discourse (e.g. Foucault,
73
2002) as things that exist. Indeed, the epistemological position of social constructionism
relies heavily upon the concept of the ‘social’ in order to explain what drives the process of
construction (Berger and Luckmann, 1991). Constructionism makes little sense without real
social forces to drive it. By definition therefore, there must be a social reality to influence the
act of social construction (Hacking, 1999).
This research is based on a constructionist epistemology and therefore a relativist ontology. I
construct social reality as being inherently contradictory and believe it to be in a constant
state of ‘becoming’ or flux (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1979). Consistent with the relativist
ontology upon which it is based, the epistemology of social constructionism rejects the notion
of an independent, unbiased, objective knowledge that could capture the reality of a given
social phenomenon. The social scientist is not able to adopt an objective perspective from
which social reality can be observed. Often the social construction of reality will not appear
that way to the ‘subject’ observing it however (Berger and Luckmann, 1991). Often the world
appears to have a reality that is independent of our consciousness of it (Berger and
Luckmann, 1991). But its reality lies in its meaning for us (Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2009;
Berger and Luckmannn, 1991; Gergen, 1999; Hacking, 1999; Lincoln and Guba, 1985).
I consider there to be multiple realities that are constructed by social beings that have
different social positions, have specific interests, and are embedded within specific paradigms
and discourses (Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2009; Lincoln and Guba, 1985). These factors will
mean that the same social phenomenon will be constructed differently by different social
actors (Gergen, 1999; Hacking, 1999). This does not mean that I think that reality does not
exist but that its reality for us, its meaning, is constructed.
I will use climate change as an example of how I understand the social construction of reality.
I believe that anthropogenic climate change is real. I believe in the greenhouse gas effect and
I believe that temperatures are rising due to human emissions of greenhouse gases. I believe
74
that the dangers of anthropogenic climate change are considerable and that urgent action
should be taken to mitigate climate change. But my belief in its reality does not mean that I
think that there is a single truth regarding climate change. It has had many meanings.
Originally, the greenhouse effect was not constructed as a danger to civilization but
welcomed as a means to warm the weather in Britain. It was only recently that it became
constructed as dangerous. For many people, it is not even clear that climate change is even
happening. Recently, a study by McCright and Dunlap (2011) claimed that the reality of
climate change was constructed differently by people depending upon their ethnicity, class,
and gender. Specifically, they found that in the United States, white, middle class males were
found to be less likely to believe in the reality of climate change than other groups (McCright
and Dunlap, 2011). In its most extreme form, this scepticism takes the form of constructing
climate change as a fraud or a ‘hoax’ and seeing it as an opportunity to pursue a socialist
agenda (Klein, 2014). The majority of those advocating action on climate change are clearly
not socialists however (e.g. Stern). Indeed, climate change mitigation is more commonly
constructed as a business opportunity (Lovins and Cohen, 2011). For some, climate change
mitigation will require the fundamental reorganization of the global political economy
(Huesemann and Huesemann, 2011; Klein, 2014), while for others it is a relatively simple
problem that is not especially urgent that can be solved by human ingenuity (Lomborg,
2001). Clearly, climate change has been and is being constructed in a number of ways. My
own belief in its reality and its urgency is one construction among many.
Social constructionism is consistent with the critical approach adopted within this research
(Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2009; Hacking, 1999). Dominant perspectives often try to
construct their position as being inevitable (Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2009; Hacking, 1999).
Social constructionism rejects such inevitability and instead is interested in how one
construction of reality came to become dominant and constructed as inevitable (Alvesson and
75
Sköldberg, 2009; Hacking, 1999). By showing that a given perspective is not inevitable,
social constructionism opens up a space for critique (Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2009). If the
perspective is not inevitable, alternative perspectives can be developed. What once appeared
inevitable can thereby be potentially transformed (Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2009; Hacking,
1999).
Discourse is a major concept within constructionist philosophy as it is one of the means
through which knowledge is believed to not only construct the meaning of reality but also
‘constitute’ reality (Alvesson and Kärremann, 2000; Alvesson and Kärremann, 2011).
Discourses are believed to constitute reality through shaping social relations and material
reality (Foucault, 2002). There are many, conflicting definitions of the concept however.
Even Foucault (2002) himself appeared to have difficulty pinning down a definition of the
concept.
Alvesson and Kärremann (2000; 2011) have differentiated between Big ‘D’ and Little ‘d’
discourses. Big ‘D’ Discourses are those such as economic globalization and ecological
modernization. Little ‘d’ discourses are those that are created by individuals to make sense of
their worlds. Many constructionists believe in the reality of discourses. They are social
constructions but they have the potential to shape reality. For example, Foucault (1991)
described how the discourse of discipline and punishment led to the creation of specific social
practices and became materialized in the form of buildings that were designed in order to
discipline and punish, e.g. modern prisons. These big ‘D’ Discourses are believed to be able
to remake the world in their own image. The extent to which they will be successful in doing
this depends on what Alvesson and Kärremann (2011) call their ‘muscularity’. They warn
against assuming that discourse is always highly muscular and regard the muscularity of
discourse as an empirical rather than a philosophical question. For example, the discourse of
ecological modernization has shown a great deal of muscularity in changing how legislators,
76
NGOs and corporations respond to the environmental crisis. It has shown less muscularity in
changing the relationship between the global economy and the natural environment however.
Despite all the legislation, regulations, summits, conferences, and all the corporate
sustainability strategies developed and implemented, it appears that the global economy is
still in a state of overshoot relative to the natural environment (IPCC, 2013; Rockström et al.,
2009; WWF, 2014). Indeed, the size of the global economy relative to the natural
environment is increasing every year (WWF, 2012; WWF, 2014). While the discourse of
ecological modernization has shown a great deal of muscularity, it has not been able to
fundamentally change the relationship between the economic and natural systems. Its vision
of an environmentally sustainable economy is still an imaginary, rather than a reality. Its
constitutive powers are high but not all powerful.
To conclude this section, I will explain the specific ways in which the research has been
informed by a constructionist epistemology. It is not constructionist in the sense that the
question of meaning is the exclusive focus of the research, although meaning is an important
element of the research. Instead, constructionism informs the fundamental approach of the
entire thesis. The central argument of the thesis is that sustainability is an essentially
contested concept. This means that any construction of this concept will always be one
among many. I have therefore tried to avoid conceptual closure and work with multiple
constructions of the concept at all times. This approach informed how the literature was
reviewed and the development of the sustainability paradigms framework (Matthews et al.,
2016). It led to the development of an open research question and informed how the research
was designed. The findings are presented in such a way as to allow for multiple
interpretations and the discussion is based on the sustainability paradigms framework in order
to give space for other constructions.
77
3.1.2 The relationship between theory and research
The relationship between theory and research is related to the philosophical assumptions
upon which the research project is constructed. There are three perspectives on the
relationship between theory and research: inductive, deductive and abductive.
Induction starts with observation and constructs theories based on what is observed. In its
purest form, observations are supposed to occur without any prior theory affecting the
process of observation. Early forms of positivism were based on the logic of induction, as
was logical positivism (Hanfling, 1981). Within qualitative research, the original formulation
of grounded theory was based on an inductive logic (Glaser and Strauss, 1999). There have
been a number of criticisms of this approach however. First, it has been questioned whether
observations can ever be theory free (Hanson, 1958; Popper, 1968). These criticisms insist
that observations are necessarily theory laden (Hanson, 1958; Popper, 1968). Second, it has
been questioned whether this is actually how theory is developed as many influential theories
have been developed that were not based on observation (Kuhn, 2012; Popper, 1968), e.g.
Einstein’s theories of relativity.
The polar opposite approach is that of deduction in which theory precedes observation
(Popper, 1968). The role of observation within theory development is to test theories (Popper,
1968). Popper (2014) developed the method of falsificationism as the means to reason
deductively and to evaluate the value of a theory. Scientific theories were considered to have
the highest value according to Popper as they could be written in the form of falsifiable
statements and, potentially, tested (Popper, 2014). Popper’s (1968, 2014) falsificationist
method has become a widespread approach within the social sciences through the
construction and adoption of the hypothetico deductive method (Gil and Johnston, 2010).
Ironically, the hypothetico deductive approach is often labelled as positivism, when it
actually marks a substantive shift away from the inductive method of positivism.
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A third construction of the relationship between theory and research is the method of
abduction (Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2009; Dubois and Gadde, 2002). This approach rejects
the ‘linear’ approaches of induction and deduction (Dubois and Gadde, 2002). It considers
observations to be theory-laden, which makes induction difficult, and recognizes that most
research is not initiated in order to test a fully-fledged theory (Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2009;
Dubois and Gadde, 2002). Indeed, there is scepticism concerning the extent to which there
are such fully-fledged theories within the social sciences (Weick, 1995). Abduction therefore
is a method that is useful for when there is sufficient theory to make induction difficult but
not a fully-fledged theory that can be tested. In such instances, research must proceed
iteratively (Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2009), in what Dubois and Gadde (2002: p. 556)
describe as a ‘‘non-linear, path dependent process’’. The researcher starts with ‘‘articulated
preconceptions’’ (Dubois and Gadde, 2002: p. 555) and builds a framework through
engagement with empirical material (Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2009). The evolving
framework is iteratively tested through further engagement with the empirical material until a
theoretical framework has been produced (Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2009; Dubois and
Gadde, 2002).
Abduction was the method adopted in this research. Given my familiarity with the subject
and the SSCM literature it was not possible to start the research without any preconceptions.
But given the lack of theory development within SSCM (Carter and Easton, 2011), it was
also not possible to test a fully-fledged theory either. My initial preconceptions were based on
the concept of eco-efficiency but through engagement with the empirical material, I came to
see that this concept could not form the basis of the analysis, at least not without significant
revisions. Instead, I had to return to the literature to find alternative concepts. This led to the
development of the concepts that would later become environmental effectiveness and
symbolism, which became increasingly central to the project through further iterations of the
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analysis. New data were collected again in 2014 and 2015, which required further iterations
of data analysis as I needed to make sense of emerging trends. The overall process was
necessarily iterative and facilitated the process of problematization as I continuously
challenged my own assumptions and those of extant SSCM theory through continuous
engagement with the empirical material and literature.
3.2 Research design
The chapter concerns the research methods that were chosen in order to answer the research
questions and is divided into four sections. First, the chosen research method is presented.
Second, there is a description of the empirical material and how it was collected.
Third, it is explained how the data were analysed. Fourth, the evaluation criteria used are
explained and justified in terms of a constructionist epistemology.
3.2.1 Case Study Method
There are many definitions of what a case study is and what it involves. For some, it is a
research strategy (Yin, 2003), whereas for others it is little more than a question of what is
studied (Stake, 2000). It is often seen as being a qualitative methodology but many case
studies have been based, partly or exclusively, on the analysis of quantitative data (Yin,
2003). The only common ground appears to be the idea that the case study is an empirical
method for the study of a ‘‘contemporary phenomenon in depth and within its real-world
context, especially when the boundaries between the phenomenon and context may not be
clearly evident’’ (Yin, 2014: p. 16).
While it is increasingly seen as a useful method for conducting research, the value of case
studies has also been questioned, especially in relation to its ability to produce generalizable
findings. Some case study researchers have responded to these criticisms by conducting
‘‘large-N case studies’’, which can be based on samples that would rival those used for
surveys (e.g. Ragin, 1987). Even Yin (2003), the scholar perhaps most commonly associated
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with the case study method, places single case studies at the lowest end of his hierarchy of
case study types due to their limited generalizability.
Others point out that research is not only concerned with the general but also the particular
(Stake, 1995). In an entirely different approach to Yin (2003), Stake (1995) considers the
particular to be the most important aspects of case studies. Within his typology of cases there
are three types of case study design: intrinsic, instrumental and collective (Stake, 1995). The
first two types of case study design are based on single case studies. An intrinsic case study is
interested in the particular case, i.e. it is the case itself that is of interest to the researcher. An
instrumental case study design is intended to provide insights into a broader phenomenon, i.e.
it is the phenomenon that is of interest and the case is merely a means for exploring the
phenomenon of interest. Collective case studies are multiple case studies that look for
patterns across the case study and are explicitly concerned with generalization.
As will be shown in the next section, an instrumental approach was adopted to the case study
(Stake, 1995). This is because it is intended to provide insights into the broader phenomenon
of supply chain sustainability.
One of the most important questions for the case study researcher is that of case selection,
which concerns the question of sampling (Eisenhardt, 1989; Stake, 1995; Yin, 2003).
Whereas quantitative research is based on probability sampling (Saunders et al., 2009),
theoretical sampling is used for the purposes of case selection (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 2003).
The chosen case is the CDP Supply Chain Program. CDP, formerly the Carbon Disclosure
Project, is an NGO that has been collecting disclosures on climate change from corporations
since 2003. It is recognised as a leading member of the international discourse coalition
created to prevent dangerous anthropogenic climate change and has been called the ‘‘most
powerful NGO you've never heard of’’ (Winston, 2010). It describes its mission as
‘‘accelerating solutions to climate change’’ (CDP, 2012d: p. 1). In 2008 CDP developed a
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‘Supply Chain Program’ in order to extend climate change disclosures to include supply
chain issues. The program is a collaboration between CDP and 65 global corporations that
use the program as a means to engage their suppliers on the issue of climate change
mitigation. On behalf of the program members, CDP collects disclosures from the suppliers
of its program’s members on their climate change mitigation strategies. In 2014, CDP was
able to collect disclosures from 3,396 suppliers through the program (CDP, 2015). In this
way it is estimated that $1 trillion of spend is represented in the Supply Chain Program.
Given CDP's importance generally and the importance of the CDP Supply Chain Program in
particular (OECD, 2010), the case is considered to be of intrinsic as well as instrumental
interest (Stake, 2000). The case study is an instrumental case in that it is intended that the
case will provide insights into the broader phenomenon of corporate sustainability (Stake,
2000). It is of intrinsic interest as the program is the only one of its kind in existence and
therefore represents a unique case.
3.2.2 Collection of empirical material
At the time I started my PhD, there was a big discussion within the community of OM and
SCM scholars on the topic of secondary data. There was a feeling that OM and SCM had not
taken advantage of the secondary data sources that were available to us (Calantone and
Vickery, 2010). I heard this argument made often within the Operations Group at the
University of Manchester and it was a recurring theme at the 2012 POMS Conference, which
I attended. As this discussion was occurring at the time I was developing my research design,
it inevitably affected the decisions that I made.
Within the area of corporate sustainability, there are a wide variety of publically available
data that can be used. Once I decided that the specific sustainability topic would be climate
change mitigation, an area of corporate sustainability for which there was an abundance of
data in the form of GRI reports, corporate sustainability reports, and publically available
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disclosures made to CDP, it seemed logical to base the case study on secondary data. Once I
decided that the case study would be based on the CDP Supply Chain Program, the use of
secondary data sources seemed inevitable.
The empirical material consists of material from various sources. Various documents were
collected in order to understand the context of the case. These documents were either cited by
CDP (e.g. the 2007 IPCC report) or its members (e.g. the CERES (2013) ‘Climate
Declaration’). The primary source of empirical material for the case is the disclosures made
by the program’s members to CDP. In some cases, sustainability reports were used in order to
clarify some ambiguity found within a member’s disclosure or to follow up on something
interesting within the disclosure. Documents related to supply chain strategies referenced by
members within their disclosures are also included. These documents include texts such as
policy documents (Accenture, 2012), supplier codes of conduct (Microsoft, 2011) supplier
handbooks (Eaton Corporation, 2013) and procurement standards (BT, 2012). Material
produced by CDP that are related to or that are part of the program are also included (e.g.
their annual supply chain reports). These materials are not just written texts but also videos
made with members that have been posted to CDP’s Supply Chain Program web page.
The texts included in the case study database are presented in Table 3 below.
Table 3. Other texts included within the case study database
Texts Year Genre
IPCC’s Scientific Assessment Reports (IPCC, 1990;
IPCC, 1996; IPCC, 2001; IPCC, 2007a)
1990, 1996,
2001, 2007
Report
The Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact’s
(UNGC, 2004)
2004 Declaration
‘Caring for Climate – Tomorrow’s Leadership Today’
(UNGC, et al, 2007)
2007 Report
GHG Protocols (WRI/WBCSD, 2007; WRI/WBCSD,
2013)
2007, 2013 Standard
CERES Climate Declaration (CERES, 2013) 2013 Statement
Consumer Goods Forum Climate Change Booklet
(CGF, 2015)
2015 Booklet
EICC Code of Conduct 5.0 (2014) 2014 Code
‘The 3% Solution: Driving Profits Through Carbon 2013 Report
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Action’ (CDP and WWF, 2013)
CDP’s Carbon Action Report (CDP, 2011b; CDP,
2012a; CDP, 2013a; CDP, 2014a)
2011, 2012,
2013, 2014
Report
CDP Supply Chain Report (CDP, 2009c; CDP, 2010c;
CDP, 2011d; CDP, 2012d; CDP, 2013d; CDP, 2014d;
CDP, 2015)
2009, 2010,
2011, 2012,
2013, 2014
2015
Report
CDP Supply Chain Information Request (CDP, 2008c;
CDP, 2009b; CDP, 2010b; CDP, 2011a; CDP, 2012b;
CDP, 2013b; CDP, 2014c)
2008, 2009,
2010, 2011,
2012, 2013,
2014 2014
Questionnaire
CDP Investor Information Request (CDP, 2008b; CDP,
2009a; CDP, 2010a; CDP, 2011c; CDP, 2012c; CDP,
2013c; CDP, 2014b)
2008, 2009,
2010, 2011,
2012, 2013,
2014 2014
Questionnaire
CDP Supply Chain Member Videos: Accenture
(2014b), AT&T (2014b), Braskem (2014b), BT
(2014b), Groupe Steria (2014b), Jaguar (2014b),
Johnson & Johnson (2014b), KPMG UK (2014b),
L'Oreal (2014b), National Grid (2014a), Nokia
Solutions & Networks (2014), Royal Philips (2014b),
Walmart (2014a)
2014 Video
Supplier engagement documents: e.g. Accenture (2012),
AT&T (2014a), BT (2012), Eaton Corporation (2013),
Johnson Controls (2010), Microsoft (2011), PepsiCo
(2013)
Various Policy
documents,
codes of
conduct,
procurement
standards,
letters to
suppliers,
supplier
manuals.
Empirical material from the CDP Supply Chain Program was initially collected in April
2013. This material consisted of disclosures to the program for the years 2010, 2011, and
2012 and sustainability reports for disclosing members. Further material was collected in the
form of texts referenced within the disclosures and reports. More empirical material was
collected in two further rounds of data collection in April 2014 and 2015. The members for
which it was possible to obtain disclosures are presented in Table 4 below. Each member has
been given a code number. These codes will be used to refer to members in diagrams and
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tables where there is not sufficient room to write the names. Descriptive statistics on the
program members are presented in Appendix A.
Table 4. Members for which empirical material was publically available
Code Member Country GICS Industry Group
1 Abbott Laboratories USA Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology
& Life Sciences
2 Accenture Ireland Software & Services
3 Amdocs Ltd. Guernsey Software & Services
4 AT&T Inc. USA Telecommunication Services
5 Banco Bradesco S/A Brazil Banks
6 Bank of America USA Diversified Financials
7 BMW AG Germany Automobiles & Components
8 Braskem S/A Brazil Materials
9 Bristol-Myers Squibb USA Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology
& Life Sciences
10 British American Tobacco United Kingdom Food, Beverage & Tobacco
11 British Sky Broadcasting United Kingdom Media
12 BT Group United Kingdom Telecommunication Services
13 Caesars Entertainment USA Consumer Services
14 Cisco Systems, Inc. USA Technology Hardware &
Equipment
15 CNH Industrial NV United Kingdom Capital Goods
16 Colgate Palmolive Company USA Household & Personal Products
17 CSX Corporation USA Transportation
18 Dell Inc. USA Technology Hardware &
Equipment
19 Deutsche Telekom AG Germany Telecommunication Services
20 Diageo Plc. United Kingdom Food, Beverage & Tobacco
21 Eaton Corporation USA Capital Goods
22 ENAGAS Spain Utilities
23 Endesa Spain Utilities
24 Eni SpA Italy Energy
25 Fiat Chrysler Automobiles
NV
Italy Automobiles & Components
26 Ford Motor Company USA Automobiles & Components
27 Gas Natural SDG S.A. Spain Utilities
28 General Motors Company USA Automobiles & Components
29 Goldman Sachs Group Inc. USA Diversified Financials
30 Groupe Steria France Software & Services
31 IMI plc United Kingdom Capital Goods
32 Imperial Tobacco Group United Kingdom Food, Beverage & Tobacco
33 Jaguar Land Rover Ltd United Kingdom Automobiles & Components
34 Johnson & Johnson USA Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology
& Life Sciences
35 Johnson Controls USA Automobiles & Components
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36 Juniper Networks USA Technology Hardware &
Equipment
37 KAO Corporation Japan Household & Personal Products
38 KPMG UK United Kingdom Diversified Financials
39 L’Oréal France Household & Personal Products
40 Marfrig Alimentos S.A. Brazil Food, Beverage & Tobacco
41 Microsoft Corporation USA Software & Services
42 National Grid United Kingdom Utilities
43 Nestlé Switzerland Food, Beverage & Tobacco
44 Nissan Motor Co. Ltd Japan Automobiles & Components
45 PepsiCo USA Food, Beverage & Tobacco
46 Phillip Morris International USA Food, Beverage & Tobacco
47 Pirelli Italy Automobiles & Components
48 Rexam United Kingdom Materials
49 Royal Philips Netherlands Consumer Durables & Apparel
50 S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc. USA Household & Personal Products
51 SABMiller United Kingdom Food, Beverage & Tobacco
52 Starwood Hotels & Resorts
Worldwide, Inc
USA Consumer Services
53 Swisscom Switzerland Telecommunication Services
54 Taisei Corporation Japan Capital Goods
55 The Coca-Cola Company USA Food, Beverage & Tobacco
56 Unilever, plc United Kingdom Food, Beverage & Tobacco
57 Vodafone Group United Kingdom Telecommunication Services
58 Walmart, Inc. USA Food & Staples Retailing
The disclosures consist of both qualitative and quantitative data. This was one of the aspects
of the empirical material that made it attractive to me. When designing the case study, I was
aware of Eisenhardt’s (1989) warning that a reliance on one type empirical material can lead
to a one-sided interpretation of the empirical material, whereas the combination of qualitative
and quantitative material can be ‘‘highly synergistic’’ (p. 538).
The quantitative data includes, but is not limited to, figures related to the size of the
disclosing corporation’s carbon footprint, the carbon reductions that disclosing corporations
are committing themselves to, the baseline for these reductions, and progress against these
targets. Such data is clearly useful for a researcher interested in the environmental
effectiveness of corporate sustainability strategies. Qualitative data is used within the
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disclosures to explain the quantitative data presented and to explain the strategies and tactics
being used by disclosing corporations to reduce the emissions within their supply chains.
As this is a constructionist study, quantitative empirical material do not have the status that
they would in a positivistic study. Quantitative empirical material are not considered to be
‘objective’ in the sense that they give the researcher access to an objective reality (Alvesson
and Skӧldberg, 2009). Instead, their meaning is socially constructed. For example, a ‘50%
reduction in GHG emissions’ is a meaningless statistic outside of the scientific, corporate,
and political discourses of climate change and corporate sustainability. It is the discourses
that construct the meaning of the statistic. For example, outside of the scientific discourse of
climate change it would be impossible to determine whether a ‘50% reduction in GHG
emissions’ represented a valid outcome.
Quantitative data are typically used within a quantitative research design. There is no reason
however why a constructionist approach cannot be adopted towards quantitative empirical
material (Alvesson and Skӧldberg, 2009; Easterby-Smith et al., 2012). The constructionist
researcher will simply use the empirical material in a different way to the positivistic
researcher. The quantitative data will not have a privileged status within the constructionist
study. It will simply be part of the story being told. Given the role that quantitative empirical
material plays in the social construction of reality, it would be an arbitrary decision for the
constructionist to limit their studies solely to the study of qualitative empirical material.
In order to evaluate the environmental effectiveness of SSCM strategies, empirical material
was collected on the environmental performance of upstream and downstream supply chain
strategies as well as the internal supply chains of corporate members of the CDP Supply
Chain Program. This data is measured in metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e).
This data was compiled in Excel spreadsheets.
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3.2.3 Data Analysis
The unit of analysis was supply chain strategies. Consequently, data analysis focused on the
climate change mitigation strategies in the areas of the members’ internal supply chain and
the external supply chain. The term supply chain will be used to refer to the combined
activities of the internal and external supply chains. The external supply chain is defined as
the upstream and downstream activities within a corporation’s supply chain. The term
‘internal supply chain’ (Harland, 1996) is not one that is commonly used within the current
SCM literature and its use in this thesis therefore requires some explanation. It is
synonymous with Porter’s (1985) concept of the ‘value chain’ (Harland, 1996) and means the
integrated activities that a corporation engages in to produce a product or service, which
includes primary activities such as production and logistics and support activities such as
procurement and IT (Porter, 1985; Harland, 1996). I would have preferred to use the term
value chain over internal supply chain to describe the internal activities of a corporation but
the term ‘value chain emissions’ is used by WRI/WBCSD (2007) GHG Protocol to describe
indirect emissions. To avoid confusion, I am therefore opting to use internal supply chain
instead of value chain. Internal supply chain was preferred over operations as it is a more all-
encompassing concept.
While the empirical material includes both qualitative and quantitative data, the overall
orientation of the research is qualitative in that it is grounded in a constructionist
epistemology (Bryman, 2012). The data were analysed in three stages, which were: initial
reading, sensitising analysis, and formal analysis (Wood and Kroger, 2000). The initial
reading determined what texts should be included within the analysis. The sensitising
analysis sensitised the researcher to the texts and helped identify initial themes. I used the
following sensitising devices recommended by Wood and Kroger (2000): Identifying what is
absent, reversing the taken for granted, and playing with the text. The latter device was
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particularly useful as it provided a means through which I could identify what was absent and
reverse the taken for granted. The means through which I played with the text was by writing
my own answers to the disclosure questions that concerned strategy. An example of such an
answer is provided in Appendix B.
The formal analysis consisted of qualitative data analysis. Three possibilities for conducting
the formal stage of data analysis were considered: grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss,
1999), discourse analysis (Wood and Kroger, 2000; Fairclough, 2010), and qualitative data
analysis (Miles and Huberman, 1994). Grounded theory is an inductive method of data
analysis (Glaser and Strauss, 1999). The abductive approach adopted ruled out the method of
grounded theory as a means to analyse the data. Given my constructionist epistemology and
my interest in discourse, discourse analysis appeared to be an attractive option. However, I
chose qualitative data analysis over discourse analysis as it is a more general approach to the
analysis of qualitative data that is consistent with the abductive approach adopted and can be
used for various approaches, including the analysis of discourse (Miles and Huberman,
1994). The approach is rigorous without being restrictive and the Miles and Huberman (1994)
text provides many useful examples of how to conduct data analysis.
The formal analysis was conducted using qualitative data analysis and consisted of three
stages: reduction, display, and conclusion drawing (Miles and Huberman, 1994). The
empirical material was reduced using coding, various data displays were used to make sense
of the relationships between the emerging concepts, and finally conclusions were drawn.
The data were reduced using data coding, which consisted of three cycles. In the first cycle, I
conducted initial coding (Saldaña, 2013) in order to explore the data and construct initial
codes and themes. Within this initial cycle, I first became aware of a gap between the rhetoric
presented within some members’ disclosures and the reality of the strategies being disclosed.
In the second cycle, evaluation coding (Saldaña, 2013) was used to determine the extent to
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which a climate change mitigation strategy could be considered environmentally effective. In
this cycle, quantitative data were used to help construct the codes.
In the third cycle of coding, eclectic coding was used. Eclectic coding is the use of a variety
of coding techniques to make sense of the empirical material. The coding techniques included
within the process of eclectic coding were magnitude coding, in vivo coding, and versus
coding. Magnitude coding was used in order to identify the absence as well as the presence of
certain discursive features. In vivo coding was used in order to capture the language used by
members. Versus coding was used in order to capture the tensions that exist within the
discourse.
The method of code mapping was used in order to condense the codes into a set of core
concepts. The stages of coding are presented in Appendix C. Three ‘moiety concepts’
(Saldaña, 2013) were produced within the coding process: Symbolic versus Sustainable
Supply Chain Strategies; Discourse versus Performance, and Growth versus Sustainability.
Data displays were produced in order to make sense of the empirical material and to
synthesize the findings of the analysis. This is consistent with Miles and Huberman’s (1994:
p. 240) advice to ‘‘think display’’ during the analytic process. The initial displays were
mostly tables as I attempted to understand the main concepts within the empirical material. In
order to start thinking about the relationships between the concepts I used simple two by two
matrices. At the latter stages of data analysis, I started to use diagrams to map the
relationships between concepts. Both sets of display are included in the findings chapter and
the appendices. It is intended that these displays will increase the authenticity of the findings
as it sheds some light on how the data were analysed (see section 3.2.4 below on evaluation
criteria).
The conclusion drawing stage of analysis was an iterative process as provisional conclusions
were drawn and questioned at every stage of analysis. During the coding process, analytic
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memos were used in order to reflect upon the analytic process. The combination of data
displays and analytic memos were used to develop and test provisional conclusions.
3.2.4 Evaluation criteria
Positivist criteria for evaluating the quality of research include validity (construct, internal
and external validity) and reliability (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 2003). Eisenhardt (1989) and
Yin (2003) have argued that these should be the criteria for case study research. Given the
constructionist epistemology at the centre of the research project, these criteria were deemed
to be inappropriate (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). The positivist criteria are based on the
assumption that research can produce an accurate account of a mind-independent reality and
that the quality of research is measured in terms of its ability to reproduce that reality, e.g.
through the elimination of observer bias (Gill and Johnson, 2010). As such, they are not
appropriate when the study does not accept that assumption but considers research to be an
act of social construction (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). Nevertheless, it needs to be recognized
that these criteria are likely to be those used by many of those readers for whom this thesis is
written as these are the most commonly accepted criteria within the community of Operations
Management scholars (Barratt et al., 2011).
Qualitative scholars have either tried to develop alternative criteria for evaluating the quality
of research (e.g. Lincoln and Guba, 1985) or have rejected the use of such criteria all together
(Schwandt, 1996). Despite calls to do away with ‘criteriology’, the lists of criteria have
proliferated exponentially (Lincoln and Guba, 2000). Lincoln and Guba (1985) made the first
attempt to develop an alternative to the positivistic criterion of validity and offered the
criterion of ‘trustworthiness’ as an alternative to validity. While this was not the criterion
chosen for his project, it is worth considering here as most criteria can be considered as a
variation on the criterion of trustworthiness. Lincoln and Guba’s (1985) concept of
trustworthiness has a number of dimensions, credibility, transferability, dependability and
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confirmability. The authors present a number of strategies for achieving quality along each of
the dimensions.
The trustworthiness criterion was not used for a number of reasons. One, it places too much
emphasis upon rigor and ignores the question of relevance. Clearly, rigor is an important
aspect of a research project but I do not believe that it is the only measure of quality, or even
the most important (Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2009; Alvesson and Sandberg, 2013). Two, it is
not clear which of the four dimensions of trustworthiness are to be prioritized. Three, some of
the strategies presented in order to achieve quality do not appear to be entirely consistent with
a constructionist epistemology. For example, the recommendation to use ‘member checks’ to
validate research findings appears to privilege the perspective of the research subject over the
researcher, which I do not consider to be consistent with the constructionist perspective
adopted within this project as I do not believe that one construction can be privileged within
constructionist research.
Many of the criteria developed after Lincoln and Guba (1985) are variations on their criterion
of trustworthiness. The criterion chosen for this project is that of ‘convincingness’ developed
by Golden-Biddle and Locke (1993). Convincingness consists of three dimensions:
authenticity, plausibility and criticality (Golden-Biddle and Locke, 1993). Authenticity
corresponds closely with Lincoln and Guba’s (1985) criterion of trustworthiness and involves
demonstrating that there is a connection between the claims made by the study and the
empirical material (Golden-Biddle and Locke, 1993). Plausibility and criticality concern the
fruitfulness of the research. Plausibility concerns whether the study is relevant and whether it
connects to the interests of other scholars, while criticality concerns whether the study is
interesting, i.e. whether it challenges the assumptions of extant scholarship and create new
possibilities for theory development (Golden-Biddle and Locke, 1993).
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It should be stressed that Golden-Biddle and Locke (1993) do not see each of these criteria as
having equal weight. Depending on the aims of the study and the interests of the text’s
audience, each of the criteria will be given equal weight. Given the problematization strategy
adopted by this research project, the criterion of criticality is given the highest weight among
the three criteria. This does not mean that the other two criteria are ignored however. Few
readers would find a text to be interesting if it were not able to establish its authenticity and
that they did not consider plausible. Authenticity is established by ‘‘depicting the disciplined
pursuit and analysis of data’’ (Golden-Biddle and Locke, 1993: p. 612). In this section, I have
attempted to clearly establish how the data were collected and analysed and the rationale for
both. In the findings chapter, the findings are presented in a way that is hoped will convince
the reader that analysis was conducted in a disciplined manner. Plausibility was established
through trying to connect the findings to the world of the reader. To do this, I have made a
concerted effort to eliminate hyperbole and utopianism from the text, which were both
present to a large degree in earlier drafts.
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CHAPTER FOUR
FINDINGS
The chapter has two aims. First, it will explore how members of the CDP Supply Chain
Program are developing supply chain strategies in order to effect the transition towards low-
carbon supply chains. Second, it will examine the environmental effectiveness of these
strategies.
This thesis contends that environmental effectiveness should be the measure of the
sustainability of a given supply chain. In order to understand what can be considered
environmentally effective in the case of SSCM strategies focussed on climate change
mitigation, I believe it is necessary to draw upon the broader discourses of climate science
and corporate climate change mitigation. These discourses have constructed the targets
towards which the international and business communities should be working and the
timeframes for achieving these targets. Drawing upon these discourses, an SSCM strategy
will be considered effective if it is able to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, particularly
carbon dioxide, to a level that this is commensurate with those levels advocated by the
scientific discourse. This approach represents a significant departure from previous SSCM
studies, which have not tended to evaluate the effectiveness of SSCM strategies in terms of
their contribution towards sustainability.
The chapter has two major themes. These two themes foreground the tensions that were
discovered within the CDP Supply Chain Program. The first of these themes concerns the
opposition between reducing unsustainability and sustainability. This theme represents the
most significant finding of the case study and should be seen as an overarching theme that
includes all the other findings. The definition of sustainable supply chain used here is a
supply chain that operates within the boundaries of the natural system (Montabon et al.,
2016). In contrast, reducing unsustainability means that a corporation is able to reduce some
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of the negative impacts that its supply chain might be having on the natural system, but
overall the environmental impact of the supply is still negative.
As we shall see, many strategies that the members of the program are pursuing will only
result in reducing the unsustainability of their supply chains. In many cases, these reductions
in unsustainability will be marginal. In the worst cases, the reductions are only reductions in
relative impact, i.e. per unit produced, with the negative impacts on the natural system
actually increasing in absolute terms. Worryingly, those members who are only able to
reduce the unsustainability of their supply chains do not present their strategies in such terms
and instead present themselves as leaders in corporate sustainability. This has the potential to
create confusion among stakeholders trying to evaluate corporate sustainability strategies.
This leads to the second of the two major themes of the case study.
The second theme cuts across all the other findings within the study and concerns the
opposition between the discourse of the program and its members and the performance of
members’ strategies, which represents one of the earliest findings of the study. One of the
advantages of the empirical material used in the study is that it contains quantitative, non-
perceptual data on the environmental performance of the members’ SSCM strategies. The
results of the strategies can then be compared with the claims made for them by the members
of the program. Often members will present their climate change mitigation strategies as
being sustainable while the quantitative data present strategies that will, at best, result in
marginal reductions in supply chain emissions. This opposition between discourse and
performance is a theme that will be referred to continuously throughout the chapter.
The chapter is divided into five main sections. In the first section, the context for the case
study is presented. The context is established with reference to the discourse coalition that
has emerged to make climate change a strategic issue for corporations. Without
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understanding the broader discourse, it is difficult to make sense of the plethora of SSCM
strategies that are emerging in response to the challenge of climate change.
In the second section, the specific SSCM strategies that have emerged during the period
covered by the case study are presented and evaluated. In this section, the barriers to the
development of environmentally effective SSCM strategies are also considered. In a
departure from the extant SSCM literature, the analysis includes those barriers that were
constructed discursively by the members themselves, e.g. the ways in which the program and
its members frame the scale and scope of their SSCM strategies.
In the third section, the environmental effectiveness of the members’ SSCM strategies is
examined. A classification is produced based on this analysis. It is in this section that the
contradictions between the discourse of the program and its members and the ‘reality’ of the
actions being taken appear to be at their most profound.
In the fourth section, the potentialities represented by the SSCM strategies studied as part of
the case are synthesized in order to construct a model for environmentally effective strategic
action. In the penultimate section, alternative explanations for the findings are considered.
Finally, conclusions are draw.
4.1 Case Study Context
It is axiomatic within case study research that a case cannot be properly understood without
reference to its context (e.g. Yin, 2003). Within the case study, the boundary between the
case and its context are blurred and context is therefore a major influence on the case itself
(Eisenhardt, 1989; Stake, 1995; Yin, 2003). In this study, the evolution of CDP’s Supply
Chain Program is situated in relation to the scientific and institutional discourses of climate
change. These discourses construct climate change as being ‘real’ and the program represents
an attempt by corporations to make sense of and respond to this ‘reality’.
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The discourse of climate change has been constructed through a ‘discourse coalition’ (Hajer,
1997) consisting of transnational organizations (e.g. the United Nations), non-profit
organizations (e.g. the World Resources Institute), NGOs (e.g. the World Wildlife Fund), and
corporations (e.g. Ford and General Motors, two members of the CDP Supply Chain Program
that played a role in the development of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol). The discourse
coalition constructs climate change as real through defining the scale of the problem, the time
frame for solving it and proposing climate change mitigation strategies for both the
international community and corporations.
Unusually for a scientific discourse, it has been institutionalised in the form of the United
Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and given birth to an
international treaty, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC). The IPCC constructs climate change as a ‘real’ phenomenon not only in the area
of the natural sciences but also in the areas of policy and economics. It does this through the
work of its three working groups. The first and second working groups (WG I and WG II)
synthesize the research conducted on climate change in the relevant scientific fields. The
third group (WG III) explores the options available for mitigating climate change. Part of its
work is to present the options it believes are available to industry. Consistent with the WCED
(1987) report, WG III believes that efficiency is the principal means available to industry for
mitigating climate change (IPCC, 2007a).
The UNFCCC, which established the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, is the broad framework for
climate change mitigation from 2005 until the present. In order to avoid dangerous,
anthropogenic climate change, the UNFCCC has declared that global average temperatures
cannot rise by more than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels (UNFCCC, 2010).
Since the Copenhagen round of climate talks in 2009, this is officially the target towards
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which the international community was working during the period covered by the case
study.6 To limit global warming to two degrees, the IPCC has stated that the concentration of
carbon dioxide within the atmosphere would need to be stabilized at the level of 350-400
parts per million (IPCC, 2007a). To achieve this target, global emissions of carbon dioxide
would need to be reduced by 50 to 85% by 2050 against a 2000 base year (Ibid.). This
scenario is presented in Figure 3 below. Encouragingly, this scenario is consistent with the
factor five and factor ten levels of eco-efficiency that were discussed in the literature review
and which many believe constitutes a realistic contribution that corporations can make
towards sustainability (Elkington, 1998, von Weizsӓcker, 2009).
Figure 3. Conservative climate stabilization scenario based on IPCC (2007) and
UNFCCC (2010)
A number of organizations have attempted to define the contribution that corporations can
make towards the transition to a sustainable, low-carbon economic system. Many of the
program members work collaboratively with these organizations. There is the CERES
6 In the 2015 UNFCCC Conference in Paris, world leaders changed the target to 1.5 degrees Celsius. This will
mean that the scale of emissions reductions required will increase significantly. The 2 degrees target is referred
to in the case study as this was the target during the period 2010-2014.
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Coalition, which consists of investors, NGOs and corporations, and is seeking to drive action
on climate change that is commensurate with the scientific discourse (CERES, 2010). There
is also the Caring for the Climate Business Forum, an initiative launched by the United
Nations Global Compact, the UNFCCC, and the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP) to encourage business leadership on climate change mitigation (UNGC et al., 2007).
The dominant players within the discourse are the World Resources Institute (WRI), the
World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), and CDP (formerly the
Carbon Disclosure Project). The WRI and WBCSD have worked collaboratively with
corporate partners (including some members of the CDP Supply Chain Program, e.g. Ford
and General Motors), governments and NGOs to develop the GHG protocol for measuring
and reporting corporate emissions (WRI/WBCSD, 2013). Just as the Kyoto Protocol (1997)
requires countries to establish GHG inventories, the GHG Protocol creates an expectation
that corporations should do the same (WRI/WBCSD, 2013). Since 2007, the GHG protocol
has included a standard on ‘value chain’ emissions, which includes supply chain emissions
(WRI/WBCSD, 2007). The logic of the GHG protocol is that ‘‘what gets measured gets
managed’’ (WRI/WBCSD, 2013: p. 11). The model in Figure 4 below is my own
diagrammatic representation of WRI/WBCSD’s (2013) construction of corporate climate
change mitigation.
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Figure 4. Model of Corporate Climate Change Mitigation (based on WRI/WBCSD,
2013)
As can be seen from the above figure, it is believed that the compilation of a GHG inventory
by corporations will lead to the identification of emissions reductions opportunities, which in
turn will lead to a number of economic wins such as increased efficiencies in material and
energy use along with concomitant reductions in production costs and differentiation in the
market place (WRI/WBCSD, 2013).
A central tenet of the discourse on corporate sustainability, as with the broader discourse of
ecological modernization of which it is a part, is that the corporate contribution towards
climate change mitigation should be voluntary (e.g. WRI, 1998). It is believed that if such
action is voluntary, corporations will find the most cost-effective means to mitigate climate
change (WRI/WBCSD, 2007). The WRI, WBCSD and CDP all construct emissions as a cost
and are clear that the opportunity to reduce costs will be a driver of climate change mitigation
(CDP, 2008a; WRI/WBCSD, 2007).
CDP, and its Supply Chain Program, is very much a product of the discourse of ecological
modernization in general and of corporate sustainability in particular. The CDP Supply Chain
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Program was established in 2007 as a collaboration between CDP and a number of corporate
partners motivated to better understand their supply chain emissions and to raise awareness of
climate change among their suppliers. The program is an example of a ‘green information
system’ that is believed to be essential to developing environmentally sustainable supply
chains (Green Jr. et al., 2012b). Interestingly, the system is managed not by the members
themselves but by a third party, CDP.
The degree of collaboration between CDP and the members of its Supply Chain Program has
steadily increased since its inception, possibly as a response to the issues that are identified
within the case study. Increasingly, CDP provides members with tools for identifying and
collaborating with their suppliers. These tools include the following: Scorecards based on
suppliers’ disclosures that members can use to evaluate supplier performance; a ‘Custom
Report’ which allows members to share best practice related to ‘‘sustainable procurement
practices’’ (CDP, 2011d: p. 2). The latest initiative launched by CDP is the ‘Action Exchange
program’ launched in 2013 with six program members (Bank of America, L’Oréal, PepsiCo,
Philips, Vodafone and Walmart), which aims to identify carbon hotspots within members’
supply chains so that members can focus their strategies on the areas where they are likely to
have the greatest impact (CDP, 2013d).
4.2 Members’ Sustainable Supply Chain Management Strategies
In this section, the specific SSCM strategies that have emerged during the period covered by
the case study are presented and evaluated. The barriers to the development of
environmentally effective SSCM strategies are also considered. In a departure from the extant
SSCM literature, the analysis includes those barriers that were constructed discursively by the
members themselves, e.g. the ways in which the program and its members frame the scale
and scope of their SSCM strategies.
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4.2.1 Win-Win versus Trade-offs Framing
The SSCM strategies advocated by CDP are firmly embedded within the win-win discourse
of eco-efficiency. The strategies are limited to the identification and solution of problems for
which there are believed to be benefits for the economic bottom line. CDP believes that
economic wins will take the form of ‘‘increased revenue, lower costs, mitigated risk, and a
host of intangibles’’ (CDP, 2012d: p. 13). The intangibles include improved brand value and
reputation (CDP, 2013d).
CDP and its program members clearly believe that their strategies will result in
environmental wins as well as economic. Table 5 below shows the two constructions of
corporate sustainability towards which members are working: environmental stewardship and
sustainable economic growth. These constructions are of interest as they not only show how
members view their own strategies but also highlights the discord between discourse and
performance within the program. Indeed, as we shall see later, those members that advocate
environmental stewardship (Accenture, BMW, Ford, Starwood) are part of a group of 12
members that have actually seen their emissions increase during the period of the case study.
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Table 5. Corporate sustainability frameworks adopted by members
Corporate
Sustainability
Concept
Illustrative quotations
Environmental
Stewardship
‘‘Stewardship means building a better company for future generations, acting with an owner mentality, developing our people and
helping improve communities and the global environment.’’ (Accenture, 2014a)
‘‘Long-term thinking and responsible action have long been the cornerstones of our success. Striving for ecological and social
sustainability along the entire value-added chain, taking full responsibility for our products and giving an unequivocal commitment to
preserving resources are prime objectives firmly embedded in our corporate strategy.’’ (BMW, 2014)
‘‘Our sustainability strategy is embedded in our business plan and consistent with our aim to deliver Great Products, a Strong Business
and a Better World. At Ford, we define sustainability as a business model that creates value consistent with the long-term preservation
and enhancement of environmental, social and financial capital.’’ (Ford, 2014)
‘‘Our company’s Environmental Sustainability Policy reflects our commitment to creating a truly sustainable and environmentally
responsible business and guides our sustainability strategy and program, which focuses on three key components - reducing the
environmental impact of our business operations (existing & future), developing sustainable products and services that meet our
customers’ needs and creating a company culture that is committed to sustainability.’’ (Starwood, 2014)
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Sustainable
economic
growth
‘‘We believe that to be successful over the long-term, we need to create value for our shareholders and for society as a whole. We call
this Creating Shared Value. As an essential prerequisite for CSV we have to ensure that the principle of sustainable development is
embedded in our activities, brands and products. This means protecting the future by making the right choices in an environment where
water is increasingly scarce, natural resources are constrained and biodiversity is declining. All of these elements are vital for feeding a
growing world population as well as and for the development of Nestlé.’’ (Nestlé, 2014)
‘‘We are living in a world where temperatures are rising, water shortages are more frequent, food supplies are increasingly scarce and
the gap between rich and poor increasing. Populations are growing fast, making basic hygiene and sanitation even more of a challenge.
At Unilever we can see how people the world over are already affected by these changes. And the changes will pose new challenges for
us too, as commodity costs fluctuate, markets become unstable and raw materials harder to source. We believe that business must be
part of the solution. But to be so, business will have to change; there is not ‘business as usual anymore’. Sustainable, equitable growth
is the only acceptable business model. Our strategic vision is to double the size of our business while reducing our environmental
footprint, and increasing our positive social impact.’’ (Unilever, 2010)
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The win-win construction of environmental sustainability evident within the discourse of the
program and its members has advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, it has the
important advantage of making value creation and cost savings a driver of members’
corporate climate change mitigation strategies. On the other hand, if strategies are only
pursued if they create economic wins, this effectively constructs economic performance as a
constraint upon the scale of the climate change mitigation that members will engage in.
Despite the predominance of the win-win perspective within the program, many members are
framing climate change mitigation in terms of the trade-offs between the economic and
environmental dimensions of eco-efficiency. There is a sizable minority of members that are
developing climate change mitigation strategies that are not expected to produce cost savings
and do not appear to create any obvious source of value for customers. These strategies are
consequently classified as win-lose. These members can be seen in Table 6 below. As can be
seen from the table, the contribution of these win-lose strategies towards the environmental
bottom line is substantial for many of these members.
Table 6. Contribution of win-lose strategies towards climate change mitigation
MemberTotal CO2e savings
(mt)
Estimated CO2e
savings from win-lose
initiatives (mt)
% Contribution of
win-lose inititaives
towards CO2e
savings (mt)BT 1017018 1002711 99%
Royal Philips 52504 50752 97%
Microsoft 548154 517836 94%
Goldman Sachs 64500 60450 94%
Cisco 444190 410000 93%
L'Oreal 27849 23934 86%
Dell 59344 50781 86%
CNH Industrial NV 69899 54840 78%
Groupe Steria 7704 4996 65%
Nestle 16030 8700 54%
Unilever 94951 47500 50%
Johnson Controls 111101 49059 44%
Diageo 75889 2087 3%
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Contrary to the win-win framing of eco-efficiency, the members in Table 6 accept that their
environmental investments will either never pay back or that the pay-back period will be
longer than for conventional investments. As we shall see later, the trade-off between the
environmental and economic dimensions of eco-efficiency is most difficult to manage in the
case of renewable energy. While this is a sub-optimal practice from a narrowly financial
perspective, it tends to make a significant positive contribution towards the environmental
bottom line. This may help explain why it is a common element of environmentally effective
climate change mitigation strategies.
4.2.2 Construction of Scale of Sustainability Strategies
Target setting is a practice that is central to the development of climate change mitigation
strategies at both the level of the nation-state and the corporation. Just as nations set targets as
part of the UNFCCC, the GHG Protocol has created the expectation that corporations should
do the same (WRI/WBCSD, 2013). Unsurprisingly, target setting is an important component
of the program’s discourse (CDP, 2010c; CDP, 2014d).
Currently, only a minority of corporations are legally required to reduce their emissions and
these are generally allowed to participate in emissions trading schemes (Ratnatunga et al.,
2012). While there is mounting pressure to disclose emissions, e.g. the UK’s requirement for
corporations listed on the FTSE to disclose their GHG inventories, the reduction of supply
chain emissions is not presently an explicit requirement anywhere. It is therefore encouraging
that members are setting targets for themselves despite the absence of regulations. This
supports WRI/WBCSD’s (2013) claim that business will voluntarily make a contribution
towards sustainability. Less encouraging is that many of these targets are not commensurate
with the scale of the action constructed as sustainable by the scientific discourse.
One of my first impressions when working with the empirical material was the bewildering
plethora of different targets towards which members were working. One of my first analytical
106
tasks therefore was to develop concepts that would allow me to differentiate between
strategies. In order to do this, I drew upon the concept of ‘symbolic action’ that has been
developed within the corporate sustainability literature (Furrer et al., 2012). Furrer et al
(2012) define symbolic action as sustainability initiatives that do not make a contribution
towards value creation, e.g. banks reducing the emissions from their operations while
investing in the fossil fuel industry (Furrer et al., 2012). In this thesis, strategies are
considered to be symbolic based on their contribution towards environmental sustainability.
This builds upon the distinction already made between reducing unsustainability and
increasing sustainability. Those strategies that increase sustainability are considered
environmentally effective, while those that merely reduce unsustainability are considered to
be symbolic.
Figure 5. Symbolic versus Environmentally Effective Climate Change Mitigation
Strategies
The use of the term symbolic is not intended to be dismissive however. It is merely intended
107
to show the limitations of such actions in terms of their environmental effectiveness. As we
shall see later, symbolic action can serve important ends, such as raising awareness of climate
change among suppliers. It is intended that the concept of symbolism will complement the
concept of environmental effectiveness. Rather than simply dismiss all that is not
environmental effective, the concept of symbolism represents an attempt to remain open to
the potentially positive contributions of those strategies that might not necessarily be
environmentally effective.
The first barrier to the development of environmentally effective strategies appears to be the
framing of the scale of the problem. As we have seen, the discourse on climate change is
largely driven by the scientific community. It has been argued that action on climate change
makes most sense in relation to climate science as it is the science that establishes the scale of
the problem. Indeed, CDP explicitly draws upon the scientific discourse to construct the scale
of the problem (CDP, 2011d) and is clear that its members and their suppliers should be
aiming to reduce their emissions by 50-85% by 2050. CDP (2011d) calculates that corporate
emissions reductions will need to be in the order of 3.9% a year until 2050.7 Figure 6
compares the most recently disclosed reduction targets to the 50-85% reduction advocated by
CDP (CDP, 2011d). Those that are below the 50% threshold are considered symbolic, while
those above the threshold are considered environmentally effective. It should be noted that
these strategies are limited to members’ internal supply chains. Those members with targets
for their external supply chains will be considered in section 4.5 below.
7 The annual reduction figure is higher than might be expected as it takes into account the business growth likely
to occur in the period 2000 to 2050.
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Figure 6. Emissions reductions targets for member corporations
As the figure shows, only nine members have strategies that can be considered
environmentally effective. The majority of members have strategies that will only deliver
reductions of 25% or less. One of the reasons for this may be a reluctance to commit to
strategies that commit members to long term strategies. As can be seen from the figure, only
five members have strategies in place that extend beyond 2020. From the figure we can
clearly see that the majority of members’ strategies are merely aimed at reducing the
unsustainability of their internal supply chains. More worrying than this however is that 10
members have targets in place that will actually result in an increase in emissions. These
members are presented in Table 7 below.
2100 58
2050 44 42
2030 40
2029
2028
2027
2026
2025 13
2024
2023
2022
2021
2020 37,52,56 11,17 19,32 22,23,34 4,38 7 46 57 18 30,51 39 12 29
2019
2018 15
2017 36 24
2016 50
2015 16,31,45 53 9 6 49 20
2014 27 14
2013 21,35,43 54 41
0-4 5-9 10-14 15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54 55-59 60-64 65-69 70-74 75-79 80-84 85-89 90-94 95-99 100
Key
4 AT&T 16 Colgate 27 Gas Natural 38 KPMG UK 49 Royal Philips
6 Bank of America 17 CSX Corporation 29 Goldman Sachs 39 L'Oreal 50 S. C. Johnson
7 BMW 18 Dell 30 Groupe Steria 40 Marfrig Alimentos 51 SABMiller
9 Bristol-Myers Squibb 19 Deutsche Telekom 31 IMI plc 41 Microsoft 52 Starwood
11 British Sky Broadcasting 20 Diageo 32 Imperial Tobacco 42 National Grid 53 Swisscom
12 BT Group 21 Eaton Corporation 34 Johnson & Johnson 43 Nestle 54 Taisei Corporation
13 Caesar's Entertainment 22 ENAGAS 36 Juniper 44 Nissan Motors 56 Unilever
14 Cisco Systems 23 Endesa 35 Johnson Controls 45 PepsiCo 57 Vodafone
15 CNH Industrial NV 24 Eni 37 KAO 46 Phillip Morris 58 Walmart
Target
Year
Reduction Target (%)
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Table 7. Members with emissions reductions targets that will result in an increase in emissions
Member
Relative
Target
Discourse versus Performance
Absolute
Increase in
Emissions
Illustrative quotations
Abbott
Laboratories
(2014)
40% by
2020
2%
‘‘Abbott's Citizenship strategy has four strategic priorities of which Safeguarding the Environment is one.
Within this priority Abbott is committed to addressing climate change, primarily through the establishment of
long range reduction targets and performance reporting of our carbon emissions and efforts to reduce impacts.
This has driven the reduction of Abbott's global Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions significantly over time.’’
(Abbott Laboratories, 2014)
Accenture
(2014)
35% by
2015
50%
‘‘Our strategy spans four areas: running efficient operations, working sustainably, enabling client
sustainability and providing insights to advance sustainability. While we acknowledge the challenges
associated with reducing our gross carbon emissions at a time of growth, we believe we have made important
progress’’. (Accenture, 2014a)
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Banco
Bradesco
(2014)
10% by
2015
20%
‘‘Bradesco has an eco-efficiency management program that focuses on ‘‘creating more value with less
environmental impact’’. The program includes goals for energy efficiency, renewable fuels and optimization
of transportation logistics.’’ (Banco Bradesco, 2014)
Braskem
(2014)
17% by
2020
20%
‘‘Braskem recognizes that individually and also within its own value chain, it is an important GHG emitter,
however it has been acting to systematically and consistently to minimize the negative impacts its productive
activities could have regarding climate change and encouraging its suppliers and clients to do the same.’’
(Braskem, 2014a)
Fiat
(2014)
Various by
2020
~1%
‘‘The increase in atmospheric CO2 due to human activity led many governments to implement control and
regulatory measures to limit the resulting effects. Consumers are shifting their needs and acting more
responsibly in their purchase decision to buy and drive low impact vehicles. The Group believes that effective,
long lasting results to address climate change can only be achieved through an integrated approach involving
energy producers, manufacturers, suppliers, academia, consumers, government and the financial community.’’
(Fiat, 2014b)
Ford
(2014)
30% by
2030
10% ‘‘Our approach is to integrate sustainability issues into our business processes and manage them like other key
business issues. We have a comprehensive set of goals and targets related to key sustainability issues, and in
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2013 we strengthened the processes for embedding accountability to these goals and targets across the
company. We continue to identify emerging sustainability-related challenges and opportunities and to
mobilize resources within the company to address them, which helps Ford to remain competitive in a changing
world.’’ (Ford, 2014)
General
Motors
(2014)
20% by
2020
9%
‘‘GM’s commitment to sustainability applies to every part of our business and creates value for customers. It
underscores GM’s philosophy of “Customer- Driven Sustainability” – an approach for meeting customers’
needs through sustainability by making the mobile experience safer, more efficient and better integrated with
everyday life. As part of that commitment and philosophy, it continually assesses and takes steps to reduce the
environmental impact of its products and operations. Focusing on areas such as energy management, carbon
and waste intensity reduction, resource preservation and more efficient vehicles through its technological
advances, global reach and innovative employees, helps the company reduce its environmental footprint and
also share best practices around the world for broad results.’’ (General Motors, 2014)
Jaguar
(2014)
24.6% by
2020
4%
‘‘We identify the existing and emerging sustainability issues that are most material to Jaguar Land Rover
through our business planning process and a gap analysis of risks, opportunities and future sustainability
trends. We use our findings to plan activities designed to make our products & operations more sustainable,
and identify metrics to monitor our progress against our commitments. Strategic goals have been identified for
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Environmental Innovation and progress is tracked through our business scorecard.’’ (Jaguar, 2014b)
Pirelli
(2014)
15% by
2020
15%
‘‘Pirelli considers its contribute to the challenge of climate change fundamental both as global citizen and
business player.’’ (Pirelli, 2014)
The Coca-
Cola
Company
(2014)
25% by
2020
24%
‘‘Climate Protection is designated as a priority focus under the Planet element of our 2020 Vision and also
under our Me, We, World™ framework. Through redesigning the way we work and live, we consider
sustainability as part of everything we do. Each of these core areas has established reduction goals from the
corporate level for the entire Coca-Cola System and not just The Coca-Cola Company to reduce impacts
associated with water scarcity, energy availability, and packaging (both availability of raw materials and
recycling). We believe the proactive, comprehensive approach of Me, We, World™ contributes to our
strategic advantage.’’ (Coca-Cola, 2014)
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The contradiction between the rhetoric and the reality of these members’ strategies can be
quite glaring in some cases. For example, Ford acknowledges that their 30% reduction target
for their internal supply chain will result in an overall increase of emissions by 10% due to
business growth. Despite the fact that Ford will be increasing its emissions over the next 15
years, their disclosure makes the following claim about their climate change strategy (Ford,
2014):
‘‘Our climate change strategy is based on what needs to happen in the world – the
stabilization of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere – and our contribution to
achieving stabilization through fuel economy improvements, the use of alternative
fuels and energy-efficiency improvements at our facilities.’’
Clearly, a 10% increase in emissions does not contribute to the ‘‘stabilization of greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere’’ at anywhere near the level that is believed to be required. This
leaves Ford, and members similar to them, open to the charge of ‘greenwashing’ (Bowen,
2014). If it is an honest error, then these members appear to be mistaking a reduction in
unsustainability for sustainability.
One possible explanation for the predominance of symbolic climate change mitigation
strategies may lie in the absence of a scientific approach to establishing the scale of the
problem. Few members acknowledge the ‘objective’ scale of the problem as defined by the
scientific discourse. In contrast, nescience was found to have been a surprisingly strong force
among members. Nescience is an antonym of science and is defined as a lack of knowledge
about a given phenomenon. In this case, nescience signifies an apparent lack of knowledge
about climate science.
The predominance of nescience among program members is consistent with the broader
construction of corporate climate change mitigation within the discourse coalition on
corporate sustainability, whose members often seem reluctant to clearly and consistently
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engage corporations on the scale of action that is needed to avoid dangerous levels of climate
change (e.g. the 2007 ‘Caring for the Climate’ Statement made by UNGC, UNEP and
WBCSD). Even CDP does not consistently spell out the scale of action required by its
members and their suppliers. Within the five supply chain reports produced during the period
of the case study, CDP only states the scale of action required once, in its 2011 report.
Table 8 below shows how these members use the science. As can be seen, only seven
members explicitly refer to the scientific discourse on climate change when presenting their
climate change mitigation strategies.
Table 8. How program members use climate science
Aspect of
Climate
Science
foregrounded
Purpose Illustrative quotation
Reality of
climate change
Legitimize
action
‘‘We agree that climate change is happening, that society needs to
transition from high-carbon to low-carbon energy, and that we have a
responsibility to accelerate this transition.’’ (Bank of America, 2014).
‘‘Our Environmental Policy Framework (Framework) acknowledges
the scientific consensus, led by the IPCC, that climate change is a
reality and that we believe that climate change is one of the most
significant environmental challenges of the 21st century.’’ (Goldman
Sachs, 2014)
‘‘We acknowledge the scientific consensus that the earth is warming
and that it is at least partially caused by the actions of man.’’ (Johnson
Controls, 2014)
Required level Establish ‘‘In line with the principles of contraction and convergence, developed
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of reductions
in carbon
dioxide
emissions
scale of
action to
be taken
countries are expected to aim for an emissions peak between 2012 and
2015, with 30% cuts by 2020 and at least 80% cuts by 2050.
Developing countries meanwhile will essentially maintain a trajectory
of rising emissions to 2020, peaking at around 80% above current
levels, with cuts of 20% against 1990 levels by 2050. In January 2007
BT announced a tighter absolute CO2e reduction target for its UK
operations of an 80% reduction by 2016 against its 1996 base year
(technically the 96/97 financial year).’’ (BT, 2004: pp. 3-8).
‘‘Dell recognizes that climate change is real and must be mitigated, and
we support efforts to reduce global emissions to levels guided by the
evolving science. Dell also supports the various efforts underway to
develop a scientific and policy consensus on target reduction levels,
including the work of the IPCC, whose 4th assessment report indicated
that global reductions of 50-85% by 2050 from 2000 levels are
necessary to achieve recommended greenhouse gas stabilization levels.
While the most recent IPCC conclusions are not the last word, they
contribute to the framework for building the broad public policy
consensus that must emerge. We believe that the solution to the global
climate crisis requires action from both developed and developing
countries, so we contribute to this policy debate internationally. We are
focused on: • developing ways to drive economy-wide energy
efficiency through the use of IT, driving energy efficiency of the IT
tools themselves, and • running our own operations more efficiently
and accounting for our GHG impacts.’’ (Dell, 2014)
Carbon
Budget
Establish
scale of
action to
‘‘There is growing recognition within both the scientific community
and the general public that climate change is occurring and that the
global climate is being affected by an increasing level of greenhouse
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be taken gases (GHG) in the atmosphere. The Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) estimated that to keep the global temperature
from rising by more than 2°C, atmospheric emissions must remain
under one trillion tons of CO2. In less than 150 years, we have burned
more than halfway to this threshold, and we continue to consume at an
ever-increasing rate. The Company is committed to adopting and
developing solutions that are at the same time safe, environmentally-
friendly and economically viable.’’ (Fiat 2014a: p. 28).
Atmospheric
Concentrations
of carbon
dioxide
Establish
scale of
action to
be taken
‘‘Our climate change strategy is based on doing our share to stabilize
carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations in the atmosphere at 450 parts per
million (ppm), the level that many scientists, businesses and
governmental agencies believe may avoid the most serious effects of
climate change. This commitment includes the following: Each new or
significantly refreshed vehicle will be best in class, or among the best
in class, for fuel economy. From our global portfolio of products, we
will reduce GHG emissions consistent with doing our part for climate
stabilization – even taking into account sales growth. We will reduce
our facility CO2 emissions by 30 percent from 2010 to 2025 on a per-
vehicle basis and average energy consumed per vehicle by 25 percent
from 2011 to 2016 globally.’’ (Ford, 2014)
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The way in which BT and Dell draw upon climate science to construct their strategies is a
rarity amongst program members in that both members acknowledge the scale of the action
required as established by the scientific discourse. It is therefore not surprising that both
members have environmentally effective targets. While such clarity may be rare, it does
represent an exemplary practice that can be adopted by other members.
BT has set its target at the higher end of the range (80%) and Dell at the lower end (~50%)
(BT, 2014a; Dell, 2014). It should be noted however that neither BT nor Dell have emissions
reductions targets in place for their supply chains. As we shall see later in section 4.7, this is a
potential problem as growth in emissions from the external supply chain can act as a
significant drag on emissions reductions strategies.
The figures used by Fiat and Ford are considerably more nebulous than the 50-85% target
used by CDP, BT and Dell, and makes it more difficult for the layman to evaluate the
scientific value of their targets. For example, it would not be easy for a stakeholder
unfamiliar with the science to recognize that 450ppm is a questionable level to be aiming at,
or to state whether Ford’s target of reducing emissions per vehicle by 30% by 2030 is
commensurate with achieving stabilization at 450ppm. (As we shall see later, it is not.)
The other members of the program do not explicitly refer to the scientific discourse on
climate change at all. Worryingly, this suggests that nescience is a greater force within the
program than science. This represents a significant finding as it questions whether members
understand the scale of the problem they are facing. If members are not aware of the scale of
the problem as constructed by the scientific discourse, it is not surprising that their actions are
not commensurate with that scale. Despite the predominance of nescience among program
members, some members do have targets in place that are commensurate with the science.
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This suggests that nescience is not necessarily a barrier to the development of
environmentally effective strategies.
CDP appears to recognize that their members will need help if they able to develop and
achieve SSCM strategies based on environmentally effective targets. CDP launched an
initiative in 2015 with WWF, the WRI and the United Nations’ Global Compact to support
the adoption of scientific targets by corporations (CDP et al., 2014). Hopefully, this will
encourage more corporations to follow the example of those members pursuing science-based
targets (e.g. BT).
4.2.3 Construction of Scope of Sustainability Strategies
The scope of action can be constructed at either the level of the internal supply chain or at the
level of both the internal and external supply chains, which I have categorized as ‘extended
supply chain strategies’. Among members with extended supply chain strategies, evidence
was found of two types of strategy for target setting, which I have classified as ‘accountable’
and ‘unaccountable’ supply chain target setting strategies. Members with accountable supply
chain target setting strategies include external supply chain emissions within their own
emissions targets and thus take direct responsibility for supply chain emissions, e.g.
Walmart’s declaration to reduce 20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from its supply chain
between 2010 and 2015.
In contrast, members with an unaccountable supply chain target setting strategy do not
include supply chain emissions within their own targets but limit their external supply chains
strategies to encouraging their suppliers to adopt their own targets, e.g. Johnson & Johnson
(2014a) require their suppliers to have ‘‘two or more publically reported sustainability
goals’’, but do not specify what these goals should be, or even whether they should be related
to climate change mitigation. The first approach explicitly integrates the supply chain within
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the corporation’s sustainability strategy and makes them accountable for reducing supply
chain emissions. The second approach encourages suppliers to adopt mitigation strategies but
does not make the member accountable for the targets adopted. Unfortunately, the second
approach was more commonly found among members than the first.
CDP is clear that members are supposed to set ‘‘challenging targets across the external
supply chain’’ (CDP, 2011d: p. iv), but only 13 of the 58 members were found to have
included supply chain emissions within their own mitigation targets. Given that members are
supposed to be taking a leadership position within their supply chains, this represents quite
underwhelming evidence. Details of the targets adopted by these 11 members are presented in
Table 9 below.
Table 9. Members with emissions reductions targets for the external supply chain
Member Supply Chain Emissions
Category
Change from
base year
Target
Completion
year
Accenture
Business Travel
+20% 2015
Bristol-Myers Squibb -14% 2015
BT Group +7% 2020
Cisco Systems, Inc. -40% 2017
Deutsche Telekom -15% 2020
KPMG UK -5% 2020
Microsoft -100% 2013
Royal Philips -40% 2015
Johnson Controls Purchased goods &
services
-1% 2014
SABMiller -9% 2020
Walmart All supply chain
emissions -5% 2015
Table 9 shows that ‘Business Travel’ is the most common spend category targeted for
emissions reductions. Two members with reductions targets for business travel are of interest
for quite different reasons: Microsoft and Accenture. Microsoft’s target is for a 100%
reduction in business travel emissions, which exceeds the scale of action advocated by CDP.
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Interestingly, and in contradiction with the program’s guiding principle of efficiency and
cost-effectiveness, Microsoft plans to reduce its emissions not through emissions reductions
activities but through purchasing offsets (Microsoft, 2014). Worryingly, Accenture’s target
for emissions reductions in this spend category will actually see emissions increase by 20%
due to projected business growth. Despite this projected growth in emissions, Accenture
(2014a) makes the following claim about its strategy:
‘‘While we acknowledge the challenges associated with reducing our gross carbon
emissions at a time of growth, we believe we have made important progress’’.
Three members have strategies that extend to the whole supply chain. None of these
strategies are based on sustainable targets however. Indeed, one is a relative target that will
actually result in an increase of supply chain emissions by 20% (Banco Bradesco, 2014).
Only two members have established targets for ‘Purchased Goods and Services’, namely
Johnson Controls (2014) and Royal Philips (2014a). Worryingly, Johnson Control’s target is
only for a 1% annual reduction in external supply chain emissions (2014), which is four times
lower than CDP’s proposed annual target of 3.9% (Johnson Controls, 2014).
A total of 32 members with an extended supply chain orientation were found to encourage
their suppliers to adopt emissions reductions targets as part of their climate change mitigation
strategies. Often, the activity of unaccountable target setting appears to be a numbers game,
i.e. members are primarily concerned with the number of suppliers with targets, rather than
whether the targets are symbolic or environmentally effective. As a result, there is a lack of
transparency concerning these targets however and there is insufficient data disclosed to
determine whether the targets can be classified as effective or symbolic. Indeed, only one
member in this group, Deutsche Telekom (2014) explicitly states that their preference is for
suppliers to adopt targets based on absolute emissions reductions. Given the lack of science
based targets used by members for their own emissions that we saw previously, it seems
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unlikely that the targets for suppliers will be commensurate with the scientific discourse on
climate change.
4.2.4 Classification of members’ climate change mitigation strategies
In this section, members’ supply chain strategies are classified according to their scale and
scope. This classification is presented in Figure 7 below. It is based on two dimensions: a
scale dimension, which has as its end points symbolic and environmentally effective targets;
and an orientation dimension, which concerns the scope of the strategies and has as its end
points internal and extended orientation. These two dimensions produces four SSCM
strategies: symbolic internal, symbolic extended, effective internal and effective external
supply chain strategies. However, as there were no members with an effective external supply
chain strategy, members with an effective internal strategy and a symbolic external strategy
have been classified as having an ‘effective internal + symbolic external’ supply chain
strategy. As can be seen from the figure below, members with a symbolic extended supply
chain strategy constitute the largest group within the case study with 27 members.
Figure 7. Members’ SSCM strategies for climate change mitigation
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‘Symbolic extended SC strategy’. The strategies of members in this group are symbolic, but
are extended to their supply chains. Two members in this group have targets that will actually
result in an increase in emissions, with one member (Member 2, Accenture) working towards
targets that will see both its internal and external emissions increase.
‘Symbolic internally-oriented SC strategy’. Members in this group make up the second
largest group with 20 members. This means the two largest groups have symbolic strategies
and between them account for 47 of the 58 members. Many members within this group are
highly vulnerable to increases in emissions from their external supply chains as their targets
for their internal supply chains are often very low. For example, Unilever (member 56) falls
within this group. As their strategy is effectively to stabilise their internal emissions while
doubling the size of their business (Unilever, 2012), it is highly likely that their strategy will
be undermined by a growth in external supply chain emissions. Within this group there are
eight members with strategies that will result in an actual increase in their emissions, such as
Ford (Member 26).
‘Effective internally-oriented SC strategy’. This group only has one member, National Grid
(Member 42), a UK energy company. As the largest environmental impacts within its supply
chain will be produced within its operations it is not so problematic that they do not have an
extended supply chain orientation. By achieving their internal target they will enable their
customers to become more sustainable. Perhaps the most surprising thing about National Grid
is that they are a member of the supply chain program in the first place given the relative
unimportance of their upstream supply chain emissions.
‘Effective internal + symbolic external SC strategies’. Members in this group have strategies
in place to reduce the environmental impact of their operations, and either include supply
emissions within their own reduction targets or require their suppliers to set targets. While the
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strategies for their external supply chains are symbolic, they complement the internal
strategy. An exemplary member in this category is Walmart (Member 58), which not only has
an accountable target for its external supply chain but has been able to deliver against that
target. While the target for their external supply chain is not environmentally effective, it
extends to the whole supply chain and therefore represents the largest achievement of any of
the members so far in the program.
In the next sections (4.4.5 and 4.5.6), we will consider the extent to which members have
been able to realize their intended strategies.
4.2.5 Construction of Solution space for members’ sustainability strategies
This section presents the solution space that members have constructed for the
implementation of their SSCM strategies. I believe it is reasonable to assume that the solution
space will likely be constrained by the scale and scope of the members’ strategies. Figure 8
below shows the SSCM practices that members are engaging in to realize their climate
change mitigation strategies. As can be seen, the majority of practices are consistent with the
win-win framing of eco-efficiency. Further, the most common eco-efficiency practices
among members are focussed on process improvements.
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Figure 8. Climate change mitigation practices adopted by members
The growth in the adoption of substitution strategies represents a significant longitudinal
trend within the case study. The substitution of renewable for non-renewable energy is an
alternative or supplement to efficiency as a means for mitigating climate change. Arguably,
substituting renewable energy for energy derived from fossil fuels is the most effective means
for a corporation to reduce its emissions. This is because an increase in the levels of energy
use by an operation that is powered by renewable energy will not increase the emissions of
the operation’s processes. It is a problematic strategy in terms of the win-win discourse of the
program and its focus on cost savings however as investments in low-carbon installations
were often found to have an opportunity cost, e.g. lower returns on investment. Purchasing
renewable energy from the grid is even more problematic as they typically cost more than
energy derived from fossil fuels.
It is important to note however that these substitution strategies are limited to the internal
supply chains of members, which are typically a small part of the total supply chain (Trucost,
2012). As we shall see later in section 4.7, the emissions reductions achieved within their
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operations can easily be undermined by growth of energy and material throughput within the
supply chain. Indeed, this is the case with Microsoft whose increase in supply chain
emissions in 2013-14 represents 88% of the emissions saved from the adoption of renewable
energy within their operations. If supply chain emissions continue to grow at the same rate,
they will dwarf the reductions Microsoft has made in their operational emissions. Although
substitution is clearly an effective means for reducing emissions, CDP and many of the
members of its Supply Chain Program largely ignore the role that renewable energy can play
in the transition towards low-carbon supply chains. Further, there is only one member (BT)
that is currently encouraging their suppliers to adopt renewable energy as a means to reduce
emissions within their external supply chain (BT, 2014a). By limiting the scope of supplier
engagement to efficiency strategies, members are effectively ruling out more disruptive
solutions, e.g. transitioning global supply chains towards renewable energy.
There are two surprising findings concerning the practices that members are adopting in order
to realize their climate change mitigation strategies. First, 19 members are adopting practices
that are not consistent with the win-win framing of eco-efficiency. Second, only three
members were able to reduce emissions through supplier engagement. Given the focus of the
program, this represents quite a surprising finding. Each of these will now be looked at in
turn.
4.2.5.1 Alternatives to eco-efficiency
There are two practices that members engage in to reduce the environmental impacts of their
supply chains that are not consistent with the win-win framing of eco-efficiency; these are
purchasing renewable energy from the grid or purchasing offsets. Members do not adopt
these practices as an alternative to eco-efficiency but as a complementary strategy.
Nevertheless, both practices can be considered a waste of resources from the perspective of
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eco-efficiency as those financial resources are not being invested and consequently cannot be
recovered, as in the case of renewable energy installations (Von Weizsäcker et al., 2009).
While purchasing renewable energy may be a sub-optimal practice from a financial
perspective, 19 members are engaged in this practice. Some members are even making
locations decisions for their operations based, at least in part, on the availability of renewable
energy (Dell, 2014; Juniper, 2014; Microsoft, 2014). Interestingly, one member sees it as
their responsibility to purchase renewable energy as their demand can stimulate investment in
the renewable sector and can help encourage its use by driving prices down (Vodafone,
2014).
Purchasing renewable energy appears to be a key practice for those members that have
environmentally effective targets for their internal supply chains. All eight members with
environmentally effective strategies are purchasing renewable energy. Contrary to the win-
win discourse of the program, this may suggest that for some members the realization of
environmentally effective strategies will potentially require trade-offs between the economic
and environmental dimensions of corporate environmentalism.
From the perspective of eco-efficiency, the behaviour of these 19 members is difficult to
explain. It is not clear why these members would eschew what von Weizsӓcker et al (1998)
call the ‘‘no regrets’’ strategy of eco-efficiency in order to purchase renewable energy from
the grid. One member’s disclosure may hold the answer however. Royal Philips’s (2014a)
disclosure is of interest as it indicates that the strategy of purchasing renewable energy from
the grid is being pursued because they are struggling to find win-win opportunities for
emissions reductions. Royal Philips have a three step approach to reducing emissions that is
presented in the quotation below from their 2012 disclosure.
‘‘We firstly focus our efforts in reducing our energy consumption and CO2 emissions,
so identifying and implementing those CO2 abatement levers that reduce cost at the
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same time. In order to identify and implement the CO2 abatement levers with the
highest cost saving potential, we created a Philips Marginal abatement cost curve.
Secondly, the focus is on generating renewable energy on site. Finally, we consider
purchasing of electricity generated by renewable sources.’’ (Royal Philips, 2012)
Given that purchasing renewable energy from the grid is the last of the three options, it is
interesting that it is the principal means through which Royal Philips is seeking to reduce
their emissions. In their 2014 disclosure, the numbers reveal that 97% of the emissions
reductions that Royal Philips achieved in the previous year were from purchasing renewable
energy from the grid (Royal Philips, 2014a). While we cannot generalize from one member,
it does raise the question of whether win-win efficiency opportunities are as plentiful as the
program, and the broader discourse of ecological modernization of which it is a part, suggest.
4.2.5.2 Supplier Engagement
CDP presents supplier engagement as being one of the most effective practices that
corporations can adopt to reduce supply chain emissions and within the discourse of the
program engagement is strongly correlated with corporate leadership on climate change
mitigation (CDP, 2012d; CDP, 2013d). Engagement is not a concept that is used within the
SCM or SSCM literature however. Related concepts from the literature would be
environmental monitoring and environmental collaboration (Vachon and Klassen, 2008). As
we shall see later, monitoring is a more common engagement strategy than collaboration,
although the latter is the dominant engagement strategy advocated by CDP and appears to be
an aspiration for many program members. Often monitoring activities appear to be based on a
numbers game, e.g. how many suppliers disclose, how many suppliers have emissions
reductions targets, rather than environmentally effective performance outcomes. This may
help explain why it does not lead to environmentally effective reductions in emissions.
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Buyer-supplier collaboration is an important strategy identified within the SSCM literature
(Touboulic, 2014) and is a significant theme within the discourse of the program. The
absence of collaboration between members and their suppliers therefore represents a
surprising finding. As with the SSCM literature, CDP considers collaboration to be the most
important form of engagement and the one that most correlates most strongly with leadership
(CDP, 2011d; CDP, 2013d). This is because it is assumed that collaboration will have greater
impacts on reducing joint emissions than other forms of engagement (CDP, 2012d).
Figure 9 presents CDP’s model of member-supplier collaboration that is central to the
broader vision of member-supplier engagement upon which the Supply Chain Program is
based. Consistent with the broader corporate sustainability discourse, it is believed that
disclosure by suppliers is at the root of driving emissions reductions in the external supply
chain. CDP believes that supplier disclosure will lead to the identification of opportunities to
collaborate with suppliers to reduce emissions. It is further believed that most of these
opportunities will be ‘‘synonymous with efficiency improvements which will translate into
cost savings both for suppliers and Members’’ (CDP, 2010c: p. 7).
Figure 9. CDP’s model of member-supplier collaboration
The claims made for member-supplier collaboration by the literature and by CDP are not
supported by the empirical material however. As we will see, joint emissions reductions
activities between members and suppliers are a rarity. This appears to be due to two reasons.
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First, many members appear to view disclosure as an end in itself, rather than as a means
towards achieving the end of supply chain emissions. They limit their responsibility to getting
suppliers to participate in the program. Consequently, those members that construct
disclosure in this way are not looking for opportunities for collaboration and it is therefore
not surprising that they do not engage in collaborative emissions reductions projects with
their suppliers.
Two, many members claim to be looking for collaboration opportunities but are either not
able to identify them or are unable to implement processes for the opportunities they have
identified. Worryingly, a number of members claim to not have data on supply chain
emissions, despite having collected data from suppliers through the program for a number of
years (e.g. S.C. Johnson, 2014). This begs the question of what these members are doing with
the data they are collecting and why they are collecting the data in the first place.
Walmart and L’Oréal are of interest as they are often presented as exemplars by CDP in
terms of member-supplier collaboration (CDP, 2012d; CDP, 2014d). They are of interest for
different reasons however. Walmart has engaged its suppliers to reduce the emissions of both
its internal and external supply chains. Interestingly, Walmart engaged with energy suppliers
in order to better manage the trade-offs between the adoption of renewable energy and
economic performance. By engaging with suppliers, Walmart was able to find creative ways
to manage its renewable energy projects. Rather than purchase low-carbon energy from the
grid, Walmart purchases energy generated at its own facilities by energy suppliers (Walmart,
2013; Walmart, 2014b). The installations are financed and managed by the suppliers and the
result is that Walmart is able to reduce its emissions and costs without having to make any
investments. It would appear that the differentiating factor between Walmart and other
members is that they are prepared to take a long term perspective towards renewable energy.
While the other members purchasing renewable energy have short-term contracts, Walmart
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has signed long-term contracts with its suppliers that facilitate the investment that is required
in order to deliver renewable energy at competitive prices.
L’Oreal has engaged in a number of high profile collaborative activities with its suppliers
(L’Oreal, 2013; L’Oreal, 2014a). These activities include co-location activities with its bottle
suppliers, where the suppliers’ machinery and personnel are located on site at L’Oreal’s
factories, and the collaborative re-design of products. While these collaborations sound
impressive, L’Oreal is either not able to disclose the associated reduction in emissions for the
collaborations or the emissions reductions achieved are insignificant.
While the member-supplier collaborations that Walmart and L’Oreal are engaged in are
substantial, it is more common for the examples of member-supplier collaboration presented
in members’ disclosures to be trivial. An example is provided in the quotation below from
Microsoft’s 2013 disclosure. As with the majority of member-supplier collaborations,
Microsoft does not disclose the quantity of carbon dioxide that was saved.
‘‘Success with supplier engagements is measured in both demonstrable business and
sustainability benefits. For example, our Puget Sound region dining facilities worked
with International Paper to procure compostable cups and our volume commitment
enabled them to upgrade a manufacturing facility in California. Previously, the
product was manufactured in Ohio, resulting in a transportation carbon footprint
reduction.’’ (Microsoft, 2013)
4.2.5.3 Emissions Reductions in the External Supply Chain
Despite the success of the program in getting suppliers to disclose to the program, there is
little evidence to suggest that supplier engagement is driving down supply chain emissions. In
2014, only 26 members were able to disclose emissions data for their external supply chains
for more than one year, meaning that for the majority of members it is not possible to
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determine whether supply chain emissions are increasing or decreasing. Of these 26
members, only 10 members were able to report emissions reductions within their supply
chains, whereas 16 members reported supply chain emissions increasing. The problem of
growth will be looked at in the next section. In the rest of this section, the focus will be on
how members have managed to reduce supply chain emissions.
Figure 10 below shows the strategies that members have developed to reduce the emissions
of their external supply chains. The figure is based on practices for which members have
disclosed emissions reductions.
Figure 10. Climate change mitigation strategies for members’ external supply chains
As can be seen from the figure above, only a minority of members have strategies that are
delivering measurable reductions in emissions in the external supply chain. The most
effective strategy for reducing emissions in the external supply chain appears to be to reduce
demand for products and services from suppliers. Members did this through either reducing
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their spend (e.g. Bank of America, 2014), improving their procurement processes (e.g. Eaton
Corporation, 2014), or reducing their demand for materials through redesigning their
products (e.g. Royal Philips, 2014a). The contribution of suppliers towards emissions
reductions is minimal. This represents a surprising finding both in terms of the SSCM
literature and the claims made for supplier engagement by CDP and the members the Supply
Chain program.
4.2.6 The Problem of Growth: Growth versus Sustainability
As was discussed in the review of the literature, the imperative to grow is a defining
characteristic of modern corporations, especially those that have a shareholder ownership
structure (Speth, 2008). Many have argued, including myself at the start of this project, that
this growth imperative can be harnessed in order to effect the transition towards the
sustainable society. Consequently, the finding that business growth represents a significant
barrier to the sustainability strategies of many members represents one of the most
challenging findings of this study.
Business growth was found to negatively affect members’ climate change mitigation
strategies in a number of ways. We have already seen that many members accept that
business growth is going to drive up their emissions and have limited their mitigation
strategies to trying to limit the amount by which emissions will ultimately rise. In this sub-
section, the focus will be on how growth undermines the mitigation strategies of members.
Growth was found to have been a problem for almost all members at some point in the five
year period covered. The problems that they are facing are presented in Figure 11 below.
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Figure 11. How Business and Supply Chain Growth Affect Members’ Climate Change
Mitigation Strategies
Encouragingly, the majority of members were able to increase efficiencies at a higher rate
than the growth that they experienced. For these members growth acts as a drag on their
emissions reductions strategies but does not prevent them from achieving absolute reductions
in emissions. In some cases, the drag effect can lead to members being unable to achieve their
targets however. For example, Diageo report that they were behind in achieving their 50%
reduction target for scope one and two emissions between 2007 and 2015 due to business
growth (Diageo, 2013; Diageo, 2014).
More worryingly, a minority of members found that growth caused their total emissions to
increase and undermined their climate change mitigation strategies (e.g. BMW). Those
members struggling to manage the conflict between emissions reductions activities and
business growth are presented in Tables 10 and 11 below. The tables show the type of growth
that each member is struggling with. The growth affecting these members was found to take
the following, often related, forms: increased energy and material throughput due to increased
sales volumes, increased scale of operations due to mergers and acquisitions, and increased
emissions within the external supply chain. As can be seen from the table, two members are
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seeing their mitigation strategies being undermined by both business growth and growth in
supply chains emissions (BMW and Jaguar).
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Table 10. Members struggling with production growth
Member Detail
BMW
Zero progress has been made towards their target of reducing emissions per vehicle by 25% by 2020 against a 2008 baseline. Since
1990 emissions have actually doubled (BMW, 2014).
Jaguar
Another automotive firm struggling within growth. Their intensity target (2007-2012) was not achieved due to a 33% increase in
production. This resulted in a 5.3% increase in scope one and two emissions (Jaguar, 2014a).
Starwood
Starwood's (2013) scope and two emissions are supposed to decrease by 1.65% between 2008 and 2020. So far emissions have risen
by 4.76%.
The Coca-
Cola
Company
It is projected that the intensity target will result in an increase in absolute emissions of 24% by 2020 (against 2010 base line).
Worryingly, they have made zero progress against this target, which means that the increases may be larger (Coca-Cola, 2014).
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Table 11. Members struggling with supply chain growth
Member Detail
BMW
BMW’s scope 3 emissions for purchased goods and services has increased by 3,274,865 metric tonnes from 2011 to 2014. This
dwarves the 198,483 metric tonnes that they aim to cut from their scope 1 and 2 emissions over the period 1900 to 2020 (BMW, 2014).
Diageo
In 2014, Diageo reported that it had only achieved half of its emissions reduction target due to larger than anticipated increases in
production. The target deadline is 2015 (Diageo, 2014).
Fiat
Fiat has seen increases in its upstream transportation emissions and its spend on business travel due to increased business growth.
These increases are problematic as Fiat has an internal target that will see emissions increase (Fiat, 2014b).
General
Motors
General Motors has seen increases in its upstream transportation emissions and its spend on business travel due to increased business
growth. These increases are problematic as General Motors has an internal target that will see emissions increase (General Motors,
2014).
Jaguar
Emissions caused by upstream and downstream transportation and distribution increased in 2010-14. These increases are problematic
as Jaguar has an internal target that will see emissions increase (Jaguar, 2014a).
KAO
KAO's (2013) Scope 3 emissions for purchased goods & services increased by 10% between 2013 and 2014 due to growth. This figure
dwarves the targeted reduction of 11,725 metric tonnes for scope one and two emissions that KAO is trying to reduce between 1990
and 2020 (KAO, 2014).
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Nestlé
From 2013 to 2014, the increase in emissions from the purchased goods and services category of scope 3 emissions (6,604,811 metric
tonnes) dwarves that of the decrease in scope one and two emissions (156,143 metric tonnes) (Nestlé, 2014).
Pirelli
Scope 3 emissions in the purchased goods and services category of scope three emissions increased 200,000 between 2013 and 2014
(Pirelli, 2014).
S.C.
Johnson
S.C. Johnson's (2013) Scope 3 emissions for purchased goods & services increased by 15% between 2013 and 2014 resulting in an
increase in emissions of 24, 983 metric tonnes. This dwarves the targeted reduction of 9604 metric tonnes for scope one and two
emissions between 2010 and 2016.
Taisei
Corporation
In the period 2010-14, increased emissions from purchased goods and services were greater than the emissions reduced through their
internal strategy (Taisei Corporation, 2014).
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As can be seen from the table, 10 members have seen growth in external supply chain
emissions that is greater than the emissions they have reduced within their own internal
supply chain. This effect is most pronounced in the case of KAO. While the Japanese
corporation is working to reduce emissions within its internal operations by 11,725mt CO2e
by 2020, it has disclosed supply chain emissions increases of 228964mt - almost twenty times
higher (KAO, 2014).
If we combine those members who plan to increase their emissions with those that are seeing
their emissions driven up by growth, then a sizeable minority of members are struggling with
the problem of growth. However, despite the potentially problematic relationship between
business growth and sustainability, it is not constructed as a significant problem by members
or CDP. The principal justification for failing to reduce supply chain emissions is based on
the concept of decoupling in which the link between business growth and emissions growth is
to be broken. The logic is that emissions would have been even higher had the member in
question not engaged in SSCM. This is what Accenture (2014a) call ‘progress’ in the
quotation below:
‘‘While we acknowledge the challenges associated with reducing our gross carbon emissions
at a time of growth, we believe we have made important progress.’’
In the case of Accenture however, progress constitutes an increase of absolute emissions of
20% in the period 2007 to 2015. While it may be true that emissions may have been higher
without decoupling, the argument once again appears to be based on a confusion between
reducing unsustainability, i.e. relative improvements, and achieving sustainability, i.e.
absolute improvements. For decoupling to be used meaningfully as a concept it needs to
mean environmentally effective action, i.e. absolute reductions in emissions that are
commensurate with the targets set by the international scientific community.
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4.2.7 Environmental Performance of Members’ Climate Change Mitigation Strategies
In this section, we consider the extent to which the environment can be said to ‘win’ from the
climate change mitigation strategies presented in section 5.2 above. So far we have looked at
the individual forces affecting the development of climate change mitigation strategies
separately. In this section, the analysis of the separate forces is synthesized to understand the
effectiveness of the program. The supply chain strategies are evaluated using the criterion of
environmentally effective performance.
One of the most surprising findings of this study is that a sizable minority of members are
seeing their supply chains become more unsustainable. While a cynical reader might well
have expected the sustainability strategies of members to be focussed on reducing
unsustainability, I would be surprised if any reader would have been cynical enough to
imagine that the environmental impacts of their supply chains would actually be increasing.
Based on the performance of members against the criterion of environmental effectiveness,
members have been classified as either having ‘Less Unsustainable’ or ‘More Unsustainable’
supply chains. Table 12 presents the classification of members.
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Table 12. Classification of Members based on the environmental effectiveness of their SSCM strategies
Classification Members
Supply chain targets Growth > Emissions Reductions
Internal
Alignment of
Internal & External
targets
Business Supply Chain
Less
Unsustainable
Supply Chain
Effective targets +
unaligned supply chain
39, 58 Effective No No No
Effective targets +
unaligned supply chain vs.
supply chain growth
12, 29, 41 Effective No No Yes
Effective targets +
unaligned supply chain vs.
business growth
20 Effective No Yes No
Symbolic targets = less
unsustainable supply chain
4, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15,
16, 21, 24, 27, 31,
32, 35, 36, 40, 45,
Symbolic Yes No No
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46, 49, 51, 56
Symbolic targets vs. supply
chain growth
14, 19, 38 Symbolic Yes No Yes
6, 22, 23, 30, 34,
44, 53
Symbolic Yes No Yes
17, 57 Symbolic No No Yes
More
Unsustainable
Supply Chain
Symbolic targets vs. supply
chain growth
43, 50, 54, Symbolic Yes No Yes
37, 52 Symbolic No external targets No Yes
Symbolic targets vs.
business growth + supply
chain growth
7 Symbolic Yes Yes Yes
Unsustainable targets =
Unsustainable supply
chain
2 Unsustainable Yes Yes Yes
2, 5, 55 Unsustainable Yes Yes No
1, 8, 26 Unsustainable No external targets Yes No
Unsustainable targets +
supply chain growth
25, 28, 33, 47 Unsustainable No external targets Yes Yes
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4.2.7.1 ‘Less unsustainable supply chains’. Encouragingly, this is the largest of the two
main groups with 41 members. Members in this group are reducing the environmental impact
of their supply chains but are unable to make their supply chains environmentally sustainable.
There are two principal reasons for why members are struggling to make their supply chains
sustainable. One reason is the lack of alignment between internal and external supply chain
strategies. None of the members with environmentally effective internal strategies have
commensurate external supply chain strategies. For some members this simply means that the
supply chain either lags behind their own strategies (e.g. Walmart), while for other members,
emissions increases in the supply chain have a drag effect upon overall supply chain
emissions (e.g. Goldman Sachs).
The second reason is that many members in this group have adopted symbolic climate change
mitigation strategies and are thus limited to symbolic outcomes. Members with symbolic
climate change mitigation strategies were found to have either less unsustainable supply
chains or more unsustainable supply chains. Those members with symbolic strategies and
less unsustainable supply chains have either not had a problem with growth or the growth that
they have experienced has not resulted in an increase of overall supply chain emissions.
Nevertheless, many of these members’ climate change mitigation strategies are vulnerable to
increases in emissions caused by growth as their targets are often very low.
4.2.7.2 ‘More unsustainable supply chains’
While members with more unsustainable supply chains constitute the smallest of the two
main groups, they account for just over a quarter of the program’s members. The main reason
for this is that all of the members within this group are struggling with the problem of growth.
For some members growth in material and energy throughput undermines their symbolic
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strategies (e.g. BMW), while for others it is consistent with their strategies, which were based
on the assumption that absolute emissions would rise (e.g. Ford).
Worryingly, many members with unsustainable supply chains present themselves as being
committed to sustainability. It is beyond the scope of this study to determine whether the
contradiction between their ‘sustainability’ strategies and their public commitments to
sustainability is evidence of greenwashing, or whether they are simply engaging in act of
‘double think’, but the results of this contradiction for the environment are unambiguously
and entirely negative. These contradictions will need to be resolved before these members,
and those corporations like them, can make a meaningful contribution towards sustainability.
4.2.8 Going Forwards: Towards an environmentally effective SSCM strategy
It is not my intention to be dismissive of the corporate sustainability strategies studied as part
of the case. There is clearly much potential within the program. One of the tasks of the
engaged scholar is to identify potentialities as well as obstacles (Spicer et al., 2009). Clearly,
there are many practices that members are engaging in that could form the basis of an
environmentally effective SSCM strategy. So far, we have only seen glimpses of these
strategies but in this section I synthesize these potentialities in order to develop an idea of
what an environmentally effective SSCM strategy might look like. Figure 12 below
represents an environmentally effective SSCM strategy that has been constructed from
practices observed within the case study.
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Figure 12. An environmentally effective SSCM strategy
The strategy presented above is based on effective practices that have been observed within
the case study. What is not clear at this stage is whether the strategy is achievable within the
win-win framing of the business case for sustainability, which is a question that will be
considered in the discussion.
The strategy has four elements that are marked on the figure 1 to 4. These will be looked at in
turn. First, corporations should adopt environmentally effective targets. Members should
follow the examples of BT and Dell and make the scientific discourse the explicit reference
point for their strategies. Second, corporations should base their strategies on a combination
of substitution and efficiency. Walmart is an exemplar in this respect as they have a 100%
renewable energy target. Third, substitution should be given priority over efficiency
strategies as it is the most effective means to reduce emissions. Efficiency strategies should
be deployed to reduce the costs of substitution, i.e. by allowing the member to use less
renewable energy. This is especially important when renewable energy has to be bought from
the grid. Fourth, the focus of supplier engagement should be how to transition the supply
chain towards renewable energy. BT and Walmart are exemplary in this respect. BT engages
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suppliers to adopt renewable energy, while Walmart collaborate with suppliers in order to get
access to renewable energy and save money.
4.3 A reflection on the fruitfulness of the concept of ‘Environmental Effectiveness’
In this section, I will consider the fruitfulness of the concept of ‘environmental effectiveness’
for both SSCM theorists and practitioners. Within the case study, one of the most significant
findings was that there was a discord between, on the one hand, the discourse of the program
and the rhetoric of its members, and the environmental performance of members’ strategies.
The concept of environmental effectiveness was useful in highlighting this problem.
It is axiomatic within the discourse of corporate sustainability that corporate activity can be
scaled back to a level that is within the carrying capacity of the planet (DeSimone and
Popoff, 1997; Elkington, 1998; Hart, 2005; Lovins and Cohen, 2011; Schmidheiny, 1992).
Through using the concept of environmental effectiveness, this research has considered the
extent to which this is actually happening and thus represents a significant departure from the
extant SSCM literature.
The concept of environmental effectiveness has facilitated the further problematization of the
assumptions underpinning extant SSCM theory. By using the concept of environmental
effectiveness and operationalizing it through non-perceptual measures, the case study has
produced very different findings to those studies that have used perceptual measures. This
may be related to the gap that was observed in the case study between discourse and
performance. Many members were found to present unsustainable SSCM strategies in the
language of sustainability. The use of perceptual data is not well suited to distinguishing
between discourse and performance however. This may have resulted in SSCM research
being based on discourse rather than ‘fact’. This raises the possibility that SSCM has
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constructed an unrealistic picture of what SSCM strategies are achieving in the ‘real’ world.
Consequently, we may need to re-think our theories of SSCM.
The adoption of the concept of environmentally effective performance may require that
SSCM researchers need to go ‘‘back to basics’’, as I have had to do in this thesis. In the case
study, the same practices that were presented as best practice within the extant literature were
found wanting in terms of their environmental performance. It is likely that the adoption of a
reflective approach to SSCM research and the use of non-perceptual measures by the wider
SSCM community will result in an entirely different perspective on SSCM practices to that
presented within the extant literature.
After conducting the case study, I believe that the concept of environmental effectiveness has
shown itself to be a fruitful concept as it has the potential to change our perspective on the
real-world potential for SSCM. But it needs to be acknowledged that environmental
effectiveness, like the concept of sustainability from which it is derived, is an essentially
contested concept. Consequently, the question of what constitutes environmentally effective
performance will be contested, depending on the paradigmatic assumptions of the researcher
and their construction of the broader concept of sustainability. Once again, reflective
researchers will need to be sensitive to, and engage with, other constructions of sustainability.
The concept of environmental effectiveness has proven to be useful for conducting reflective
research. It has revealed that there is an anomaly within both the theory and practice of
SSCM, whereby SSCM theory has not been able to reflect upon the contribution of SSCM
towards environmental sustainability and SSCM practice does not appear to be delivering
environmentally effective outcomes. The concept of environmental effectiveness is only able
to reveal the anomaly however and not what it means. In order to understand what the
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anomaly means, it will be interpreted in the next chapter using the sustainability paradigms
framework (Matthews et al., 2016) presented in the literature review.
4.4 Conclusion
This research takes the form of a positive critique, the purpose of which is to evaluate the
feasibility of the strategies being analysed (Fairclough, 2010; Spicer et al., 2009). The SSCM
strategies analysed within the case study can be considered feasible in the sense that they can
be and are being implemented. Their feasibility is less certain in terms of effecting a
transition to a low-carbon economy however. A notable feature of the case study is that the
latter does not appear to be recognized.
The discourse of corporate climate change mitigation appears to have had little effect on
changing the supply management strategies and practices of its member organisations. The
vast majority of targets being pursued by program members are symbolic. To categorize these
targets as symbolic however is not to be dismissive of them. It is only intended to show their
limitations. These targets may be important discursively. For example, many stakeholders
still dispute the science of climate change. For such people, seeing large corporations set
climate change mitigation targets lends credibility to the idea that climate change is ‘real’.
Indeed, this may be why four members from the US are motivated to say as much in their
disclosures. Whilst the resulting targets may not be environmentally effective, we should be
open to the possibility that they may have important symbolic consequences.
Supplier engagement is a major theme within the discourse of the supply chain program
(CDP, 2014d). Indeed, members are engaged in a plethora of diverse activities to engage their
suppliers on the issue of climate change. The problem is that there is little evidence to suggest
that these engagement activities have resulted in environmentally effective results, or that
they are likely to in the future. Too few members are able to report active emissions
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reductions initiatives carried out with suppliers or able to quantify the extent of the emissions
reductions achieved.
Only a few members were found to have emissions reductions targets for their external
supply chains. It is therefore not surprising that engagement with suppliers has yet to yield
significant reductions in emissions. This is not to say that engagement has not yielded results.
Members are encouraging their suppliers to produce GHG inventories and disclose details of
their climate change mitigation strategies. Potentially, this could lead to suppliers developing
environmentally effective strategies. As of yet however, this potential is yet to be realized.
It is axiomatic within the corporate sustainability literature that environmental impact can be
reduced within a win-win solution space. The findings suggest however that members are
struggling to find such opportunities. If the findings of the case study are generalizable
beyond the CDP Supply Chain Program, it would represent a significant challenge to the
central tenets of the discourse of eco-efficiency and extant theories of SSCM.
It may be the case that we need to fundamentally re-evaluate our theories of SSCM. It may
well be the case that the opportunities to reduce the environmental impacts of supply chains
are more limited than has been assumed within the CDP Supply Chain Program and the
extant literature on SSCM. It would appear that supply chains may be more difficult to shift
from their environmentally unsustainable ways than has previously been recognized within
the SSCM literature. If this is the case, we will need to rethink the extent to which SSCM
strategies are able to improve the environmental performance of the supply chain. This will
be difficult for a field whose raison d’être is demonstrating the strategic importance of SCM
(Cousins, 2008). This does not mean that SSCM is redundant however. It may simply mean
that SSCM researchers and theorists will need to play a different role, one that is more
engaged and more critical. These themes will be discussed in the next chapter.
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CHAPTER FIVE. DISCUSSION
The case study presented in the previous chapter considered the extent to which the
environment can be said to ‘win’ from SSCM strategies focussed on the problem of climate
change mitigation. Whether SSCM scholars adopt a weak or a strong perspective on
environmental sustainability, it appears to be the case that the environment continues to lose,
despite the adoption of a plethora of SSCM strategies by corporations. It is therefore hard to
avoid the conclusion that the case study has further problematized the assumption ground
upon which SSCM scholarship has been constructed.
In this chapter, I will discuss what the findings mean for both the theory and practice of
SSCM. Specifically, the discussion will consider the extent to which the findings support or
challenge the extant literatures on corporate sustainability and SSCM. The discussion will be
organized around the sustainability paradigms framework (Matthews et al., 2016) presented
in the literature review chapter. In effect, this means that there are four discussions. While
this is unusual, there are three reasons for organizing the discussion in this way. First, it is
consistent with the central argument of the thesis, which is that sustainability is an essentially
contested concept (Ehrenfeld, 2008; Matthews et al., 2016). Second, it ensures that the
findings are discussed from multiple perspectives. Third, as different aspects of the findings
will appear more salient depending upon the paradigm from which they are being interpreted,
the use of multiple paradigms to discuss the findings will ensure that all aspects of the
findings are discussed within this chapter.
The chapter is structured as follows. In the first section, there is a non-paradigmatic
discussion of the findings. In the second section, the findings are discussed in relation to the
four paradigms. Finally, conclusions are drawn.
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5.1 Alternative explanations for the findings: a non-paradigmatic discussion of the
findings
Before discussing the findings from the perspective of the different paradigms of
sustainability, I will first discuss alternative explanations for the findings from a non-
paradigmatic perspective. This discussion concerns whether the anomaly is the product of
poor case selection. There are two possible issues with the case selected for the study. First,
the corporations participating within the CDP Supply Chain Program may not actually be
exemplars in terms of SSCM. If this were the case, it would certainly help explain the
divergence between the SSCM literature and the performance of the program members
observed within the study. The question would then be whether they are typical of other
corporations or poor performing outliers. That these corporations would be outliers seems to
be unlikely however. By the criteria used within the SSCM literature to select exemplary
cases for study, the majority of members would qualify as being exemplary. Many have been
recognised by the media for their sustainability initiatives, and have received sustainability
awards for their achievements.8 It seems to me more likely that the members are typical of
the corporations selected by other SSCM research, but that the use of non-perceptual
measures of performance has yielded a rather different perspective on their strategies.
As was shown in the literature review, SSCM research has typically relied upon perceptual
measures of environmental sustainability performance. This may have created an unrealistic
impression of what has been achieved. This may suggest that the measures need to be
improved considerably and that researchers should make a greater effort to use ‘objective’
data to complement the subjective data acquired through surveys and cases.
8 This is the criteria that Pagell and Wu (2009) use to select exemplars in their SSCM study.
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The second possible issue is that the study was wrong to look for exemplary responses to the
problem of climate change amongst multinational corporations (MNCs), especially those
with a shareholder ownership structure (Speth, 2008). Some would say that it was perhaps
inevitable that their performance would fall short of what is required when they are part of
the problem (Banerjee, 2012; Mander, 2012; Klein, 2014; Porritt, 2005; Speth, 2008). From
this perspective, a more logical place to have looked for sustainability exemplars would have
been among smaller scale organizations e.g. cooperatives, or organizations that do not have a
shareholder ownership structure. I have certainly become more sceptical of MNCs during the
course of this study and would certainly look elsewhere for empirical material in the future.
However, the discourse of corporate sustainability in general and that of SSCM in particular
are constructed on the assumption that large MNCs can make the transition towards
sustainability. It was therefore useful to ‘test’ this assumption.
5.2 How environmentally sustainable are sustainable supply chain management
strategies? A paradigmatic discussion of the findings
The thesis is organized around the concept of environmental effectiveness, which I believe
the case study has shown to be a fruitful concept for the study of SSCM. It has presented a
number of problems for the thesis however. The SSCM strategies studied as part of the case
study were not found to be environmentally effective. Instead, there were a wide variety of
symbolic strategies and some unsustainable strategies. Symbolic strategies either combined
environmentally effective strategies for the internal supply chain with symbolic strategies for
the external supply chain or had symbolic strategies for both the internal and external supply
chains. Unsustainable strategies were either intentionally unsustainable or were the result of
symbolic strategies being undermined by business growth. While the above findings may
meet Davis’ (1971) criterion for ‘interesting’ research, i.e. SSCM strategies were believed to
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lead to supply chains becoming more environmentally sustainable but were found not to, they
were not what I expected to find when I started this project. The findings are difficult to make
sense of. The use of multiple paradigms to interpret the findings will hopefully do them
justice and make sense of their multiple meanings.
5.2.1 A ‘Utilitarian’ discussion of the findings
This is the paradigm within which I was working when I started this thesis. As I read the
broader sustainability literature and engaged with the empirical material I came to question
many of the assumptions within this paradigm. When I later mention the ‘dissonance’ that the
findings might cause for an SSCM scholar working within the Utilitarian paradigm, I am
reflecting upon my own experiences. This feeling of discomfort was felt in a number of
different ways. Initially, I struggled to understand why the members in the CDP Supply
Chain Program were not taking the ample win-win opportunities that I believed to exist.
Later, I found myself struggling to communicate my findings to other scholars in the SSCM
field. Often, I felt that we were talking at cross purposes and the feeling was of going round
in circles. The dissonance was only dispelled when I recognized that there were other
paradigms for thinking about corporate sustainability in general and SSCM in particular.
The journey I have made while writing this thesis is a personal one and is not intended as a
rejection of the utilitarian paradigm. Indeed, this thesis does not consider that such a rejection
is possible as sustainability is an essentially contested concept (Ehrenfeld, 2008; Matthews et
al., 2016). In the discussion that follows I have done my best to remain as objective as I can
concerning the possibility for theory development within the utilitarian paradigm. However,
based on my initial experience of trying to interpret the findings using the concept of eco-
efficiency, I believe the findings are more problematic for this paradigm than for the other
three.
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Those working in the utilitarian paradigm believe that sustainability is broadly consistent
with the current political economy and construct corporations and markets as effective
mechanisms for the organization of environmentally sustainable production (Hart, 1995;
Schmidheiny, 1992). The findings will be discussed with reference to three theories within
this paradigm, SSCM, Environmental Economics, and what has become known as the ‘Porter
Hypothesis’ (Porter and van der Linde, 1995).
The findings provide mixed support for the belief that corporations can take a leadership
position on sustainability. On the one hand, progress is being made. Many of the case study
corporations are able to reduce the environmental impacts of their internal supply chain and
are engaging with their suppliers to do the same. Unfortunately, few members were found to
be achieving anything like factor five increases in resource productivity in the area of climate
change mitigation. While the majority of members were able to increase resource
productivity at a higher rate than the growth that their supply chains as a whole experienced,
none of the corporations within the case study had a supply chain that appeared to be on a
long-term sustainable trajectory. Indeed, the majority of corporations within the case study
were achieving emissions reductions despite their external supply chains, where it was more
common to see energy and material throughput actually increase rather than decrease.
The inability of the corporations included in the case study to produce the required increases
in resource productivity presents a number of difficulties for scholarship in the fields of OM
and SCM. First, it questions a central axiom of much OM and SCM theory, which is that
practitioners are able to drive significant efficiency increases through process improvement
(Reid and Sanders, 2013; Slack et al., 2007). Indeed, as a former operations manager myself,
the questioning of this assumption caused me a great deal of dissonance. While corporations
are undoubtedly able to reduce the relative environmental impact of their products and
services through efficiency orientated initiatives such as Total Quality Environmental
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Management (Hart, 1995; Sarkis, 1998), the findings suggest that achieving efficiencies of
the required scale may be difficult. Further, the findings showed that many members were
finding that business growth was a barrier to the successful implementation of their efficiency
orientated SSCM strategies. In many cases business growth acted as a drag on increases in
efficiency and in some cases even outpaced efficiency gains all together.
The second conceptual difficulty for SCM theorists is that there is little evidence to show that
supply chains are adapting in response to the challenge of climate change. Indeed, the overall
contribution of suppliers towards emissions reductions appears to be minimal. This calls into
question the optimistic assumption underpinning SSCM that supply chains are becoming
more sustainable and that SCM can make a significant contribution to the transition towards
sustainability. This is clearly not for the want of trying as members are engaged in a plethora
of supplier engagement practices, although these were mostly limited to environmental
monitoring, which reflect the practices described in the SSCM literature (Green Jr. et al.,
2012a; Large and Thomsen, 2011; Pagell et al., 2004; Rao, 2002; Zhu et al., 2007). The
findings concerning the lack of buyer-supplier collaboration represent a surprising finding in
relation to the SSCM literature. Buyer-supplier collaboration is an important strategy
identified within the SSCM literature (Touboulic et al, 2014; Vachon and Klassen, 2008) and
its virtual absence as a strategy for climate change mitigation represents a significant
anomaly.
Worryingly, and contrary to the assumptions underpinning the business case for
sustainability, the SSCM strategies adopted by the corporations within the case study do not
appear to be resulting in anything like the reductions in supply chain emissions that are
needed. Within the case study, Walmart was able to achieve the largest reductions in supply
chain emissions but was only able to reduce emissions by 5%. As few corporations have the
power over their suppliers that Walmart is (in)famous for having, it is not clear whether such
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a reduction in emissions can be achieved by the majority of corporations.
The findings suggest that the case study corporations are struggling to identify opportunities
to reduce the environmental impacts of their external supply chains, despite the belief that
such opportunities represent an opportunity for both buying corporations and their suppliers
to reduce costs (CDP, 2012d; Trucost, 2012; WRI/WBCSD, 2007). Consequently, SSCM
scholars may need to recognize that the opportunities to reduce the environmental impacts of
supply chains may be more limited or less attractive than has been assumed to date within the
extant SSCM literature. If this is the case, we may need to rethink the extent to which SSCM
strategies are able to improve the environmental performance of the supply chain. This will
be difficult for a field that has sought to demonstrate the strategic importance of supply chain
management, i.e. how those involved in supply chain management activities can contribute
towards the overall strategy of the corporation (Carr and Smeltzer, 1997). This scepticism
does not mean that SSCM is redundant however. But it may mean that SSCM scholars may
need to re-evaluate what is possible at the level of the supply chain. This may require that
SSCM scholars critically re-evaluate some of our assumptions, as I have had to do as part of
this project.
The findings appear to offer little support for the concept of eco-efficiency but it could be the
case that the problem with the CDP Supply Chain Program is not that it is too firmly
embedded within the discourse of eco-efficiency but that it is too little embedded within it.
While working on this thesis, I have come to see the discourse of eco-efficiency as consisting
of two positions, weak and strong eco-efficiency. The weak position is simply concerned
with ‘doing more with less’, whilst the strong position seeks to achieve factor five (von
Weizsӓcker et al., 2009) or even factor ten increases (Elkington, 1998) in resource
productivity. The problem with the CDP Supply Chain Program would then be that too many
members appear to equate weak eco-efficiency with environmental sustainability.
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The problem would then be how to help members, and corporations like them, adopt the
position of strong eco-efficiency. Walmart is an exemplar in terms of its climate change
mitigation strategy for its internal supply chain, which is based on a win-win logic that is
consistent with the principle of strong eco-efficiency. The differentiating factor between
Walmart and the other members appears to be that they have a win-win framing is that
Walmart has a long-term orientation towards climate change mitigation. Consequently, it is
able to make the investments required in order to reduce emissions to a level that is
commensurate with the scientific discourse, while improving the economic bottom line.
While Walmart’s long-term orientation can be considered exemplary from the perspective of
eco-efficiency, it is not clear how corporations can be encouraged to adopt a similarly long-
term orientation towards environmental sustainability challenges such as climate change
mitigation. The SSCM literature and the concept of eco-efficiency offer little insight into how
this can be done. The inability of the majority of case study corporations to take a long-term
orientation towards sustainability issues problematizes a central tenet of the discourse of
corporate sustainability, and the broader discourse of ecological modernization of which it is
a part, which is that the corporate contribution towards sustainability should be voluntary
(e.g. Schmidheiny, 1992 and WRI, 1998). It is believed that if such action is voluntary,
corporations will find the most cost-effective means to become more sustainable (Ibid). But if
corporations are unable to see the advantages of adopting a long-term orientation towards
sustainability issues, then stronger regulation may be required. If the opportunities are indeed
there, such regulation will potentially be welcomed by other stakeholders, e.g. shareholders.
The findings offer little support for the claim that voluntary action by corporations will drive
action on environmental issues to the scale that is required. Consequently, it may well be the
case that stronger regulations are required. SSCM lacks the conceptual resources for thinking
about regulation however. While SSCM has included regulation as a variable within its
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‘empirical’ models (e.g. Zhu et al., 2013), these analyses have been descriptive rather than
normative. Further, the study of regulations has rarely focused on a specific set of regulations
but has instead grouped all regulations into a broad construct such as ‘environmental
regulation’ (Zhu et al., 2013).
A useful lens for exploring regulation within the utilitarian paradigm is provided by
‘environmental economics’, which is primarily concerned with market inefficiencies in
relation to the pricing of environmental ‘goods’ (Ekins, 2000). Given that SCM is concerned
with how to best use supply markets (Kraljic, 1983), environmental economics has much to
offer. There is a belief that markets are skewed in favor of fossil fuels, rather than renewable
energy. Many believe that the most effective mechanism to reduce carbon emissions would
be the adoption of a carbon tax (Stern, 2010). The adoption of such a tax is advocated by
many corporations, including, as can be seen from the quotation below, The Coca-Cola
Company, a member of the Supply Chain Program.
‘‘We believe that government, business and civil society must work together to reduce
global emissions of greenhouse gases. Building a low-carbon economy will require
climate governance that is inclusive, fair, and effective. We must make the markets
work for climate protection, which means legislative and fiscal frameworks must create
a stable price for carbon.’’ (Coca-Cola, 2013)
While the above ideas may appear too ‘statist’ for some readers’ tastes, it has been
hypothesized by Porter and van der Linde (1995) that strong environment regulations could
potentially act as a spur for corporations to innovate and thus become more competitive.
However, the findings do appear to suggest that such a tax would likely result in a significant
increase in supply chain costs for the majority of the case study corporations, at least in the
short-term.
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As the findings appear to be most problematic for utilitarian theories of SSCM, it is worth
reflecting here upon the extent to which the findings concerning climate change mitigation
can be generalized to other sustainability challenges. The hypothesis would then be that
climate change is unlike other environmental problems and poses unique challenges for
corporations. If this is the case, then the findings cannot be generalized to other sustainability
challenges. This would mean that the findings are less problematic for extant theories of
SSCM and we only have to account for why it is that climate change represents an anomaly.
I can find scant support for the hypothesis that climate change represents a unique
sustainability challenge for corporations within the literature on corporate sustainability. It
has been suggested that weak sustainability may be the better approach to source problems
and strong sustainability to sink problems (Neumayer, 2003), which would mean that eco-
efficiency is best suited for finding substitutes for scarce natural resources than for reducing
pollution. If this is indeed the case, less progress is to be expected concerning climate change
mitigation strategies at the level of the supply chain.
A different explanation is provided by von Weizsӓcker et al (1998) who have suggested that
there may be fewer opportunities for radical increases in resource productivity in the area of
energy use than in the area of material use. The hypothesis that energy throughput cannot be
significantly reduced through increases in resource productivity may be supported by the
adoption of win-lose substitution strategies by some members. From an eco-efficiency
perspective, it makes little sense for corporations to eschew the ‘‘no regrets’’ strategy of
efficiency (von Weizsӓcker et al., 1998), unless those opportunities are less ample than
imagined.
Whether climate change mitigation represents a typical or a unique sustainability challenge
for instrumental SSCM strategies cannot be determined here and will require more empirical
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work. Nevertheless, it is worth bearing in mind that there is a possibility that the findings may
not be generalizable to other sustainability challenges and that eco-efficiency strategies may
be more environmentally effective in relation to other sustainability challenges.
To conclude, perhaps the most significant implication is that SSCM will need to be more
cautious in its claims concerning the ability of SSCM strategies to deliver improved
environmental performance. For example, we may need to recognize that, at present, SSCM
may not be capable of delivering the radical increases in resource productivity advocated by
utilitarian theories of corporate sustainability, or that the increases are happening too slowly –
at least in the case of climate change mitigation.
5.2.2 A ‘Constructionist’ discussion of the findings
The ‘constructionist’ paradigm has a weak perspective on sustainability and an ‘agency
perspective’ towards the question of change (Matthews et al., 2016). The primary concern of
a theory of corporate sustainability within this paradigm is how stakeholders make sense of
sustainability challenges. The framing effects observed within the case study will likely
appear to be the most salient aspects of the case from a constructionist perspective. The
exemplary theories within this paradigm have sought to explore the tensions within the
business case for sustainability (Hahn et al., 2010; Hahn et al., 2014a) using sensemaking and
paradoxical framing as theoretical lenses (Hahn et al., 2014b). The case study findings can be
interpreted as providing support for the idea that there are tensions within the business case
for sustainability, particularly between short-term and long-term pressures.
A constructionist interpretation of the findings appears to offer greater potential for
explaining the findings than utilitarian theories as scholarship in this paradigm is more open
to the possibility that the limited environmental effectiveness of SSCM strategies may be the
result of framing effects. There were a number of framing issues that were identified within
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the findings. These were related to the construction of the scale and scope of action required
to mitigate climate change within corporate supply chains.
From a constructionist perspective, it may be the case that the opportunities for radically
increasing resource productivity are there, but that the case study corporations are framing the
problem in such a way that they are not able to take advantage of them. As Hart and Dowell
(2011) argue, opportunities for win-win outcomes will not be exploited by corporations if
they are not framed as such. If this is the case, and the discourse of ecological modernization
is correct concerning the extent of the win-win opportunities to increase resource
productivity, then the SSCM strategies are not only failing in terms of environmental
effectiveness but are also leading corporations to miss out on opportunities to improve their
economic bottom lines.
Hahn et al (2014b) argue that the dominant framing effects within corporate sustainability
will be instrumental and paradoxical framing and that, as a result, corporate sustainability
strategies are more likely to be ‘pragmatic’ or ‘prudent’ than radical. The frames adopted by
the majority of the case study corporations appear to conform to Hahn et al’s (2014b)
concepts of instrumental and paradoxical framing. The majority of case study corporations
adopted pragmatic SSCM strategies based on an instrumental framing. They required their
climate change mitigation strategies to pay back in conventional economic terms and adopted
efficiency orientated strategies for their external supply chains that were expected to deliver
cost savings.
In the majority of cases, prudence and pragmatism have led to the development of strategies
that are either internally effective but externally symbolic or strategies that are aligned but
symbolic. CDP is clear that members are supposed to set ‘‘challenging targets across the
external supply chain’’ (CDP, 2011d: p. iv), but only 13 of the 58 members were found to
have accountable targets for their external supply chains and none of these targets were
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environmentally effective targets that extended to the whole supply chain. A total of 32
members with an extended supply chain orientation were found to encourage their suppliers
to adopt emissions reductions targets as part of their climate change mitigation strategies.
There is a lack of transparency concerning these targets however and there is insufficient data
disclosed to determine whether the targets can be classified as effective or symbolic. Indeed,
only one member in this group, explicitly states that their preference is for suppliers to adopt
targets based on absolute emissions reductions (Deutsche Telekom, 2014). Often, the activity
of unaccountable target setting appears to be a numbers game and it is not clear whether these
targets are science based targets, i.e. commensurate with climate science, or even whether
they are relative or absolute targets. Given the lack of science based targets used by members
for their own emissions that we saw previously, it seems unlikely that the targets for suppliers
will be science based.
While the results of the instrumental strategies adopted by case study corporations were often
poor, instrumental strategies do not necessarily present a problem however. One member
with an instrumental approach to sustainability stands out. Walmart is clear that sustainability
initiatives must meet the same financial criteria as any other project, which has led them to
adopt a ‘pragmatic’ approach. However, because Walmart has a long history of working with
suppliers to deliver cost savings, their strategy is one of the most environmentally effective
within the case study. This suggests that pragmatism is not necessarily a problem, provided
that the corporation has developed relevant resources and capabilities through its previous
supply chain management routines.
Other corporations within the case study were less consistent in their framing, with many
case study corporations combining the different frames. Some members appeared to have
paradoxical framing for their internal supply chain strategies and instrumental framing for
their external supply chains. These members often accepted that the sustainability strategies
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for their internal supply chains would not pay back in conventional economic terms but
expected the sustainability strategies for their external supply chains to deliver economic
benefits, typically cost savings. This combination of frames may explain why those members
with environmentally effective strategies for their internal supply chains have achieved so
little in terms of emissions reductions within the external supply chain.
Given the framing effects described above, it is not surprising that all of the SSCM strategies
within the case study were symbolic, i.e. the strategies were aiming to reduce unsustainability
within the supply chain. The use of the term symbolic is not intended to be dismissive
however. It is merely intended to show the limitations of such actions in terms of their
environmental effectiveness. Symbolic strategies can serve important ends, such as raising
awareness of climate change among suppliers. It was intended that the concept of symbolism
would complement the concept of environmental effectiveness. Rather than simply dismiss
all that is not environmental effective, the concept of symbolism represents an attempt to
remain open to the potentially positive contributions of those strategies that might not
necessarily be environmentally effective.
Bowen (2014) argues, symbolic strategies should not simply be dismissed and may lead to
more significant actions later. It could be the case that the development of symbolic strategies
is a necessary stage to go through in the evolution of corporate sustainability strategies. There
are certainly trends within the data that suggest that the strategies being deployed by program
members are evolving. As time passes, some members are adopting more ambitious
emissions reductions targets and there is a noticeable increase in the number of members that
are adopting renewable energy to power their operations.
Symbolic strategies can become effective strategies through interaction with stakeholders.
The introduction of a symbolic strategy can raise stakeholder expectations, which leads to
more pressure being put on the corporation. This can form a virtuous circle of action and
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pressure that may result in more effective strategies (Bowen, 2014). The findings do appear
to offer some support for this claim. For example, stakeholders do appear to be putting
pressure on corporations to adopt SSCM strategies based on environmentally effective
targets. For example, in 2014, CDP launched an initiative with WWF, the WRI and the
United Nations’ Global Compact to support the adoption of scientific targets by corporations
(CDP et al., 2014). Hopefully, this will encourage more corporations to follow the example of
those members pursuing science-based targets (e.g. BT). Such initiatives lend support to the
claim that engagement with secondary stakeholders is an important aspect of SSCM (Pagell
and Wu, 2009; Montabon et al., 2016). If the assumptions underpinning the business case for
sustainability are correct, the higher targets required by the scientific discourse would
potentially lead to the identification of greater opportunities to improve the economic bottom
line of the supply chain.
Symbolic strategies may also be important discursively. For example, many stakeholders still
dispute the science of climate change. For such people, seeing large corporations set climate
change mitigation targets lends credibility to the idea that climate change is ‘real’. Indeed,
this may be why some members from the US are motivated to say as much in their
disclosures. Whilst the resulting SSCM strategies may not be environmentally effective, we
should be open to the possibility that they may have important symbolic consequences.
The findings appear to be consistent with constructionist theories of corporate sustainability.
They can therefore be seen as offering support for these theories and suggest that these
theories have significant explanatory powers. The findings appear less anomalous for the
constructionist paradigm than for the utilitarian paradigm, despite both being weak
sustainability paradigms. But while constructionist theories offer explanatory power, it is less
clear what form a constructionist solution would take. The findings suggest that corporations
will need to construct sustainability differently but it is not clear how this will happen,
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besides hoping that symbolic strategies will eventually lead to the adoption of
environmentally effective strategies through raising stakeholder expectations (Bowen, 2014).
One possibility, although admittedly a small scale one, is for SSCM scholars to carry out
‘engaged scholarship’ and work with corporations to develop environmentally effective
strategies.
5.2.3 A ‘Systemic’ discussion of the findings
To discuss the findings from the perspective of the systemic paradigm, we need to take a
‘system-level perspective’ towards sustainability (Matthews et al., 2016). Supply chains are
embedded within a broader political economic system, which determines the rules according
to which they operate. As the political-economic system is currently geared towards growth
in material and energy throughput (Daly, 1996), this will likely be reproduced at the level of
the supply chain. From a systemic perspective, it is therefore not surprising that many of the
case study corporations were seeing their climate change mitigation strategies undermined by
business growth and concomitant increases in emissions within the external supply chain.
The findings appear to support the idea that there is a problematic relationship between
business growth and sustainability. In one form or another, the majority of corporations
included within the case study struggled with growth in one form or another. Many saw
growth act as a drag upon the effectiveness of their climate change mitigation strategies. In
some cases, the drag effect can lead to members being unable to achieve their targets. More
worryingly, a minority of members found that growth caused their total emissions to increase
and undermined their climate change mitigation strategies (e.g. BMW). The growth affecting
these members was found to take the following, often related, forms: increased energy and
material throughput due to increased sales volumes, increased scale of operations due to
mergers and acquisitions, and increased emissions within the external supply chain.
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One of the most surprising findings of this study is that a sizable minority of members are
seeing their supply chains become more unsustainable, with some case study corporations
seeing the overall environmental impact of their supply chains increasing despite their own
sustainability strategies, due to the increased environmental impact of their external supply
chains. Indeed, one case study corporation saw increases in supply chain emissions that were
almost twenty times higher than the emissions it was aiming to reduce within its own internal
supply chain. While a cynical reader might well have expected the sustainability strategies of
members to be focussed on reducing unsustainability, I would be surprised if any reader
would have been cynical enough to imagine that the environmental impacts of their supply
chains would actually be increasing.
The findings suggest that SSCM practitioners and theorists will need to be sensitive to the
problem of growth. This raises the possibility that SSCM scholars may need to
reconceptualise the relationship between growth and sustainability. Rather than sustainability
being a driver of growth, a systemic theory of SSCM would construct growth as a potential
barrier to corporate sustainability. Constructing growth in this way creates a new and
interesting problem for SSCM scholars to work on and provides an opportunity for theory
development.
The concept of ‘complex adaptive systems’ may be a useful resource one for thinking about
the case study findings. As mentioned in the literature review, the attempts to construct a
theory of SCM have centred on the concept of ‘complex adaptive systems’ (Carter et al.,
2015; Choi et al., 2001), which is a potentially useful resource for thinking about the
relationship between the political economic level and the level of the supply chain. Complex
adaptive systems are driven by ‘rules’ (Choi et al., 2001) and we can expand this concept of
rules to include those that are determined by the broader political economic system.
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The imperative to grow may be being reproduced at the level of the supply chain, where the
rule to increase throughput may be acting as a counteracting tendency to the rule to increase
resource productivity. This construction would connect with the corporate sustainability
theorist Frankel’s (1998) claim that the complexity of industrial systems creates a tendency
towards inertia, which can hamper efforts to shift them towards a more sustainable
development path. Through the incorporation of the concept of ‘complex adaptive systems’
within a theory of SSCM, SSCM scholars could explore the tension between rules and
adaption within supply chains when the issue is sustainability. This can make a contribution
to the incipient theorization of SCM as well as to SSCM.
The findings appear to support the construction of supply chains as complex adaptive systems
that are potentially difficult to control (Carter et al., 2015). The findings suggest that it may
be significantly more difficult to implement sustainability strategies upstream and
downstream within the supply chain than within the operations of the buying corporation.
Consequently, the actions of supply chain partners will likely lag those of the buying
corporation, as was found to be happening within the case study.
Given the logic of the political economy of growth, change will be difficult, but the findings
suggest that there are possibilities for corporations that wish to pursue environmentally
effective SSCM strategies within the political-economy of growth. If we accept that supply
chains are complex adaptive systems in which the tendency to increase throughput levels
likely represents a stronger ‘rule’ than the tendency to increase resource productivity, it may
be the case that the best opportunity for buying corporations to reduce their supply chain
emissions is to reduce their demand for the products and services provided by suppliers who
are unable to reduce their emissions to the level required. As the case study showed, reducing
demand was one of the most commonly strategies used strategies to reduce the environmental
impact of the supply chain. While not ideal, it may be the only option when inertia within the
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supply chain is acting as a drag on the sustainability strategies of the buying corporation. This
is a difficult conclusion for SSCM theorists to come to as it suggests that supply chain
managers may have less of a strategic role to play when the strategic objective of corporate
sustainability.
The findings, interpreted using a systemic lens, have the potential to turn SSCM theory on its
head. Instead of constructing supply chains as being responsive to the adaptations required to
become sustainable, the findings suggest that supply chains are more likely to act as a drag on
corporate sustainability strategies. Whilst this will intuitively make sense to many readers, it
poses a conceptual challenge to the field of SCM that has long sought to establish how supply
chain management can play an important role in achieving strategic outcomes for their
corporations (Carr and Smeltzer, 1997). Instead, SSCM research will need to be more
sensitive to the difficulties these professionals face in trying to make their supply chains more
sustainable, some of which may be intractable without major political-economic reforms
based on the principles of sustainability (Daly, 1991; Speth, 2008).
In relation to the findings, a systemic interpretation appears to provide significant explanatory
power. While eco-efficiency struggles to explain how growth is to be managed, systemic
theories such as ecological economics have growth as a central variable within their models.
Despite its explanatory power, systemic theories such as ecological economics have limited
ability to explain how the issues identified within the findings are to be resolved in the
absence of major changes in the global political economy. The findings suggest that there are
some options available to environmentally responsible corporations but these seem unlikely
to reduce the environmental impact of supply chains on the scale required. Indeed, my own
concern with this approach is that through its insistence that sustainability is a system level
concept it could potentially be used to justify inaction at the level of the supply chain.
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5.2.4 A ‘Critical’ discussion of the findings
Like theories in the systemic paradigm, critical theories of sustainability adopt a strong
sustainability perspective, which is skeptical of the possibilities for delivering
environmentally effective outcomes within the business case for sustainability. Unlike
systemic theories however, theories in the critical paradigm have a bottom-up perspective of
change and are therefore interested in the question of framing. From a critical perspective, the
framing provided by the business case for sustainability acts as a considerable constraint
upon the environmental effectiveness of SSCM strategies (Banerjee, 2012). Consequently,
the adoption of the natural case for sustainability is a pre-requisite for the transition towards a
sustainable economy (Shrivastava, 1995a). The findings appear to offer support for the idea
that the business case for sustainability acts as a considerable constraint upon SSCM
strategies. However, the findings also indicate that the adoption of the natural case for
sustainability may be detrimental to their economic bottom lines.
Contrary to the win-win framing of the business case for sustainability, the findings suggest
that the adoption of science-based targets is likely to make it more difficult for corporations
to reconcile their economic and environmental bottom lines. As we have seen, many of those
members with targets commensurate with the science are finding that costs are going up
rather than down. This may require a transition from win-win framing to a framing that
accepts that there are trade-offs between the economic and environmental bottom lines
(Gladwin, 2012; Roome, 2012; Welford, 1997). The findings offer some support for
corporations accepting such trade-offs and committing themselves to initiatives that represent
wins for the environmental bottom line and losses for the economic bottom line. As we have
seen, there is a sizable minority of members however who are developing climate change
mitigation strategies that are not expected to produce cost savings. Many of these members
accept that their environmental investments will have a lower return on investment than
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conventional investments or, in some cases, members appear to accept that the investments
will never pay back.
The case study showed that there were a number of strategies that members were engaging in
that were environmentally effective but which CDP did not consider to be instances of best
practice, despite their environmental effectiveness. The most effective strategies involved the
adoption of win-lose framing and the substitution of renewable energy for fossil fuels, even
when this involved purchasing costly renewable energy from the grid. With the exception of
Walmart, those members that had environmentally effective strategies for their internal
supply chains also adopted win-lose framing. Indeed, for these corporations those initiatives
that did not pay back in conventional economic terms made substantial contributions to their
environmental performance. This appears to suggest that, contrary to the win-win discourse
of the program, the realization of environmentally effective strategies will potentially require
trade-offs between the economic and environmental dimensions of corporate
environmentalism. From the perspective of the natural case for sustainability, these strategies
make sense and it is therefore surprising that these strategies are not presented as instances of
best practice by CDP in its annual supply chain reports. Perhaps the reason is that they do not
support the win-win framing of the business case for sustainability that is central to the
discourse of the CDP Supply Chain Program.
The unwillingness of CDP to present those environmentally effective strategies that do not
conform to the win-win framing of business case as best practice is combined with an
unwillingness to reflect upon the problem of growth that is undermining the SSCM strategies
of its members. Almost half of the program’s members are struggling with the problem of
growth in one way or another, with a significant minority of members seeing the
environmental impact of their supply chains increasing. However, despite the potentially
problematic relationship between business growth and sustainability, it is not constructed as a
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significant problem by members or CDP. The inability of CDP to present an accurate picture
of what is happening within its program, i.e. by not presenting environmentally effective win-
lose strategies as best practice or by considering the difficulties its members are experiencing
with the problem of growth, is potentially constructing an unrealistic picture of what is
possible at the level of the supply chain within a win-win solution space.
In the case study, one of the central themes was the opposition between discourse and
performance. CDP itself appears to be driving this opposition by selectively presenting those
aspects of its members’ strategies that conform to the win-win discourse of eco-efficiency
and ignoring those that do not. This appears to question the claim made within the SSCM
literature that secondary stakeholders such as CDP are ‘‘knowledge suppliers’’ that provide
corporations with access to novel knowledge that can drive sustainability strategies within the
supply chain (Pagell and Wu, 2009: p. 50). While this conjecture cannot be falsified on the
basis of a single case study, the findings give us reason to be sceptical of its claim.
Montabon et al (2016) argue that secondary stakeholders can drive corporations to embrace
an ‘ecologically dominant logic’. Often however, the stakeholders that corporations engage
with share their own perspective on sustainability (Hajer, 1997; Klein, 2014), which is
typically the business case for sustainability. This can be seen in the case study, where CDP
had a tendency to structure its discourse around what is financially possible rather than what
is necessary to reduce environmental impacts to the levels required. CDP does not
consistently advocate the adoption of science-based targets and has a tendency to uncritically
accept the way in which their members present symbolic strategies as being sustainable. If
the ‘Science Based Targets’ initiative that CDP is a member of adopts a similar approach to
that of the Supply Chain Program, this will represent another missed opportunity to
encourage corporations to adopt environmentally effective strategies.
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Maybe the program would benefit from the inclusion of more radical stakeholders, such as
more ecocentric NGOs, e.g. Greenpeace, or activist climate scientists such as James Hansen.
Corporations themselves should also engage with stakeholders that are more likely to
challenge their framing of sustainability challenges, e.g. stakeholders who reject the business
case for sustainability. This does not mean that they should uncritically accept the
perspectives of these stakeholders but that they should use such engagement activities as a
means to reflect upon the environmental effectiveness of their SSCM strategies.
5.3 Conclusion
In this chapter, I have tried to present an open ended discussion that recognizes that
conceptual closure is not possible when sustainability is being addressed. This may seem like
a ‘cop out’ but this is inevitable when one is working with an essentially contested concept.
Nevertheless, this does not mean that the SSCM scholar is doomed to indecision. One can
take a position but it needs to be recognized that one’s construction of sustainability will be
one among many. Rather than refuting the other uses of sustainability, I believe that the
SSCM scholar needs to engage in continuous reflection about their own theorizing and
engage in dialogue with scholars from other paradigms.
During this research, I found that at different points all four paradigms seemed to offer a
plausible interpretation of the case study. This has made me wary of taking a definitive
position. At times I have no doubt appeared to be quite dismissive of utilitarian theories of
sustainability such as eco-efficiency and extant theories of SSCM. This was because this was
my own starting point when I started the research project. I came to see framing as the key to
making sense of the findings. Initially, I adopted a constructionist perspective and latterly a
critical perspective as I came to see the most dominant framing effect as that created by the
business case for sustainability itself. As I come to the end of the project, it seems to me that
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the systemic perspective possesses the most significant explanatory power. Nevertheless, the
critical paradigm seems to provide the greater opportunities for research and theory
development at the level of the supply chain. I realize however that critical scholarship has to
offer more than normative visions and critique. Critical SSCM scholars cannot fall into the
trap of dismissing other perspectives on sustainability. Instead, critical SSCM scholars should
join utilitarian and constructionist scholars in looking for instances of the business case for
sustainability working. For example, in the case study presented in this thesis, Walmart has
shown that win-win framing can drive significant action on climate change mitigation.
Critical SSCM scholars should also bear in mind that supply chains are embedded within a
political economy that rewards growth in material and energy throughput more than increases
in resource productivity. This will present significant difficulties for those stakeholders who
are trying to make corporate supply chains more sustainable. Critical SSCM scholars need to
be sensitive to these difficulties rather than be dismissive of the resulting SSCM strategies.
Through using the other paradigms as an external standard of criticism, critical SSCM
scholarship has the potential to avoid these pitfalls. Indeed, this was one of the reasons for
developing the sustainability paradigms framework in the first place. Dialogue and reflection
seem to me to be the best way forward for SSCM scholarship and I hope that the
sustainability paradigms framework will make a contribution towards this vision being
realized.
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CHAPTER 6. CONCLUSION
6.1 Concluding Comments
This thesis has attempted to follow the advice of Gladwin et al. (1995) to question the
grounds of extant SSCM scholarship through surfacing and confronting my own ‘‘underlying
assumptions about the world’’ (p. 881). This approach has taken me in directions I could
never have imagined. In many ways the most intellectually challenging aspect of working on
this thesis has been the transformation of my own view of the world. My constructions of
supply chain management, the natural environment, and of the role of scholarship have all
been profoundly changed. The journey I have made while writing this thesis is a personal one
but on the way I have found a few people in the field of Supply Chain Management on the
same path, which makes me think that there may be an audience for work such as that
produced in this thesis and that the thesis meets the criterion of criticality.
The value of this thesis, for me at least, lies in its ‘criticality’, that is its ability to ‘‘probe
readers to re-examine the taken-for-granted assumptions that underlie their work’’ (Golden-
Biddle and Locke, 1993: p. 600). I believe that the dual problematization process that I have
engaged in during the writing of this thesis has this ability. It has provided support for the
incipient perspective within SSCM that there are more important questions to ask than
whether ‘it pays to be green’ (Pagell and Shevchenko, 2014) and challenges SSCM scholars
to ask the more challenging question of whether SSCM strategies are environmentally
effective. This thesis suggests that this new question could take SCCM scholarship in a new
direction, which will be discussed at the end of this chapter. In many ways, establishing the
validity of the titular question of this thesis is the most important aspect of this thesis and
may represent its most significant contribution.
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The dual problematization process consisted of the problematization of the extant SSCM
literature through a review of the literature and through engagement with the empirical
material. The review of the literature offered some insights into the question of why theory is
not being developed within SSCM. These include the tendency to bracket fundamental
questions such as environmental sustainability, the role of political economic structures and
discourses, and the suitability of the ‘positivist research paradigm’ for the study of essentially
contested concepts such as sustainability. The concept of environmental effectiveness and the
sustainability paradigms framework were developed in order to unbracket these questions.
Through adopting a problematization approach during the process of engagement with the
empirical material, the thesis further problematized the assumption ground upon which
SSCM scholarship has been constructed. By putting environmental sustainability at the centre
of the thesis, this study has been able to consider the extent to which the environment wins
from SSCM strategies. Despite the adoption of SSCM strategies that are consistent with those
presented in the extant SSCM literature, it appears to be the case that the environment
continues to lose. The majority of SSCM strategies will only result in marginal reduction of
unsustainability, while for a substantial minority, many of whom present themselves as
leaders in the area of corporate sustainability, the environmental impacts of their supply
chains will actually increase. There were potentialities identified within the case study that
could form the basis of environmentally effective SSCM strategies but it is likely that their
adoption would require the adoption of win-lose framing. The findings are highly anomalous
for SSCM scholarship but anomalies are the drivers of theoretical innovation (Kuhn, 2012)
and it is my hope that some SSCM scholars will seek to work with these anomalies.
The thesis argues that we will need to re-evaluate the extent to which SSCM strategies are
able to improve the environmental performance of the supply chain. It seems likely that the
opportunities to reduce the environmental impacts of supply chains are more limited than has
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been assumed by the discourses of corporate sustainability and the extant literature on SSCM.
It would appear that it may be significantly more difficult to implement sustainability
strategies upstream and downstream within the supply chain than within the operations of the
buying corporation, lending support to the view of supply chains as complex adaptive
systems that are difficult to control (Carter et al., 2015).
This argument has profound implications for SCM scholarship, which has sought to establish
supply chain management as a strategic activity, i.e. an activity that is able to support, or even
drive business strategy (Cousins et al., 2008). However, it may be the case that supply chain
management has less of a role to play in the area of corporate sustainability. As a result,
SSCM scholarship will need to be more cautious in its claims concerning the ability of SSCM
strategies to deliver improved environmental performance. At least until empirical work has
shown otherwise. In order to conduct this research, SSCM scholars will need to go ‘‘back to
basics’’ and ask more fundamental questions about the environmental sustainability of supply
chains and the environmental effectiveness of SSCM strategies.
I believe that the thesis has met the objectives stated in the introduction. The first objective
was to ‘‘illuminate and challenge’’ the assumptions that have bounded SSCM scholarship to
date and to open up new avenues for theory development. While a number of assumptions
have been problematized, I believe the most important assumption problematized is the
assumption that sustainability is a scientific concept. By arguing that sustainability is an
essentially contested concept and by exploring other constructions of sustainability, the thesis
offers a way out of the impasse within SSCM in relation to theory development by opening
up multiple opportunities for theory development. The combination of the sustainability
paradigms framework and the case study findings establishes the potential for constructionist,
critical and systemic theories of SSCM and for rethinking how SSCM scholarship is
conducted within the utilitarian paradigm.
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The second objective was to produce resources that can be used by SSCM scholars to
facilitate problematization and reflective research within SSCM scholarship. The resources
produced in this thesis include: the sustainability paradigms framework that was presented in
the literature review chapter, which can be used in order to ‘‘illuminate and challenge’’
assumptions; the concept of ‘environmental effectiveness’ that the thesis introduced into
SSCM and which can be used as a means to conduct reflection research; and finally a
typology of SSCM strategies was presented in the findings chapter that can be used to
evaluate the environmental effectiveness of SSCM strategies.
The third objective was to put the relationship between the environmental impact of supply
chain activity and the natural environment at the centre of SSCM scholarship (Matthews et
al., 2016; Montabon et al., 2016). The thesis represents the first supply chain study to my
knowledge that empirically operationalizes the distinction between reducing the
unsustainability of supply chains and creating ‘truly’ sustainable supply chains. It does this
by using the Planetary Boundaries framework, which the thesis establishes as a useful
resource for future SSCM scholarship, and the concept of environmental effectiveness. I
decided to develop ‘environmental effectiveness’ as a core concept of the thesis in order to
conduct ‘reflective’ research myself and to facilitate reflective research among SSCM
scholars. All four of the sustainability paradigms presented in the literature review require
reflective research so the concept of environmental effectiveness should potentially be of use
to all SSCM researchers going forwards. I believe that in meeting these objectives this thesis
has made a contribution to the SSCM literature.
6.2 Limitations of Study
The study conducted is not without its limitations. First, the case study was based on
secondary data. As a result, I was not able to explore the constructions of sustainability in
greater depth, e.g. through collecting primary data from those developing and implementing
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SSCM strategies. This would have allowed for a more fine grained research into how
individual stakeholders frame sustainability and how this affects the development of their
SSCM strategies. While it is unlikely that this would have led to a different perspective on
the environmental effectiveness of the SSCM strategies studied within the case study, it may
have provided more insight into the process of strategy formulation and implementation.
Second, the study is based on a normative perspective based on the concept of environmental
effectiveness that could be considered unrealistic by some readers. This will affect the
plausibility of the arguments presented in the thesis. It is hoped however that the study
presented will provoke discussion amongst readers, especially those engaged in SSCM
research and theory development, about what should be expected from SSCM strategies. I
believe this conversation will be richer if it includes ‘idealistic’ as well as ‘realistic’
perspectives.
Third, the study is based on the early years of a program and it may be the case that the issues
identified within the study merely represent the teething stages of the program. I hope that
this does prove to be the case. I will certainly continue to follow the progress of the program
and see if it is able to falsify the theory of SSCM presented in this thesis. I hope that the study
conducted as part of the thesis will encourage others to work with the empirical material
collected by the program in order to either do the same or develop alternative theories.
Finally, the case study was based on a single sustainability issue, climate change. Whilst it
seems unlikely that corporations would perform especially badly in the area of climate
change mitigation whilst excelling in other areas of environmental sustainability, the focus on
climate change at the expense of other aspects of environmental performance is certainly a
limitation that needs to be acknowledged.
178
6.3 Future research
It seems to me that there are a wealth of opportunities for conducting ‘engaged scholarship’
within SSCM (Van de Ven, 2007) and work with relevant stakeholders to help them reframe
the scale and scope of SSCM strategies. For example, a model of an environmentally
effective SSCM strategy was developed that was based on exemplary SSCM strategies
observed within the case study (Figure 12). Scholars could engage in action research projects
with corporations in order to implement these strategies. Insights could be developed on the
difficulties corporations experience in implementing such strategies, which could be used to
develop theory. Engaged scholarship could be conducted with the case study corporations
studied in this thesis or alternative economic organizations, such as B-Corporations (in the
US), cooperatives, and community organizations, which are more likely to adopt the natural
case for sustainability.
The thesis points in the direction of the development of a multi-level theory of SSCM that
includes the levels of political economy and the individual. Broadening the level of analysis
makes sense if the anomaly cannot be resolved at the level of the supply chain and provides a
number of exciting opportunities for theory development. SSCM scholars could draw upon
environmental economics to consider the extent to which supply markets favor the
unsustainable use of natural resources and explore how SSCM strategies can potentially
mitigate against these environmentally inefficient supply markets in the absence of
regulation. There is also the scope for developing normative theoretical frameworks based on
the ‘Porter hypothesis’ (Porter and van der Linde, 1995) that consider the reforms needed to
support the development of efficient supply markets. SSCM researchers could also conduct
research into policy debates relevant to SSCM. Research could be conducted with regulators,
NGOs, and corporations participating in these debates. Through the incorporation of the
concept of ‘complex adaptive systems’ within a theory of SSCM, SSCM scholars could
179
explore the tension between rules and adaption within supply chains when the issue is
sustainability. This can make a contribution to the incipient development of a theory of
Supply Chain Management as well as to SSCM.
There are also opportunities to develop a multi-level theory of SSCM by drilling down to the
level of the individual and explore how individual stakeholders, both primary and secondary,
make sense of sustainability in general and the responses of corporations in particular. For
example, SSCM scholars could build upon the work of Preuss and Walker (2011) into
psychological barriers and the work of Hahn et al (2014b) on cognitive framing to explore
some of the issues identified in this thesis, e.g. the opposition between discourse and
performance. This research could answer questions such as: Are individuals aware of the
opposition? Or is it an example of ‘double think’? And how do individuals aware of the
opposition manage the tension?
180
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APPENDICES
APPENDIX A. Descriptive statistics on CDP Supply Chain Program Members
Breakdown of members by country
Breakdown of members by CIGS industry group
10
8
5
44
4
4
3
3
3
22
1 1
1 1 1
Food, Beverage &
Tobacco
Automobiles &
Components
Telecommunication
Services
Capital Goods
Household & Personal
Products
217
Appendix B. Example of sensitising analysis
Reimagined statement on supplier engagement
Climate change is the most serious issue facing humanity at this moment in time. In action is
not taken to reduce emissions to zero within the next 30 year the climate system will be
irreparably damaged (see IPCC, 2013). This will have dire consequences for every species on
the planet, including humanity. Action on this is therefore a moral imperative. Our company
has therefore adopted a zero emissions target for our operations and our supply chain to be
achieved by 2030. We therefore ask all of the suppliers to join us in our pledge to have a
supply chain powered by renewable energy by 2030.
We also need to build a supply chain that is resilient to the effects of climate change. Due to
the GHGs already stored in the atmosphere much of the global warming we will experience is
already locked in and therefore unavoidable. It is therefore by no means certain that even if
global emissions were reduced to zero in the required time frame that this would avoid
dangerous anthropogenic climate change.
We therefore need to engage with our supply base in order to make the transition to a supply
chain powered by renewable energy and in order to build resilience. It is our firm belief that a
zero emissions supply chain cannot simply be achieved through the incremental reduction of
emissions, although this may help ourselves and our suppliers buy some time in the short
term. It will also involve the members of our supply chain putting pressure on legislators and
utility companies to provide the renewable energy needed to fuel a zero emissions supply
chain. We will also need to look outside our existing supply base for innovative solutions e.g.
for logistics suppliers capable of making deliveries to us and on our behalf using an electric
fleet of vehicles. Together with our suppliers we can stimulate markets for renewable energy
and low-carbon products and services.
218
The results of such activities are not always quantifiable but they are the right thing to do.
These activities may have the oblique consequence of enhanced reputation but that is not a
motivating factor and success will not be measured on this outcome. Indeed it is our intention
to share the knowledge we create through these processes with other interested parties,
including competitors.
Reduction will only achieve limited success if the reductions are not absolute and if fossil
fuels are not eliminated from the supply chain. This is why we ask our suppliers not only for
a short-term emissions reduction target but for a long-term fossil fuels elimination target. Just
as we do not stand for child labour in our supply chains neither can we tolerate the use of
fossil fuels. Suppliers must therefore provide a target for the elimination of fossil fuels from
their operation by 2030. This will help to stimulate the market for renewable energy, which
will in turn help other firms to wean themselves off fossil fuels.
Engagement will consist of collaboration where necessary. Such efforts will be focussed on
hotspots within our supply chains. It may involve collaborating with an existing supplier or
developing a new supplier that may offer a low-carbon solution. Engagement is a two way
process and we will look to our suppliers to develop us too. This may be particularly
appropriate where the supplier is a larger company than ourselves and/or further along the
road in terms of achieving a zero emissions target.
Supplier-supplier collaboration will also be a key part of our engagement strategy. To achieve
this outcome we intend to establish a supplier association focussed on achieving our
renewable energy targets for the supply chain and building climate change resilience within
the supply chain. Ideally this association will include indirect suppliers i.e. those suppliers
that supply to our first tier suppliers.
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Appendix C. Code Mapping Process
Final Iteration
Three moiety concepts - Trinity 1. Symbolic versus Environmentally Effective Strategies
2. Growth versus Sustainability Strategies
3. Discourse versus Performance
Third Iteration Scale of Strategies
o Necessary versus Possible
o Science versus Nescience
Scope of Strategies
o Internal versus External Orientation
Construction of Solution Space
o Efficiency Emissions Reductions Strategies
o Non-efficiency Emissions Reductions Strategies
o Arm’s Length versus Collaborative Supply Chain Strategies
Realized versus Emissions Reductions Unrealized Strategies
o Realized Emissions Reductions Strategies
o Unrealized Emissions Reductions Strategies
o Growth versus Emissions Reductions Strategies
Second Iteration Win-win versus Trade-offs
o Win-win
Financial optimization
Trade-offs / Win-lose
o Dedicated budgets
o Lower ROI
o Marginal cost abatement
Necessary versus Possible
o Symbolic versus Effective targets
o Science-based targets versus Nescience
o Relative versus Absolute Decoupling
Internal versus External Orientation
Efficiency Orientation
o Process improvement
o Substitution
o Renewables targets
o Eco-design
Non-efficiency/Alternatives to efficiency
o Renewable energy purchases
o Offsets
Sustainable Supply Chain (SSC) Strategies
o SSC Information System
o Supplier Engagement
o Green purchasing
o Environmental Monitoring with Suppliers
o Environmental Collaboration with Suppliers
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Environmental Performance
o Realized Emissions Reductions Strategies
o Unrealized Emissions Reductions Strategies
o Growth versus Emissions Reductions Strategies
First Iteration 1. Eco-efficiency Sustainability Strategies
2. Triple Bottom Line Sustainability Strategies
3. Environmental Stewardship Sustainability Strategies
4. Shared Value Sustainability Strategies
5. Win-win Framing
6. Trade-off Framing
7. Science-based targets versus Nescience
8. Symbolic versus Effective Sustainability Strategies
9. Relative versus Absolute Decoupling
10. Internal versus External Orientation
11. External reductions strategy
12. External growth strategy
13. Efficiency orientation
14. Process improvement strategy
15. Lack of efficiency opportunities
16. Substitution strategy
17. Renewables targets
18. Eco-design
19. Eco-design collaboration with suppliers
20. Non-efficiency strategies
21. Low-carbon energy purchases
22. Emissions Offsetting
23. SSC Information System
24. Measurement versus Management
25. Arm’s Length Supplier Engagement
26. Collaboration delayed
27. Green purchasing
28. Supplier Disclosure Numbers Game
29. Supplier Target Numbers Game
30. Carbon-focussed versus Generic Environmental-focussed Supplier Engagement
31. Member-Supplier Collaboration
32. Questionable Program Membership
33. Member-Supplier Collaboration Delayed
34. Realized Emissions Reductions Strategies
35. Realized Emissions Growth Strategies
36. Business Growth as Drag
37. Supply Chain Growth as Drag
38. Business Growth > Emissions Reductions
39. Supply Chain > Emissions Reductions
40. Business Degrowth
41. Discourse versus Performance