Product chain collaboration for sustainability: A business case for life cycle management

Abstract

Life cycle management (LCM) is frequently described as a holistic sustainability perspective along the product chain. It has mainly been a company internal practice. However, recent developments reveal a new type of LCM where companies collaborate in product‐chain‐specific initiatives. This raises questions concerning why corporations extend “corporate LCM” toward “product chain LCM”. Here, we explore rationales and challenges for corporations engaging in one such coalition: The Sustainable Transport Initiative. The study covers five companies in different product chain positions and practitioners in different corporate functions. The results show a broad range of rationales for engaging in product chain LCM, related both to self‐interest and a shared interest in the product chain. The importance of the “business case,” both for the individual companies and the product chain, is identified. The importance of sustainability managers as actors and as facilitators in discussions between managers from different corporate functions is also identified.

Sustainabilty integration in product portfolio for sustainable development: Findings from the industry

“…According to interviewees, sustainability challenges are related to a lack of a common understanding, different targets, lack of resources, and time constraints, requiring a network support for its transformation, and the incrementation of the knowledge about sustainability. This is also stated by Goodman, Korsunova, and Halme (2017) and Nilsson‐Lindén, Rosén, and Baumann (2019).…”

Organizational Learning for Environmental Sustainability: Internalizing Lifecycle Management

“…Due to its global importance for corporate sustainability (e.g., Nilsson-Lindén et al, 2018;Nilsson-Lindén et al, 2019), LCM provides an appropriate context to study the internalization of environmental concerns beyond organizational boundaries. Furthermore, as the literature on organizational learning clearly shows, internalizing environmental concerns requires substantial changes and a learning process involving different actors (e.g., Roome & Wijen, 2006;Van Hoof, 2014).…”

“…We then look at lifecycle management (LCM) as a proxy for the global and inclusive perspective of the ES concept (Buxel et al, 2015;Nilsson-Lindén et al, 2019). Although LCM has existed since the 1980s, this approach has gained global attention, given the recognition that sustainability challenges need to be addressed by taking into account the environmental impact of a product throughout its entire lifecycle (Nilsson-Lindén et al, 2018;Nilsson-Lindén et al, 2019).…”

“…From a conceptual perspective, we direct our attention to the seminal work on organizational learning, the 4Is (intuiting, interpreting, integrating, and institutionalizing) framework, by Crossan et al (1999) to guide our interview protocol and study the internalization of ES, thus avoiding decoupling. We then look at lifecycle management (LCM) as a proxy for the global and inclusive perspective of the ES concept (Buxel et al, 2015;Nilsson-Lindén et al, 2019). Although LCM has existed since the 1980s, this approach has gained global attention, given the recognition that sustainability challenges need to be addressed by taking into account the environmental impact of a product throughout its entire lifecycle (Nilsson-Lindén et al, 2018;Nilsson-Lindén et al, 2019).…”

How to embed environmental sustainability: The role of dynamic capabilities and managerial approaches in a life cycle management perspective

“…. Firms now recognize that they do not operate in a vacuum and are required to assess their environmental performance beyond organizational boundaries, where environmental impacts really matter (see, e.g., Bianchi et al, 2021;Jourdaine et al, 2021;Nilsson-Lindén et al, 2019). As a result, a holistic approach to environmental sustainability is now part of strategic management choices (Elias Mota et al, 2020;Primc & Čater, 2016).…”