Sustainable Management Systems Standards (SMSS): Structures, Roles, and Practices in Corporate Sustainability

Abstract

Companies need to develop more sustainable management models to support a strategy focused on the environment and society, preventing the sole ambition to maximize economic profits. Several specific tools and frameworks have been developed for the implementation of sustainability management. However, the isolated adoption of new management practices could increase bureaucracy and constrain the development of an effective and systematic sustainability strategy. Based on the development of four case studies of relevant companies based in Portugal, this research presents a cyclical process with the structures, inputs and outputs, and roles in embodying sustainability in Integrated Management Systems (IMS). The originality of the work lies in the level of integration. Beyond identifying interconnection areas, it also specifies the Management Systems Standards (MSS) requirements in each area, assigning different roles in the integration process: drivers, efficient enablers, pathways, and evaluators. These four roles promote the claimed integration in a systematic cyclical process, plan–do–check–act (PDCA), to assist the consolidation of sustainability management. This research reinforces the added value of the IMS. It expands its scope, helping companies implement sustainability effectively and systematically, resulting in the presentation of Conceptual Sustainable Management Systems Standards (SMSS).

Sustainable Quality Management Systems in the Current Paradigm: The Role of Leadership

“…Therefore, it seems that there are the necessary ingredients for the development of corporate sustainability through its integration into the QMS. The QM standards (such as ISO 9001:2015) have added requirements that reinforce this proposal, and several models have been developed that point out structures, tools, and practices to promote this interconnection [29,33,34]. Even so, these factors may not be self-sufficient.…”

“…The evolution of the standards that define the QMS requirements seems to follow the same line. According to [29], there is evidence that changes in recent ISO editions (e.g., ISO 9001:2015) are linked with elements contributing to the development of a corporate sustainability management model, i.e., by introducing the following clauses: 5. Leadership was reinforced in the current ISO 9001:2015 version, with a whole chapter dedicated to leadership, fostering a culture of sustainability.…”

“…This has been one of the major new approaches of ISO:9011:2015, which enables managers to demonstrate their leadership throughout the organisation, as defended by Fonseca and Domingues [32]. Supported in these advances in terms of requirements imposed by standards, several contributions have been made in the development of SQMS models: Nawaz and Koç [33] developed a holistic CSM model named Sustainability Management System Framework (SMSF), the Lean-Integrated Management System for Sustainability Improvement (LIMSSI) [34], and Sustainable Management Systems Standards (SMSS): Structures, Roles, and Practices [29].…”

Corporate sustainability assessment based on rough-grey set theory

“…Corporate sustainability originates from a broader concept of sustainable development, representing a process of achieving sustainability in any activity that requires fast and integrated resources and resource replacements (Soubbotina, 2004). Concerning sustainability in the organizations can lead to many desirable results like the creation of financial value (Lloret, 2016; Tomšič et al , 2015), the increasing power of organizations’ ownership (Argento et al , 2019), increasing reputation of organizations (Lourenço and Branco, 2013), strengthening the ability to attract long-term investments, improving transparency to shareholders (Padgett and Galan, 2010), rising employee motivation (Lorincová et al , 2019), improvement of management systems (Silva et al , 2020), strengthening innovativeness (Roszkowska and Filipowicz-Chomko, 2019) and continuous overall improvement (Nobanee and Ellili, 2016). A large number of studies in the field of sustainability have concentrated on identifying the dimensions and indicators of sustainability, offering frameworks and models for corporate sustainability (Erol et al , 2011; Chang et al , 2013; Lodhia and Martin, 2014), but only a few have provided an overall structure for assessing the management of corporate sustainability (Karimi et al , 2020).…”

Exploring Characteristics of Sustainability Stimulus Patterns of Project Managers

“…Sustainability by the project implies that sustainability requirements are considered in the content-related aspects of the project [8], such as the specifications and design of the project's deliverable [20,21], materials used [22], benefits to be achieved [23,24], quality, and success criteria [13,25]. Studies on the integration of sustainability into project management that take this content-related perspective often focus on operationalizing the Triple Bottom Line by developing sets of indicators on the different perspectives [13,[26][27][28][29][30][31][32].…”