TY - JOUR

T1 - Environmental effects of sustainability management tools

T2 - An empirical analysis of large companies

AU - Hörisch, Jacob

AU - Ortas, Eduardo

AU - Schaltegger, Stefan

AU - Álvarez, Igor

PY - 2015/12/1

Y1 - 2015/12/1

N2 - Given the huge global environmental problems and their political and economic impacts, companies are challenged to improve their performance with regard to issues such as climate change. To successfully reduce corporate environmental impacts, management not only needs to develop environmental strategies, it also has to use effective sustainability management tools for their implementation. There are many studies reported in the literature on sustainability management tools such as life cycle assessments or sustainability reports. However, with few exceptions little is known about the efficacy of these tools. We address this research gap by analyzing survey data from the largest companies of five industrialized countries and empirically test the impact of implementing sustainability management tools on key dimensions of corporate environmental performance. The findings show that the implementation of sustainability management tools does reduce environmental impacts per unit of revenue. However, different groups of tools are found to be effective for different purposes.

AB - Given the huge global environmental problems and their political and economic impacts, companies are challenged to improve their performance with regard to issues such as climate change. To successfully reduce corporate environmental impacts, management not only needs to develop environmental strategies, it also has to use effective sustainability management tools for their implementation. There are many studies reported in the literature on sustainability management tools such as life cycle assessments or sustainability reports. However, with few exceptions little is known about the efficacy of these tools. We address this research gap by analyzing survey data from the largest companies of five industrialized countries and empirically test the impact of implementing sustainability management tools on key dimensions of corporate environmental performance. The findings show that the implementation of sustainability management tools does reduce environmental impacts per unit of revenue. However, different groups of tools are found to be effective for different purposes.

KW - Sustainability sciences, Management & Economics

KW - Corporate environmental performance

KW - Sustainability management

KW - Sustainability management tools

KW - Planetary boundaries

KW - International Corporate Sustainability Barometer

KW - Barometer

KW - Corporate environmental performance

KW - sustainability management

KW - sustainability management tools

KW - planetary boundaries

KW - international corporate sustainability barometer

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84946842596&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2015.11.002

DO - 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2015.11.002

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 120

SP - 241

EP - 249

JO - Ecological Economics

JF - Ecological Economics

SN - 0921-8009

ER -