The Potential of a Network-Centric Solution for Sustainability in Business Processes

Due to an increasing pressure from international regulation, customers and other stakeholders, companies are increasingly experiencing the need to incorporate sustainability considerations in their core business processes and daily operations. For this purpose they require software solutions that simplify the collection, analysis, and incorporation of sustainability indicators at the right processes across their operations. However, prevailing systems are enterprise-centric in the sense that they are owned and used by one focal company collecting the data from different sources and using it for its internal decision making. This paper will describe three example use cases in which sustainability plays a key role and will provide an overview of major problems with the current state of the art. In the second part of the paper, a new approach for sharing sustainability indicators is introduced that enables many providers and consumers of environmental data to connect to and leverage a common platform. Finally, the paper analyzes the potential risks and benefits of introducing such a network platform, using the three business use cases to illustrate the opportunities resulting from it.

[1]  Izak Benbasat,et al.  Electronic Data Interchange and Small Organizations: Adoption and Impact of Technology , 1995, MIS Q..

[2]  Hamideh Afsarmanesh,et al.  Collaborative networks: a new scientific discipline , 2005, J. Intell. Manuf..

[3]  Felix T.S. Chan,et al.  Integrating environmental criteria into the supplier selection process , 2003 .

[4]  S. Vinodh,et al.  Integration of ECQFD and LCA for sustainable product design , 2010 .

[5]  Yufei Yuan,et al.  Supply chain collaboration alternatives: understanding the expected costs and benefits , 2002, Internet Res..

[6]  R. Lamming,et al.  The Environment as a Supply Chain Management Issue , 1996 .

[7]  Robert P. Anex,et al.  The road to cooperative supply‐chain environmental management: trust and uncertainty among pro‐active firms , 2009 .

[8]  Stefan Seuring,et al.  From a literature review to a conceptual framework for sustainable supply chain management , 2008 .

[9]  Erkki Koskela,et al.  Environmental quality competition and eco-labeling , 2004 .

[10]  G. Zsidisin,et al.  Environmental purchasing: a framework for theory development , 2001 .

[11]  J. C. Lorente,et al.  Environmental performance as an operations objective , 2001 .

[12]  R. Klassen,et al.  The impact of environmental management on firm performance , 1996 .

[13]  H. Boley,et al.  Digital Ecosystems: Principles and Semantics , 2007, 2007 Inaugural IEEE-IES Digital EcoSystems and Technologies Conference.

[14]  R. Handfield,et al.  Integrating Environmental Management and Supply Chain Strategies , 2005 .

[15]  Mahesh Gupta,et al.  Environmental management and its impact on the operations function , 1995 .

[16]  H. Walker,et al.  Drivers and barriers to environmental supply chain management practices: lessons from the public and private sectors , 2008 .

[17]  Rosa Maria Dangelico,et al.  From green product definitions and classifications to the Green Option Matrix , 2010 .

[18]  P. Rao,et al.  Do green supply chains lead to competitiveness and economic performance , 2005 .

[19]  Richard J. Fairchild,et al.  Customer, regulatory, and competitive pressure as drivers of environmental innovation , 2011 .

[20]  Richard T. Watson,et al.  Information Systems and Environmentally Sustainable Development: Energy Informatics and New Directions for the IS Community , 2010, MIS Q..

[21]  Angelo Corallo,et al.  Pervasive Service Architecture for a Digital Business Ecosystem , 2004, ArXiv.

[22]  Steven A. Melnyk,et al.  Applying environmental criteria to supplier assessment: A study in the application of the Analytical Hierarchy Process , 2002, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[23]  Nigel Melville,et al.  Information Systems Innovation for Environmental Sustainability , 2010, MIS Q..

[24]  R. Yin.  Case Study Research: Design and Methods , 1984 .

[25]  Fabrice Mathieux,et al.  Results of the First Adapted Design for Sustainability Project in a South Pacific Small Island Developing State: Fiji , 2010 .

[26]  Randy H. Katz,et al.  A view of cloud computing , 2010, CACM.

[27]  Christian Matt.  Carbon Accounting Software , 2010 .

[28]  S. Khoury,et al.  Greening the Supply Chain , 2006 .

[29]  David S. Linthicum,et al.  B2B Application Integration: e-Business-Enable Your Enterprise , 2000 .

[30]  Sang M. Lee,et al.  Success factors of platform leadership in web 2.0 service business , 2010 .

[31]  Adam C. Faruk,et al.  Horses for Courses: Explaining the Gap Between the Theory and Practice of Green Supply , 2006 .

[32]  K. Eisenhardt.  Building theories from case study research , 1989, STUDI ORGANIZZATIVI.

[33]  Marlon Dumas,et al.  The Rise of Web Service Ecosystems , 2006, IT Professional.

[34]  R. J. Kuo,et al.  Integration of artificial neural network and MADA methods for green supplier selection , 2010 .

[35]  Mark Gaynor,et al.  Web Services: Enabling Dynamic Business Networks , 2003, Commun. Assoc. Inf. Syst..

[36]  S. Seuring,et al.  Incorporating sustainability into supply management in the automotive industry – the case of the Volkswagen AG , 2007 .

[37]  Ralitza Nikolaeva,et al.  The role of institutional and reputational factors in the voluntary adoption of corporate social responsibility reporting standards , 2011 .

[38]  Tim Morris,et al.  Technical Innovation and Competitive Advantage in Retail Financial Services: A Case Study of Change and Industry Response , 1996 .