5
cooperation between organizations. With such an approach, organizational and
product performance become building blocks of the relationships with suppliers and
customers and therefore part of the dialogue and performance criteria between partners in the value chain. This way optimal solutions can be found, looking at the
complete picture, and trade-offs and ineffi cient activities can be avoided.
Linking sustainability to value is all about how sustainability can help to create
added value. This goes far beyond cost savings and managing risks and compliance.
It is an opportunity to leverage sustainability as an element of differentiation on the
market and driver of profi table growth. It is an opportunity to make sustainability
a key factor in research and development, operations, procurement, sales and
marketing, etc.
How can this be achieved? It is extremely challenging or even impossible to get
people excited about “doing less bad” or just being aligned with regulations and
explicit requests (which are unfortunately often only “tick the box” exercises), but
if one leverages the opportunities from an integrated value proposition that takes the
sustainability offering into account, one gets to a completely new dimension that
can move sustainability out of the “green corner” and into the business mainstream.
And this is not limited to end-producers, who sell products to consumers. It is
relevant for the complete value chain, since most of the time the contributions of
businesses in the supply chain are essential to implement sustainability for a given
end-product or service.
It is important to stress that this value proposition can relate to both direct
product performance (e.g., a product with improved environmental life cycle
performance) and management performance in the supply chain without measurable
changes in the product (such as for ethically sourced products).
Leading businesses that are successful in making life cycle management an
enabler that helps to make the day-to-day job of the aforementioned functions more
effi cient and/or better are achieving an edge and are outperforming their competitors. In order to make this happen, sustainability has to be integrated into standard
business processes, very similar to the way quality or cost aspects are integrated
today (Remmen et al. 2007 ; UNEP/SETAC 2009 ).
3 Conclusions and Perspectives
In summary one can conclude that life cycle management is an extremely powerful
concept and process and can enable businesses and other organizations to make
sustainability part of “business as usual” and deliver real-world improvements
for them and their customers. Life cycle sustainability management, if developed
and implemented appropriately for a given organization, has the power to move
sustainability management from a cost of doing business to a driver of profi tability
affecting all three elements of the triple bottom line.
In the long term, it is expected that life cycle management can help to transform
the market by making sustainability a differentiator just as quality is today. Only if
1 Introduction: Life Cycle Management
cooperation between organizations. With such an approach, organizational and
product performance become building blocks of the relationships with suppliers and
customers and therefore part of the dialogue and performance criteria between partners in the value chain. This way optimal solutions can be found, looking at the
complete picture, and trade-offs and ineffi cient activities can be avoided.
Linking sustainability to value is all about how sustainability can help to create
added value. This goes far beyond cost savings and managing risks and compliance.
It is an opportunity to leverage sustainability as an element of differentiation on the
market and driver of profi table growth. It is an opportunity to make sustainability
a key factor in research and development, operations, procurement, sales and
marketing, etc.
How can this be achieved? It is extremely challenging or even impossible to get
people excited about “doing less bad” or just being aligned with regulations and
explicit requests (which are unfortunately often only “tick the box” exercises), but
if one leverages the opportunities from an integrated value proposition that takes the
sustainability offering into account, one gets to a completely new dimension that
can move sustainability out of the “green corner” and into the business mainstream.
And this is not limited to end-producers, who sell products to consumers. It is
relevant for the complete value chain, since most of the time the contributions of
businesses in the supply chain are essential to implement sustainability for a given
end-product or service.
It is important to stress that this value proposition can relate to both direct
product performance (e.g., a product with improved environmental life cycle
performance) and management performance in the supply chain without measurable
changes in the product (such as for ethically sourced products).
Leading businesses that are successful in making life cycle management an
enabler that helps to make the day-to-day job of the aforementioned functions more
effi cient and/or better are achieving an edge and are outperforming their competitors. In order to make this happen, sustainability has to be integrated into standard
business processes, very similar to the way quality or cost aspects are integrated
today (Remmen et al. 2007 ; UNEP/SETAC 2009 ).
3 Conclusions and Perspectives
In summary one can conclude that life cycle management is an extremely powerful
concept and process and can enable businesses and other organizations to make
sustainability part of “business as usual” and deliver real-world improvements
for them and their customers. Life cycle sustainability management, if developed
and implemented appropriately for a given organization, has the power to move
sustainability management from a cost of doing business to a driver of profi tability
affecting all three elements of the triple bottom line.
In the long term, it is expected that life cycle management can help to transform
the market by making sustainability a differentiator just as quality is today. Only if
1 Introduction: Life Cycle Management