Organising sustainability competencies through quality management: Integration or specialisation
2018 (English)In: Sustainability, E-ISSN 2071-1050, Vol. 10, no 5, article id 1326Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
A significant step in integrating environmental sustainability into daily operations is through product development. One way to achieve such integration of environmental considerations into product development is by relating sustainability competencies to practices of Quality Management. However, practices seem to vary for how competencies within environmental sustainability are organised in order to make sustainability more actionable. This study explores two ways of organising sustainability competencies in product development: integration and specialisation. The organisation of sustainability competency is illustrated through two cases; one case in which sustainability is integrated with the quality management competency, and the other in which a new competency focusing on sustainability has been added as a separate function in product development. It is suggested that the organisation of sustainability competency influences the extent of environmental impact. Further, trade-offs, such as material source versus weight may not be exploited when sustainability is integrated as one area of responsibility for another specialty competency, suggesting a lack of sufficient competency within environmental sustainability to recognise potential trade-offs between-for example-quality and environmental impact.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
MDPI, 2018. Vol. 10, no 5, article id 1326
Keywords [en]
Integration, Organising, Quality management, Specialisation, Sustainability competencies, Sustainable product development, environmental economics, environmental impact, exploitation, integrated approach, product development, quality control, sustainability, sustainable development, trade-off
National Category
Engineering and Technology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-41155DOI: 10.3390/su10051326ISI: 000435587100022Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85046093635OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hj-41155DiVA, id: diva2:1239124
2018-08-152018-08-152024-09-02Bibliographically approved