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The circular economy (CE) is an alternative economic system based on closing energy and material cycles to achieve sustainable development and create value based on innovation. In this sense, business associations (BAs) can work as intermediaries to promote CE in industrial sectors. They bring together many companies, generate trust-based relationships, support companies’ strategy and collaborative innovation to construct closed-loop material flows, and increase competitiveness in sectors and regions. This study aims to show the BA’s role as intermediaries of CE and promoters of industrial symbiosis (IS) as a value creation strategy among its affiliated companies (AC). Thus, this work takes the form of an exploratory case study of five different companies of the Union of Agricultural Cooperatives of Navarra (UCAN) in Spain. Researchers collected this study’s data through a focus group and surveys. As a result, an original serious game was developed in 2016 and a survey in 2016 and 2020, which considers the CE’s six fields of action (take, make, manufacture, distribution, use, recovery, and IS). Finally, this study proposes a methodology to promote the CE through the BAs, based on the performance of the UCAN as an intermediary of the CE and IS. Likewise, BAs’ potential to promote the closure of energy and materials cycles in regions and commercial sectors such as agribusiness is demonstrated. The study also demonstrated the organizations’ evolution and the improved perception of economic benefits and reduced barriers to implementing CE. This long-term analysis is valuable in novel topics such as CE.

The circular economy (CE) is now more imperative than ever due to several shortcomings humanity faces due to global economic disruptions. The CE might help initiate a virtuous circle whereby waste materials would be turned into resources for other companies to create closed-loop systems. However, the CE remains a niche paradigm embraced by only a small number of companies in some areas of the world. Some authors have argued that it is essential to encourage stakeholders at different implementation levels of a CE to increase the uptake of this new model among companies, and stakeholders may provide the required framework for the shift towards a circular model. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to answer the following research question: how can the transition towards the CE be accelerated from a ‘stakeholders’ perspective? The study was undertaken in the Spanish region of Basque Country, where a CE strategy is already in place at the regional level, and some companies are already delivering circular solutions. This approach was selected to help understand the lack of widespread adoption of CE initiatives in a local system despite having a regional CE strategy. Data were collected from respondents from various stakeholders and also from desk research to ensure their reliability. The results showed the relevance of understanding how stakeholders can help speed up the transition by proactively exploring new ways to create novel conditions to work together with a broad pool of stakeholders to deepen and scale up the CE implementation.

Maturity models enhance the performance of companies by prescribing a trajectory through stages of increasing capability. However, a recent review of maturity models concludes that current maturity models hardly meet the design principles required for prescriptive use. To address this deficiency, we conducted semistructured interviews and a Group Model Building study with industrial companies in Spain in which we studied the progression toward a Leading Green Company as the highest maturity stage of environmental management. The findings from the study were tested using surveys with enterprises in Spain, Italy, and the United Kingdom, semistructured interviews in the United Kingdom and case studies in Spain. Using these data sources, we develop a causal model that captures an idealized environmental management maturity dynamic progression though stages. By mapping maturity stages to feedback loops connected to actions to improve those maturity levels, system dynamics can help companies articulate policies for transitioning toward higher maturity stages.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are key actors in the implementation of the circular economy (CE) concept as a basis for creating sustainable societies. Thus, the main objective of this study is to identify key strategies and resources that may favor CE implementation in SMEs. These key strategies should encourage SMEs to develop eco‐innovations to gain competitive advantage and create and capture value that is coherent with nature. A mixed‐method approach that consisted of a literature review and a focus group for gathering qualitative data was used. This focus group was made up of experts such as researchers and practitioners from universities, sustainable SMEs, and consultancy firms in Spain. A set of strategies and internal and external factors were identified to help SMEs to implement the CE. Finally, some useful dynamic capabilities for implementing the CE in business performance were identified.

The European Ecolabel (EU Flower) has the mission to encourage cleaner production and influence consumers to promote Europe’s transition to a circular economy. Nonetheless, little is known about EU Ecolabel evolution; it is not clear what the drivers that encourage its implementation are. Thus, this study aims to assess the growing acceptance of the EU Ecolabel in the European Union, and Spain more specifically, by examining product and service categories and geographical regions. The methodological approach taken in this study is a mixed methodology based on the triangulation method by consulting the EU Ecolabel scheme database, EU Ecolabel delegates from some autonomous regions, and the academic literature. Also, a geographic analysis was run in the ArcGIS Software with data about the accumulation of licenses assigned in 2016. The analysis shows that most products in Spain that have been awarded the EU Ecolabel belong to the following categories: Do-It-Yourself Products (paint and varnish), Paper Products, Cleaning Up Products, and Electronic Equipment. At the same time, the study showed that this ecolabel faces significant obstacles in its diffusion, such as the competition with environmental labels launched previously in Europe and other regional labels. The results of this study indicate the existence of five drivers that may encourage the implementation of EU Flower in a region: (1) public management, (2) communication strategy, (3) sustainable public procurement criteria, (4) local income per capita, and (5) international trade incentives. Finally, this study provides essential recommendations for policymakers to trigger ecolabeling practices such as the need to improve the understanding of the EU ecolabel impact in different levels of activity, which means countries, regions, industrial clusters, firms, and consumers. Also, this investigation identifies areas for further research, and it expresses the need to develop business case studies about ecolabeling with the objective to visualize this phenomenon as an eco-innovation process.

Circular economy has been claimed as an approach to foster a systemic change in the current model based on disposability. Though, many companies have sprout to deliver circular solutions through either new business models, products or services, a full shift away from the entire system is lacking. In other words, in order to experience a fully transition toward a circular economy model, an inter-organizational approach needs to be deployed. This approach has been named industrial symbiosis whereby interactions among companies are crucial to start developing a circular economy in the so-called meso level. Collaboration among organizations rises as one of the most important factors in developing industrial symbiosis. In that sense, different projects have developed digital platforms with the idea of promoting active participation and collaboration between organizations. Those sorts of platforms ideally enable industrial symbiosis through gathering information about resources and potential substitutes in order to recommend waste-to-resource exchanges. However, depending on the context the platform was built certain characteristics may not apply. Thus, this paper is focused on the characteristics and usefulness of different available platforms that facilitate the exchange of waste as a resource, product or good. Based on this research, it is likely that none of the existing platforms and the upcoming ones will be one-size-fits-all, thus, for industrial symbiosis to succeed it is still important for companies to determine what their needs are and then explore which platform best covers their requirements.

Corporate purpose has appealed to researchers and practitioners in recent years as an answer to the challenges faced by companies. The purpose is to be able to unite the workforce and direct employees towards an inspirational goal beyond the company's profit. This shared purpose must be developed in a sustainable manner so that the positive impact can be maintained over time, making corporate sustainability a necessity for purpose-driven organizations. But the impact of purpose implementation in corporate sustainability has not been calculated. In this study, we present a PLS-SEM model in which we relate employees' purpose implementation to their sustainable behaviors, characterized by organizational citizenship behaviors. The results show that understanding and internalizing the purpose on the part of the employee, and the contribution the employee makes to the corporate purpose have an impact on the company’s social, environmental and economic sustainability through these sustainable behaviors.

Defining the circular economy (CE) as a material and energy model coincides with the definition given by multiple authors in which Industrial Symbiosis (IS) has been deemed as a foundational strategy to support the implementation of the CE. The consumption of secondary materials is essential to achieve a successful transformation from a linear economy to a CE focused on IS practices. In this scenario, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play a major role as stakeholders in developing CE systems as it is not possible to create this model with each company working in isolation. However, there is a lack of empirical studies on the role played by relevant local stakeholders such as individual firms interacting in the development of a local CE system. This study aimed to study the challenges that SMEs face in developing a CE system. A case study is selected as a research strategy using a mixed-method approach: a sequential quantitative (questionnaire) and qualitative (semi-structured interviews) data collection techniques were employed for this research. It was observed that an absence of inter-organisational collaboration and a misunderstanding of the roles played by SMEs may impede the implementation of a local CE system level.

Most companies operate on a linear economy that consists of “take, make, use and waste.” However, the growing impact of industries’ emissions on the environment has aroused global concerns about their activities. As a result, companies are increasingly aware of the importance of implementing a circular economy (CE) with environmental, social and economic beneficial results. In this transition to a circular system, companies will need guidance, especially in the case of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which are the predominant type of company in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) area. Taking this into account, the objective of this chapter is to provide SMEs with a methodology to understand the value of CE for their corporate strategy, diagnose their business and design an action plan to facilitate the transition to the CE, allowing them to create value and gain a competitive advantage in the market. The CE could be addressed through six fields of action: take, make, distribute, use and recover goods and materials (Park et al. in J Clean Prod 18:1492–1499, 2010; Stahel in Nature 24:6–9, 2016), and a transversal field of action called industrial symbiosis. These six fields of action are the methodology’s backbone. The CE methodology for an SME consists of the following steps: Diagnose the company’s situation, through reflection on the current value proposal, the stakeholders and a preliminary diagnosis regarding its level of CE application through a proposed diagnosis tool. Analyze barriers and opportunities derived from the application of the CE. Propose a CE implementation plan. This chapter will explain, the process followed, and the various results obtained in the rubber-metal company. The proposed methodology makes an important contribution to SMEs’ professionals regarding the step-by-step implementation of the CE using a real case that shows how to identify, plan and capitalize on the opportunities of the circular economy. The case study reveals how SMEs can start implementing the paradigm shift through environmental strategies that do not usually require high amounts of financial resources or technology. Moreover, the case study also highlights the relevance of the CE for creating value and a competitive strategy in the market.

The circular economy has become an important issue in recent years because it makes sustainable development feasible by creating value in the economy and by closing the energy and materials loops. However, since most companies continue to operate under a linear model, it is particularly important to start providing companies with tools that facilitate their shift to the circular paradigm. The main objective of this research is to establish the key elements that are necessary for assessing the level of circular economy implementation. To that end, the Delphi method is used to validate and define the key elements of three categories: circular economy fields of action, industrial symbiosis, and environmental certifications. As a result, this study identifies the key elements that assess the degree of circular economy implementation and that allows small and medium‐sized enterprises to understand where they are and what they need to do to improve their performance.

The important role of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in most economies underpins this research, which develops an empirical analysis that allows us to explore the potential for implementation of the Circular Economy in SMEs and the barriers and opportunities they may distinguish from it. To that end, a survey was carried out in Navarra and the Basque Country, Spain. The main results show that companies are focused on complying with the law and, in many cases, they are worried about their company’s image. Moreover, they do not tend to be committed to environmental issues because they do not think it would increase their profits and competitiveness. The focus on cost savings became clear from the Factor Analysis applied to the Take-Transform and Recovery phases of the Circular Economy. In this sense, three factors were associated with the companies’ perception of the Circular Economy: 1) Material Provision, 2) Resources’ Reutilization and 2) Financial Advantage. With regard to the barriers, another Factor Analysis suggested two different categories of barriers: Hard barriers and Human-based barriers, each requiring different strategies for addressing them, must be considered. Finally, the study briefly examines the integration opportunities between SMEs with other companies and industry associations or clusters to develop industrial symbiosis and close their materials loop.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a methodology that is based on the concept of environmental comfort and can serve as a tool that can help companies and employees to implement Kaizen projects. This methodology focuses on the worker’s participation in analyzing and developing improvements related to their workplace. Design/methodology/approach This research is focused on the development of a methodology that encourages worker participation in improvement activities, through the analysis of their working conditions. For this purpose, the proposed methodology was developed in accordance with the dimensions of workplace comfort proposed by Vischer. The employees start working on the analysis of problems and their solutions through the logical framework approach, as it is a tool that encourages worker participation and consensus. The developed methodology was applied in a company, with three different groups of people, which enabled the authors to test its utility. Findings The findings reveal that the proposed methodology is effective in initiating workers in the path of Kaizen. The employees who applied this methodology were able to propose improvement actions that addressed the problems and opportunities that they had previously detected. Moreover, the questionnaire that was used to validate the methodology and was administered to employees shows that the methodology is useful in preparing them for adopting continuous improvement (CI) programs. Research limitations/implications The methodology presented in this paper has been applied and evaluated by a small number of employees. These limitations suggest future research recommendations. Practical implications This participatory methodology could be used by different types of companies to initiate employees on the path of CI, even if they are not familiar with improvement programs or methodologies. In addition, its use could improve the capabilities of employees in areas such as participatory analysis, problem identification and proposal of objectives. These capabilities are necessary in any Kaizen project. As a result of the application of this methodology, the companies could obtain a list of areas of improvement related to their work and propose actions to work on. Originality/value The paper presents the use of environmental comfort in the workplace as the first step in accomplishing a Kaizen project, with a focus on the employee involvement and consensus.

The growing complexity of environmental issues and its connection with the way in which society is consuming make essential to understand the extent of the consumers' awareness regarding the sustainable aspects. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore the motivations of sustainable consumers and how those motivations should be considered by consumer organizations for improving their purposes and services to drive environmental sustainability. The research presents a content analysis of the websites of 30 Ibero-American organizations that promote sustainable consumption habits, classifying those organizations according to their purposes and services based on the six dimensions of consumer sustainability awareness. Then, a questionnaire was sent to a sample of Spanish-speaking consumers of sustainable products in order to assess their motivations for choosing environmentally friendly products or services. Then, an analysis was performed by comparing both results. As a result, the study offers new knowledge about the perception of sustainability consciousness across Spanish-speaking consumers and of the purpose of consumer organizations. It also provides valuable information for companies and marketers who wish to align their eco-innovation strategies with green consumers’ motivations.

The growing importance of the concept of the circular economy as a way to attain sustainable development has encouraged scholars to propose different ways to understand it. Given the large number of studies done on the circular economy, their differing approaches and their multiple applications, this paper attempts to propose a consensus view of the basic notions of the circular economy framework and highlight its relationship with eco-innovation. To that end, this study carried out a systematic literature review that resulted in four main outputs: a knowledge map of the circular economy, an analysis of the main notions of the concept, principles, and determinants of a circular economy. Finally, this study brings to light some remarkable examples of eco-innovations developed for implementation in the circular economy.

Purpose Environmental management (EM) is becoming increasingly important in all types of organizations. The food industry represents the top industrial sector of the Spanish economy; however, there is still little knowledge about how it is managed environmentally. The purpose of this paper is to present a descriptive analysis of the Spanish food sector. Design/methodology/approach This study undertook a descriptive analysis based on probabilistic sampling surveys from food companies in Spain. The survey was sent out to 900 companies obtaining 128 answers. Findings The results of this study show that companies with an EM standard tend to have a more developed system and a greater presence of EM tools and actions. Moreover, statistical differences were identified among the characteristics of companies and various factors that affect the evolution of their EM. Originality/value There are no studies that reveal a clear picture of the status of EM in the Spanish food industry. This study presents a clear starting point that might help policy makers, consultants, researchers and other parties to set new improvement routes so companies do not get stuck in their progress toward environmental excellence.

Corporate Sustainability is today a key issue for companies considering value generation, climate change and social requirements. This sustainability must be achieved in the economic, social, and environmental aspects; many authors have studied the variables that make up these aspects. Despite the importance of employees in Corporate Sustainability, to our knowledge, no studies have connected the variables with the impact that employees have on them. Therefore, in this study, combining a literature review with a Panel Delphi with 11 experts, we seek consensus on: 1) the relevance of the different variables that define Corporate Sustainability; 2) on which variables can employees have an impact; and 3) what employee behaviors are more susceptible of having this impact. The results show consensus on employees and propose behaviors that could enhance some of the most important variables of economic, social and environmental sustainability. This result opens up the possibility of developing a scale to measure employee sustainable behaviors and to understand how companies can facilitate these behaviors.

Purpose Despite significant amounts of environmental management tools that are available for companies to use, no model guides them toward environmental excellence. As a consequence, the purpose of this paper is to develop an environmental management maturity (EMM) model that helps companies that are on the path toward environmental excellence. Design/methodology/approach An iterative process was used to develop this model, starting with some semi-structured interviews with 19 companies within the Basque Country and two workshops with environmental experts. Following these steps, the initial version of the model was developed. Data from subsequent surveys carried out in Spanish and Italian companies, and a survey and semi-structured interviews in companies in the UK were incorporated into the model, yielding the final, more robust version of the EMM model. Findings The EMM model proposes six maturity stages: legal requirements, responsibility assignment and training, systematization, ECO2, eco-innovative products and services, and leading green company. Each stage details a series of elements: description, agents involved, policies, tools, indicators, structure, and behavior over time graphs. This research confirms that a company’s environmental management evolves through several distinctive stages, regardless of the industrial sector. Originality/value The proposed model concludes that the defined maturity stages provide valuable guidance for industrial firms as it helps them identify their maturity stage as well as the steps they should follow to move to the next stage.

12 páginas Nowadays companies are trying to become ‘greener’, which requires integrating the environmental dimension into their traditional performance metrics. However, managers may not have the complete information and data for their environmental problems and, crucially, there is a lack of knowledge about how these environmental issues affect a company’s productivity. Even though the availability of technology has increased and it is easier than ever to obtain all kinds of data, there is a lack of agreement on how to correctly measure environmental performance, and companies could suffer from an overload of environmental information. The biggest challenge, therefore, lies in how to measure and obtain the appropriate environmental data and how to interpret and relate these data to the company’s productivity. In this context, this paper presents a new and innovative approach, called Plug&Glean, for diagnosing and improving productivity and environmental performance in a defined production system. The approach is applied to a case study in the north of Spain. The findings suggest that it is possible to improve productivity and environmental performance at the same time, as well as reinforce the notion that waste elimination has a positive impact on improving environmental performance.

Current research on the circular economy (CE) reveals that, while the concept and its application have been extensively explored as shown in several case studies, the definition of tools and criteria measuring “circularity” of products, companies or regions are not well-defined. Therefore, indicators for measuring the different levels of a CE (micro, meso, and macro) should be a high priority for stakeholders (governments, companies, NGOs, civil society, etc.) in order to track progress on CE initiatives. However, the increasing interest on CE has caused a still open debate on the conceptualization of CE which hampers the creation of indicators based on a common conceptual framework. As a result, the absence of standard indicators to track progress on circularity is leading to contradiction and misunderstanding, which represents a challenge to the implementation of CE strategies. Thus, this study tries to address this gap by advancing a set of indicators adapted from existing indicators that guarantees simplicity and effectiveness, closely based on indicators proposed by government bodies. This research carried out an exploratory study to formulate the indicators requirements based on literature, refined through experts’ opinion and then they were tested in Spanish companies located in the Basque Country region through an empirical work to assess this theory. A mix of research methods (e.g. semi-structured interviews and surveys) were used to seek applicability of CE indicators for organisations. The study showed that the proposed indicators currently used for assessing the CE at the macro level were applicable at the micro level based on companies’ responses. This fact demonstrated that the indicators serve the purpose of being applicable to companies regardless of the type of economic activity they were in. Also, it shows that indicators used to monitor progress on CE at the macro level can be translated to the micro level. Consequently, it is recommended that the set of CE indicators focused on the methodology proposed in this study should be used across different industrial sectors in order to observe performance in companies to facilitate the transition to a CE model.

The rise in customers' and society's environmental awareness has pushed companies to improve their environmental management. Nevertheless, there are still many companies that are reluctant to go beyond the legal requirements, towards a more ambitious environmental framework. This research focuses on the drivers that encourage firms to improve their environmental management. As the importance of these drivers might be different depending on the maturity stage in which the company is, this study proposes a classification of companies that specifies which drivers are more important in each of these groups. None of the previous environmental management studies in the literature has been based on this relationship. The data for the study are obtained from an online survey conducted among UK companies. Firstly, factor analysis is used to find the interrelation among the different drivers proposed in the literature, obtaining three groups of factors. Secondly, Cluster Analysis is adopted to have a classification of the different UK companies according to the three factors. Finally, the most compact and coherent clustering solution is analyzed from the perspective of maturity stages leading to a final classification of companies focused on the identified factors. Globally, lower maturity stages are associated with a strong focus on formal requirements, while higher maturity stages are associated with an intense focus on internal improvement. This classification will allow practitioners and policy makers to better focus on specific drivers and help companies move forward according to their maturity stage. A roadmap for improving environmental performance somehow emerges, providing a good framework for decision support.

Environmental management has become a fundamental concern for organizations, customers, and citizens, yet there are few environmental management metrics that guide toward environmental excellence. This research presents a detailed qualitative model of the evolution of environmental management of a firm through the definition of maturity stages and causal influences. The model provides a technique for assessing maturity stages as well as steps that can assist or negate their ecological advancement. The causal-based classification helps companies to understand the need for nontechnical elements in the process, such as top management commitment. This article also contributes to the literature on integrative multimethod research, as it brings together several approaches to environmental management.

The increase in environmental and social awareness has triggered numerous green initiatives at companies. Traditionally, companies’ training related to environmental management focuses on technical aspects and theoretical concepts. In addition to these theoretical contents, it is necessary to carry out practical activities to impart the desired behaviors and skills. Serious games have been found to improve employees understanding of practical environmental sustainability challenges, by offering opportunities to obtain first-hand experiences that may otherwise be too costly and difficult to reproduce in reality. This work presents Pizz@green, a serious game which simulates the productive and environmental efficiencies generated by the improvements of processes in a pizza shop. The purpose of the game is the practical learning of the environmental impact caused by the production processes of a company.

Manufacturers have become progressively more aware of their operations' impacts on the triple bottom line (social, environmental and financial), and they are under increased pressure to account for their resource consumption and environmental footprint. These challenges are forcing companies to implement and combine different management approaches, such as “green” and “lean”, to meet the needs of the ever-changing market demand. Using semi-structured interviews in 58 different companies, this paper shows how manufacturing companies carry out manufacturing and environmental practices. This study contributes to the current debate in the literature on environmentally friendly manufacturing by arguing that companies with advanced manufacturing practices do not engage in proactive participation in environmental management with tactical and strategic practices inside their organizations. Following that, some considerations for correctly measuring the environmental efficiency in companies are presented. The findings and recommendations of this study can be used to fully utilize the potential of environmental practices to simultaneously improve manufacturing productivity and environmental performance and to identify trends in organizational development.

The increase on environmental awareness has triggered numerous green initiatives at companies. This paper presents the Overall Greenness Performance (OGP), a metric based on the well-known Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). The OGP is a hierarchy of metrics based in the Lean Manufacturing framework that measure how environmentally efficient a manufacturing operation is executed. The purpose of the metric is to quantify improvements in productive and environmental efficiencies, relative to a company’s initial situation, after implementing a lean-green manufacturing system.

[EN] The Circular Economy has become a topic of high interest for policy makers, scholars, and business managers because it is shown as a new paradigm to achieve the sustainability of our society. However, the main efforts in Circular Economy cannot be reduced to professional or experts’ acts. Nevertheless, we consider that if we pretend to meet the current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, we have to teach present generations the principles to achieve the economic, social and economic sustainability in the short and long term. This paper enhances the use of guided and official student clubs at the university to teach and engage engineering students with the Circular Economy practices., The support of the National Program for Fostering Excellence in Scientific and Technical Research of Spain (No. DPI2015-70832-R) is gratefully acknowledged.

Value co-creation emerges from the interaction between customers and firms, being the customer an active player in the established interaction. This brings the customers to the core of the measurement system, not allowing a traditional process capability analysis as usually performed. This chapter addresses the development of a service capability index, taking into account customer's expectations, customer's perceptions and service performance. This index is based on the “zone of tolerance” and it gives a perspective on value co-creation effectiveness. A methodology for converting perceived performance into real performance is proposed, including a procedure to assess the levels of adequate and desired service. An approach inspired on the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is presented, promoting the ability for converting customer's expectations into operational terms and extending the methodology to situations with several customer's requirements and various operational characteristics. Different approaches are considered for outcome-related features and process-related features.

[EN] Companies have made great strides in strengthening their environmental maturity and sustainable production. Nevertheless, many of them have not transmitted their knowledge to their workers, and this makes it more difficult to have employees participate in their company’s sustainability improvement process. In the particular case of Volkswagen Navarra, they have a lot of experience in environmental management, but they don’t have a proper program for teaching their workers so they can be more involved in the environmental aspects of the company. This paper proposes an environmental training program that can be used either as an e-learning course or a face-to-face course with the objective of providing employees with the knowledge and skills necessary to participate in the improvement of environmental aspects., The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from Cátedra de Empresa, Volkswagen Navarra – Universidad de Navarra. The authors also want to give particular thanks to the environmental manager of Volkswagen Navarra, Ana Isabel Moreno, who has been an active participant through the entire project.

10 páginas This study analyzes the importance of ecolabels as an eco-innovation tool that can contribute to the sustainable design, production and consumption of products. Our research has a dual objective. The first is to build a theoretical framework that explains the relationship between ecolabels and eco-innovation, their determinants (demand, supply, and institutional and political influences) and the dimensions that arise from them. Second, according to this framework, a systematic literature review was carried out to identify the trends and opportunities in ecolabeling as a multidimensional topic, from empirical, geographical and sectorial perspective. The main contributions of this paper are a proposal for cyclical ecolabeling innovation process, an understanding of the ecolabeling dimensions according to the studies analyzed, and ecolabel performance in the market. Additionally, the systematic literature review revealed that ecolabels have been mainly explored in food sectors and, developed countries, and researchers tend to assess their performance from the dimension of market dynamics.

This research focuses on the evolution of environmental management within firms. It is based on a survey and semi-structured interviews conducted among UK companies. Building on an evolutionary conceptual model, consisting of several maturity stages, we identify ‘milestones’, i.e. common practices companies engage in when progressing through specific maturity stages. Whilst clear commonalities can be identified, most notably linked to the order of maturity stages they progressed through and the emergence of commonly acknowledged practices linked to the individual maturity stages, the results also reveal a number of within-sample patterns regarding the companies’ progression through the different maturity stages. It can be concluded that the maturity stages and practices identified in this research can provide valuable guidance for firms aiming to make progress in environmental matters, as they help them to identify in which maturity stage they are and sets out steps that they can take to move forward. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

A primera vista, la gestion ambiental puede parecer diferente en cada empresa. Sin embargo, esta investigacion ha demostrado que la evolucion de la gestion ambiental es similar en todas las organizaciones; es decir, cada compania pasa por analogos estados de madurez. A traves de entrevistas y workshops con expertos en gestion ambiental, se ha definido esta evolucion y se ha desarrollado una clasificacion de estos estados de madurez: Cumplimiento de la Legislacion, Formacion, Sistematizacion, ECO2, Eco-Innovacion y Empresa Lider en Gestion Ambiental. Esta clasificacion ayuda a comprender con mayor precision la evolucion de la gestion del medio ambiente y la estructura que representa a esta evolucion. Palabras Clave : gestion ambiental, factores, estados de madurez, diagramas causales. Environmental management evolution through maturity states Abstract : Nowadays, society is demanding more environmental measures to companies due to the environmental deterioration that has been provoked by some enterprises during previous years. Never theless, regulation does not provide enterprises with incentives to innovate and to go beyond legislative compliance. At a first sight, environmental management implementation seems different in each company. This research has demonstrated that the evolution of the environmental management in every company is similar ; what means that each company goes through the same maturity states. The methodology has been based on several interviews and workshops. The interviews have been conducted with environmental managers from nineteen enterprises among different industrial sectors in the Basque Country. These firms have been selected as a convenience sample, taking into account their self-assessed level of environmental management. The study has included firms from different sectors such as chemical, automotive, railway, elevators, and electrical equipment. The average face-to-face interview lasted on average around 75 minutes. The main objective of each interview has been to understand how the environmental management within the company has been over time, to know the different states that each one has taken and to identify in what maturity state they were in. As a result of these interviews, a classification of the different factors that affect every environmental management has been done: Environmental Legislation, Society Environmental Awareness, Company Green Image, Formalization, Competitors Evaluation, Resources applied to Environmental Management, Use of Natural/Energy Resources, Top Management Commitment, Workers Commitment and External Communication. The workshops have been conducted using the Group Model Building (GMB) methodology with a panel of environmental experts. The participants included environmental managers of different enterprises, environmental consultants and academics with experience in environmental projects. Through different exercises, this collaborative methodology has helped researchers to capture information from a group of experts in the matter. Once all the information has been gathered and analyzed, the previous factors have been interrelated creating the structure of the environmental management in a company. Afterwards, the evolution of the environmental management has been defined and a classification of the different maturity states has been developed: Legislation fulfilment, Training, Systematization, ECO2, Eco-Innovation and Leading Green Company. For each maturity state, a causal loop diagram (CLD) has been defined with the factors that affect the corresponding state, as not all the factors are involved in all the maturity states. Consequently, the different variables have been connected among them with arrows denoting the causal influences. This model helps companies to more accurately understand the environmental management evolution and the structure of this evolution. It is shown that not only environmental measures are necessary but also other actions such as the Top Management commitment. Moreover, enterprises can check in what maturity state they are, and they can identify the steps that they have to follow to gradually improve their environmental management. Keywords : environmental management, factors, maturity states, causal loop diagrams.

This research is focused on a survey conducted among Spanish and Italian companies in order to define the environmental management evolution within firms. Through this survey, a number of maturity stages were defined and validated, and the identification of the relevant factors for each of the maturity stages was made. Survey results show that companies start with environmental management issues due to legislation requirements. Afterwards, firms go through a training phase, continuing with the systematization stage, then look for economic benefits through ecological improvements (ECO2 stage) and finish with the eco-innovation and leading green company stages. The survey has shown that the maturity stages have application in all types of industrial sector. These are useful for those firms that want to make progress in environmental matters, as it helps them to identify at which maturity stage they are and what are the factors that they need to take into account to move forward. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Purpose: This research analyzes the maturity of environmental management as well as the degree of to which the Circular Economy has been implemented in Basque SMEs. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 17 case studies were carried out in industrial SMEs companies in the Basque Country. Findings: The main results show that companies are limited to complying with the law and in many cases are worried about the image of the company, although they are not committed to environmental issues. There is still a lot to do in SMEs, as they are the companies that face the biggest challenges due to a lack of resources. Originality/value: Circular Economy aims to change a linear economy into promoting sustainability of the economy while also engaging in sustainable environmental protection. This research has focused on small and medium enterprises as they represent a 99% of companies in Europe and they are the ones that have the most difficulty reaching a stage of environmental excellence due to their limited resources.

Environmental management is receiving increased attention by researchers, policy makers and companies as today’s world is facing major environmental problems such as global warming and waste. As a consequence, companies are progressively improving their environmental practices and behaviors with the aim of reaching more advanced stages in their environmental management. Specifically, those companies most committed to environmental issues have started to introduce the concept of life-cycle and footprint thinking in their organizations. Nevertheless, there are currently many different software tools and companies may not know which one is most suitable. Consequently, the main objective of this research is to study the different software applications to help companies choose the most suitable one in each case. To achieve this objective, the paper provides an in depth review of the literature on life-cycle and footprint thinking. As a result, more than 20 software tools have been analysed and compared. It is important to highlight that the appropriateness of one software program relative to another may very much depend on the user’s scope or objective, as the database of each program could be different.

Environmental Management has recently become an essential issue for companies. Nevertheless, not all the companies have reached the same maturity level. Through some workshops with environmental experts, information on those aspects that affect environmental management has been collected to demonstrate that the evolution of environmental management is similar in every company. Some factors, policies, indicators and behaviors that affect environmental management over time have been defined. This study allows companies to identify in which maturity state they are in and what are the steps that they have to follow to go towards environmental excellence.

This paper consists of an analysis of environmental management in different enterprises. A classification of the factors that affect the environmental management in a company has been made through a multiple case study of nineteen different companies. Some of the main factors that affect all businesses have been identified, such as customers, the law and competitors. Every company has to comply with the law, although the law affects each sector differently. Depending on the markets in which they operate, customers are more or less aware of environmental aspects. Moreover, it is important to distinguish public from private clients. On the other hand, competitors also need to be taken into account when company decisions are made. All these aspects can be found in different companies with different activities and different characteristics, so enterprises should be aware of them when taking environmental decisions.

The circular economyhas become a topic of intense interest for policymakers, scholars and business managers because it has proven to bea new paradigm to achieve the sustainability of our society. However, the main efforts made in thecircular economy cannot be limited tothe actions ofprofessional or experts. We believe that if we intend to meet current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, we mustteach present generations the principles for achievingeconomic, social and environmentalsustainability in the short, mediumand long-term. This paper highlights the use of participatory guided activitiesinstead of traditional coursesto teach and engage engineering students with circular economy practices.