Environmental Sustainability

• globalisation, technology, quality expectations, cost-based competition, government policies, legal regulation, environmental sustainability

Only In Greenland They Quietly Chew Gum Leaves Every Christmas

Operations has obvious and direct impacts on the environment, specifically in relation to both transformed resources (materials used, packaging and energy) and in relation to the waste and byproducts generated from the transformation process and any decommissioning of used equipment.

Define- Business activities that meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

For Operations, environmental sustainability means:

• changes to transformed resources to address issues of renewable and non renewable resources, adverse impacts on the environment associated with the extraction and processing of inputs and remediation of environmental damage caused including arising from industrial accidents (like the BP case study we looked at)

• Minimising and treating pollution and waste caused through the production process, and associated with the usage and end of life waste treatment processes arising from their products ( at IKEA more than 50% of our products are delivered directly from suppliers to our stores, which means cheaper prices and less vehicles involved and less CO2 emissions)

• Modification to production processes to use lower energy processes (including lighting, heating and machinery) ( IKEA 100% renewable – producing as much renewable energy as they consume using renewable sources, such as the wind and sun. They are also make their buildings more efficient, so they need less energy to run them.)

• Modifications to product designs to produce increasingly environmentally sustainable versions of the good or service

• Investigating the environmental practices of suppliers ad changing suppliers where the environmental policies of existing suppliers are inadequate (LEGO conducts regular third-party audits of suppliers’ performance and works together with them to address improvement areas. Audits take place annually in high-risk countries, bi-annually in medium-risk countries and periodically in low-risk countries.)

• Potential Recycling, treatment and sale of new products created from the waste and by products of the production process) (Currently, 60% of the materials IKEA uses are renewable and 10% are recycled. The ambition is to reach a combined total of 100% by 2030. For example the TÅNUM is a rug made from leftover fabric from their bed linen production)