Business Strategy and the Environment

Bus. Strat. Env. 7, 179192 (1998)

BEYOND GREENING: NEW

DIALOGUE AND NEW
APPROACHES FOR
DEVELOPING SUSTAINABILITY

Annica Bragd1, Gavin Bridge2, Frank den Hond3 and P. D. Jose4

1
Gothenburg Research Institute, Gothenburg University, Sweden
2
Department of Geography, University of Oklahoma, USA
3
Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Vrije Universiteit,
The Netherlands
4
Centre for Energy, Environment and Technology, Administrative Staff College of India

The Sixth International Conference of the development. The organization of the

Greening of Industry Network,
Developing Sustainability: New Dialogue,
New Approaches, was held in Santa
Barbara, CA, USA, 1619 November
1997. This special edition of Business
Strategy and the Environment attempts to
capture the dialogue from the conference
by presenting seven edited papers from
the conference, a review of the
conferences objectives and achievements
from the perspective of the conference
organizers, and this introductory essay.
Each of the seven papers takes a different
cut at theoretical, empirical and
methodological questions around the
focus of the conference. Together they
represent the diversity and creativity of
approach that is central to the
conferences objective of establishing new
conference and significant conference
highlights, such as the incorporation of
CERES into the organization of the
conference, and the expansion of the
Network into Asia, are reviewed by the
conference organizers in this special
edition (Fatkin and Fischer, 1998). This
essay discusses new dialogues and new
approaches to industrial transformation
emerging from Santa Barbara.  1998
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP
Environment.
Accepted 16 June 1998
GREEN RESEARCH: WHAT PATH TO
INDUSTRIAL TRANSFORMATION?

dialogue on processes of greening and
progress towards sustainable
Correspondence to: Dr. Gavin Bridge, Department of Geography,
University of Oklahoma, 100 East Boyd, Sec. 684, Norman,
Oklahoma 730191007, USA.
CCC 0964-4733/98/04017914 $17.50
 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
I
ndustrial transformation is a significant
research theme embraced by the Networks
research agenda (Schot et al., 1997) and in the
International Human Dimensions Programme on
Global Change (Vellinga et al., 1997). It serves as
an umbrella concept offering an opportunity to
bridge the gap between encompassing visions of
sustainability and more narrowly defined processes

BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT


of greening, in the context of societies that are
industrialized or undergoing industrialization.
Plenary discussions, presentations and dedicated
workshops at Santa Barbara each examined dis-
tinct facets of industrial transformation. Drawing
from papers, workshop reports and discussions
with other participants, this essay explores indus-
trial transformation in terms of three interrelated
themes: the nature of green research transfor-
mation of civil society and sustainability in a
globalizing world.
There is ample evidence from research that
eco-transformation is occurring rapidly, but by no
means comprehensively or uniformly, across sec-
toral, cultural and geographical divides. Up until
now the research into organizational greening has
expanded rapidly. Research methodologies have
been experimental and even eclectic as tradition-
ally discreet communities of scholars have each
brought something to bear on the question of
greening. Despite such rapid growth and exper-
imentation, research on organizational greening
remains dominated by anecdotal evidence from
successful cases, many of them drawn from
multinational firms. Associated with this limited
empirical focus is a relatively weak connection
of research on greening with established pers-
pectives such as strategic management, organiz-
ational theory or development economics. Much
of the research presented at Santa Barbara,
for example, relied on static, cross-sectional
methodologies, while dynamic, longitudinal
studies of greening were relatively few. Given
these limitations, is the expansive, experimental
and diverse model of research and practice
sufficient to take us further? How we answer
that question collectively and individually is
likely to determine our role and effectiveness as
researchers and practitioners as the field moves
towards maturity.
Discussions at Santa Barbara reflected a poten-
tial divide between those seeking to harness
existing knowledge on the causes and conse-
quences of greening to facilitate its wider and
more rapid diffusion, and those striving to better
understand its epistemology, theoretical coher-
ence and the process of knowledge generation
around questions of greening. While theory and
practice are often deployed less as an invitation to
dialogue and more as a rhetorical dichotomy, in
practice both approaches are needed to prevent
the premature closure of potential avenues for
change and to promote cross-fertilization of the
field. Just as empirical studies of organizational
greening should make explicit the assumptions on
 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
180 BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
A. BRAGD ET AL.
which they are based, so, too, theorists of green-
ing need to explain the value of their theoretical
constructs, particularly their limitations and
potential for leveraging the eco-transformation
process.
Focus or myopia?
Plenary and break-out sessions at the conference
showed participants within the Greening of
Industry Network to be both challenged and
frustrated by dialoguing on the concept of sus-
tainability which continues to elude convenient
operationalization. Calls to stop discussing sus-
tainability (Tuininga, 1997) and for more focused
research reflect this frustration yet need to be
tempered with a recognition that focus can bind
researchers to a single approach that in practice
risks reducing sustainability to environmental per-
formance. There has undoubtedly been tangible
progress in improving environmental perform-
ance within multinational corporations and signifi-
cant lessons have been learned about how
best-practice techniques might be more widely
diffused. Nevertheless, the ability of research on
greening to address the broader questions of
sustainability is highly circumscribed. It is, for
example, an academic conceit to imagine that
research on cleaner-operating multinationals will
help further progress towards sustainable devel-
opment in developing countries against a back-
ground of accumulated debt, environmental
degradation, poverty and unemployment.
As several participants noted during the work-
shop sessions, in rushing to answer the call for
focus in our research on greening, we run the risk
of collapsing greening and sustainability and in
the process losing the critical distance once pro-
vided by the more far-reaching perspective of
sustainable development. There is value, then,
in the inefficient and occasionally tiresome
debates which attempt to flush out the meanings
of sustainability: by calling our attention to
the many dimensions of sustainability which
corporate greening cannot address, we are able
to see with greater clarity areas of common
ground and to engage more productively at
these points.
Very few conference papers sought to explore
the non-environmental components of sustainabil-
ity. One notable example, Jones (1997), analysed
the evolution of a worker co-operative enterprise
in the United Kingdom (SUMA Wholefoods)
and assessed the capacity of this alternative form
of economic organization to deliver on the
Bus. Strat. Env. 7, 179192 (1998)
BEYOND GREENING
objectives of sustainable development in its most
holistic sense, i.e. endeavouring to fulfil what it
sees as its long-term environmental, social and
financial responsibilities (Jones, 1997). By address-
ing issues of equity, justice and environmental
responsibility in the work environment, the case-
study of SUMA highlights the possibility for new
approaches to sustainability. At the same time, it
answers the often repeated call for more research
on the role of small and medium-scale enterprises
(SMEs). Smith (1997), for example, is represen-
tative of recent work on SMEs in suggesting that
the limited resources of SMEs may be an obstacle
to the adoption of proactive strategies towards
the environment. He concludes that without
policy intervention the opportunities for imple-
menting eco-design as part of product develop-
ment might be more restricted within SMEs. Thus
in attempting to redress the imbalance of research
on large corporations, most researchers of SMEs
have unfortunately tended to simply compare
SMEs with larger corporations and interpret them
as smaller, less well resourced and reactive forms
of the larger firm. In contrast, Jones paper, by not
restricting itself to an assessment of the capacities
for greening, demonstrates the considerable
potential for research evaluating how SMEs might
be better positioned to address social and cultural,
as well as the environmental, dimensions of
sustainability.
The potential of an approach to sustainability
which is more comprehensive than corporate
greening alone is illustrated, for example, in the
critical appraisal by den Hond et al. (1997) of
competition within the global agri-food industry
and Vaneks (1997) assessment of the environ-
mental costs arising from global procurement
strategies. Den Hond et al. (1997) illustrate how
standardization, driven by competitive strategies
to reduce production costs, provides very limited
opportunities to promote conditions conducive to
sustainable agriculture, such as local diversity in
food supply, regional self-reliance, reduced depen-
dence on chemicals and greater community
involvement. In focusing on the expansion of
freight movements, Vanek (1997) attempts to
quantify the environmental impact resulting
from the increased economic interdependence
created by the globalization of business. He
suggests that an increase in freight movement
over the last 25 years has led to increased energy
use, more acute air pollution and reduced water
quality as a result of run-off and has caused
damage through noise and vibration, all of which
may outstrip the beneficial impacts arising from
 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
technological innovations to improve efficiency in
transportation.
Focus on industrial sectors
A special track of workshops at Santa Barbara
was dedicated to the eco-transformation of indus-
trial sectors. Based on the hypothesis that indus-
trial transformation is sector specific, the objective
of these workshops was to provide opportunity
for focused discussion on the specific challenges
and opportunities for achieving sustainability
within each sector and to update researchers on
innovative approaches to corporate greening and
progress towards sustainability.
A major challenge in the agricultural sector
concerns the use of pesticides. Den Hond et al.
(1997) point to the opportunity for commercial
users of agricultural products to act as transfor-
mation agents in the move towards sustainable
agriculture. Maier et al. (1997) provide several
examples of companies in the Swiss agri-
food, retail and gourmet industries that have
switched to procuring organically grown prod-
ucts. Chouinard and Brown (1997) report on
Patagonias learning experience in converting its
cotton product line to organically grown cotton.
Such initiatives taken to further sustainable devel-
opment within agriculture, however, are often
small and occur without a noticeable change
in environmental impacts (Brown, 1997b). For
example, despite innovative developments in
organic farming, the use of pesticides continues to
expand, especially in the developing countries. In
addition, green products are often more expen-
sive, resulting in a segmented market for agricul-
tural products. This raises significant questions for
equity. Some consumers are willing and able
to afford higher-priced pesticide-free products,
whereas others with more limited purchasing
power are restricted to buying lower-priced
products grown using pesticides.
A strong transport and automobile theme ran
throughout the conference, reflecting the prob-
lems associated with high and ever increasing
automobile use in the host state, California. Par-
ticipants had an opportunity to ride in two of
General Motors electric vehicles and a separate
workshop, dedicated to discussion of technology
futures, focused directly on future possibilities for
electric vehicles (Nieuwenhuis, 1997). Central to
discussions in the automobile sector were issues
of optimizing current modes of automobile pro-
duction in developed countries through increased
Bus. Strat. Env. 7, 179192 (1998)
181

energy efficiency and decreased emissions. In
this context the importance of supplier
manufacturing partnerships and life-cycle
considerations in product development were
emphasized (Hoogma, 1997). Elzen et al. (1997)
take a more radical view by proposing alternative
transportation systems as a solution to current
traffic and transport problems. Based on three
strategies (strategic niche management, tech-
nology forcing and network management) the
authors develop a typology of policy approaches
to achieve the desired quality of mobility in the
long run.
Regarding the chemical industry, participants
agreed that much has been done to restructure the
industry by accommodating environmental objec-
tives and re-evaluating existing technologies. Yet,
they also noted that in many cases environmental
challenges were not solved but transferred back-
ward in the supply chain. In pursuing strategies of
vertical disintegration, for example, firms were
able to effectively outsource the most polluting
operations (Theyel, 1997).
In the discussion of eco-transformation in the
electronics sector a distinction was made between
long- and short-term goal-setting. In the long run
the sector needs to redefine its core products
and services. In the short run, however, it needs
to explore ways of greening its existing products
and services by anticipating where eco-
transformation is likely to take the sector and
identifying which actors are missing from the
eco-transformation process (Calkins and Irwin,
1997). While not represented as a distinct sector
at this conference, a number of papers addressed
the environmental impacts of Information and
Communication Technologies (ICT). Wennberg
and Arnfalk (1997), for example, point out that
employee awareness is often low regarding the
environmental effects of ICT. They assert that
limited awareness among an organizations ICT
staff diminishes the organizations opportunity to
optimize the usage of ICT in an environmentally
sound way. Thus, Wennberg and Arnfalk advo-
cate education and training to increase awareness.
While the intended focus of the conference
organizers on industrial sectors was highly valued
by workshop participants, the jury is still out on
how well the sectoral format of this series of
workshops improves understanding of industrial
transformation. Several papers argue for a sectoral
approach (Yarime, 1997, on the chlorine and
caustic soda industry, Luiten, 1997, on pulp and
paper) on the grounds that transfer of knowledge
from one sector to another may be a way of
 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
182 BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
A. BRAGD ET AL.
overcoming inertia in the implementation and
progress of new technologies. Other potential
benefits of a sectoral approach could be in the area
of benchmarking, either against current best prac-
tices for environmental management in the sector
or against a shared vision on the direction in
which the industry should be moving. On the
other hand, some researchers studiously ignore a
sectoral approach, arguing that factors other than
sector specificity influence the integration of
environmental concerns in company strategies
(Mauser, 1997, Pickman, 1998). Further, an alter-
native, non-sectoral approach based on finding
solutions to common challenges or developing
common methodologies may be more effective in
facilitating dialogue. It is difficult at this stage to
determine the impact of the sectoral approach on
advancing our knowledge about organizational
greening, but it is nonetheless clear that in certain
industrial sectors (e.g. automobiles, chemicals)
there exists greater awareness and managerial
expertise for dealing with the complexities of
environmental problems compared to others (e.g.
electronics). One could hypothesize, and future
research could evaluate, that this is not only
related to the differential impact of particular
sectors on the environment, but is also positively
correlated with organizational maturity. Mature
organizations, i.e. those facing increasingly satu-
rated markets and decreasing rates of growth in
sales, may have sufficient incentive to green their
business and develop green products as a way of
restoring growth and/or reducing costs.
Values, dissent and dialogue
Any discussion of greening, sustainability and the
link between them necessarily invokes multiple
perspectives. Within the research community
alone, for example, the perspectives taken on
greening and sustainability may be influenced by
the unit of analysis (firm, community and societal
levels) and the geographical context of greening
(e.g. developed versus developing worlds). The
diversity of perspectives can be a source of
dynamism and strength. Yet, as Ratinen (1997)
argues, interaction between these various perspec-
tives can be obstructed by an inability to see the
relevance of each others points of view, and the
differences in the perceived order of importance
of various issues. Thus multiple perspectives can
create a potential for conflict since the statement
of the problem as well as the formulation of a
solution is often rooted in the immediate context
of the stakeholders. Clarke (1997) and Roome
Bus. Strat. Env. 7, 179192 (1998)
BEYOND GREENING
(1997) explain that different stakeholders have
specific knowledge bases, beliefs and assumptions.
Consequently, poor interaction between stake-
holders can lead to the formation of islands of
knowledge with significant knowledge gaps
between them. It is in this context that Gibson
et al. (1997) conclude that there is an immediate
need to direct education towards evolving a
shared language between different stakeholders.
While data and knowledge gaps may be
addressed through empirical and theoretical
research, language gaps can be bridged through
education, information sharing and information
dissemination. Roome (1997), for example, offers
networks of learning as one potential solution to
this balkanization of knowledge. Networks, which
he describes as inclusive forums for learning and
change, are assumed to promote mutual learning
between different groups, overcoming knowledge
and language gaps through the formation of
communities of practice and the creation of
spaces for learning. Roomes rhetorical inno- reporting can provide a foundation for stake-
vations would seem to suggest that networks
necessarily lead to better greening. His assertions,
and those of others using similar concepts, remain
to be empirically tested. Several empirical studies
presented at Santa Barbara indirectly challenged
these ideas on networks of learning that are fast
becoming canonical within the greening of indus-
try literature. Boons (1998), for example, suggests
that tight co-ordination of activities, asymmetrical
dependencies and trust-based relations among the
various actors in the milk-packaging industry in
the Netherlands have presented a barrier to
innovation in milk packaging.
In workshops and paper presentations, many
participants urged the extension of dialogue on
organizational greening to include external stake-
holders of the firm. Chouinard and Brown (1997),
for example, note that the challenge before firms
now is to change consumer perceptions and this
requires a long-term commitment to education if
the value of this change is to take hold in the
publics consciousness. This highlights the role
of formal education systems, such as business
schools, in promoting education for environ-
mental management. Brown (1997a) and Ulhi
(1997) for example, ask whether educators are
currently meeting the needs and requirements of
environmental management and, more fundamen-
tally, whether new green specialization is the
most appropriate path to eco-transformation
within the education sector. Workshops and
papers addressing this issue noted that the green-
ing of business education, despite its implicit
 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
emphasis on values, ethics and distributive justice,
does not necessarily call for evangelism. Rather,
the attempt should be to introduce to business
students an appreciation of the environmental
values and environmental dilemmas facing busi-
ness and society from multiple perspectives
(Gibson et al., 1997).
Dialogue through metrics
The measurement, evaluation and reporting of
environmental performance has been identified as
a pre-requisite to managing industrial transfor-
mation (de Bruijn et al., 1997). In discussing
research on voluntary reporting initiatives by
German companies, for example, Fichter (1997)
identifies how the transparency that reporting can
provide is valued not only by environmental
pressure groups, but also by employees, custom-
ers and neighbouring communities. This leads
Fichter to suggest that active environmental
holder dialogue, offering numerous opportunities
for improving the relations with social actors,
achieving a unique market position, motivating
staff and improving environmental and quality
management functions within the firm.
In deciding the content and form of reporting,
however, there can be considerable differences of
opinion between businesses, communities and
other stakeholders about the most appropriate
indicators of environmental performance. For
example, current corporate practices of environ-
mental reporting may help certain stakeholders to
decide whether to invest or not, or may provide
workers with environmental health and safety
information, but they do not necessarily help local
communities to evaluate the health of their eco-
system or implement local action plans for
environmental improvements (Fehsenfeld, 1997).
The recognition of the significance of environ-
mental reporting in driving performance, together
with a realization that different stakeholders place
different demands on the resolution, accessibility
and end-uses of reported data, is spurring initia-
tives to integrate corporate level data with
community indicators to develop a responsible
system of reporting on environmental quality. For
example, the Coalition for Environmentally
Responsible Economies (CERES) has developed
a model of dialogue and stakeholder collaboration
with the objective of influencing environmental
management within large, multinational firms.
CERES has been a long-time partner of the
Network (its mission and principles were
Bus. Strat. Env. 7, 179192 (1998)
183

discussed at earlier Network conferences, see for
example, Ashford and Meima, 1993) and at Santa
Barbara CERES offered its model of partnership
between institutional investors, environmental
groups and corporations as a subject for discus-
sion. Central to the CERES model is the Global
Reporting Initiative, an attempt to close the gap
between the different reporting standards cur-
rently available by introducing standardized
corporate environmental reporting in the form
of universal environmental performance metrics
(Fatkin et al., 1997). By creating a common plat-
form of reporting requirements and defining a set
of minimum reporting criteria, standardization
has the potential to simplify current modes of
environmental reporting and improve its
credibility.
TRANSFORMATIONS IN CIVIL
SOCIETY
Industrial transformation occurs not only within
industrial sectors but also in the socio-economic
and political environments external to organiz-
ations. This raises questions of how such transfor-
mations shape, and are being shaped by, the
behaviour of organizations. Civil interests, includ-
ing green values, are increasingly being expressed
independently of the state, possibly leading
towards an ecological modernization of society
(see, for example, Cohen, 1997). If it is occurring,
ecological modernization should become discern-
ible through changes in lifestyles and consump-
tion patterns (Spaargaren, 1994) as well as cultural
changes (Hajer, 1996). It could also provide an
inspiration to, and a broader context for, the
increasing body of literature on industrial ecol-
ogy. As a result of ecological modernization,
environmental norms and values are increasingly
being institutionalized in organizational fields. At
the same time, organizations are themselves shap-
ing and reinforcing the norms, values, cultures and
structures that pervade their external environment
by modifying their behaviour and implementing
environmental management practices. Whereas
some literature is available on the greening of
societies, and more on the greening of organiz-
ational fields and organizations, there has been
less attention to patterns and mechanisms of
greening across these various levels. The drama-
tist metaphor as used by Schwartz (1998) is
helpful in conceptualizing how these various
levels may affect one another.
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184 BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
A. BRAGD ET AL.
Figure 1: Eco-transformation at multiple levels.
Schwartz (1998) presents the process of green-
ing as a theatre play. There is increasing evidence
that the scene in which firms and other organiz-
ations play their act of greening, is changing. In
this metaphor, the scene comprises the organiz-
ational field (e.g. its task environment, market and
direct stakeholders) in which the organization
operates. If the scene changes, not only may
incumbent actors need to learn to play new roles,
but the play may also attract new actors playing
new roles which, in turn, reinforce the setting of
the new scene. Schwartzs metaphor may be
extended to include an audience which holds
expectations of what the play should look like and
who may influence both the scene and the acts
being played through its appraisal of the perform-
ance. Conversely, a convincing scene or play may
influence the audiences evaluation of what it sees.
This section discusses several conference papers
from the perspective of the interrelationships
between the audience, the scene and the actors
(Figure 1).
Transformation 1. The impact of civil society
on the organizational field
There is evidence that civil society is becoming
increasingly important for issues of greening. For
example, de Bruijn et al. (1997) point out that
governments are changing the contexts in which
firms operate by assuming a role of facilitator
rather than ruler. This allows for other organiz-
ations, such as businesses, to assume a more
pro-active role in the process of greening, which
is aided by adopting new policy instruments such
as negotiated agreements and through an
increased reliance on self-regulation. In turn, the
flexibility of such new policy instruments stimu-
lates the development of new, environmentally
benign technologies. An interesting example of
a new, flexible policy instrument is the use of
decentralized, reform-oriented environmental
Bus. Strat. Env. 7, 179192 (1998)
BEYOND GREENING
control strategies through temporary project
organizations in Sweden (Dobers, 1997a; b).
Increasingly, governments find it helpful to
engage intermediate organizations, such as trade
organizations, in promoting environmental reform
in the organizational field. Christensen et al. (1997)
report on such experiences in Denmark where the
state aims to stimulate small and medium-sized
companies to develop environmental manage-
ment schemes through trade organizations. The
suggestion is that the implementation efficiency
of trade organizations relates to the implemen-
tation model chosen, which in turn relates to the
particular working model of that trade organiz-
ation. This Danish experience is reminiscent of the
Dutch target group approach in environmental
policy: the state negotiates an environmental
covenant with trade organizations, for example in
the field of packaging waste (Neumann et al.,
1997; Boons, 1998). In France, the government
asked industry representatives to formulate pro-
posals for how to deal with packaging waste in a
similar vein (Neumann et al., 1997). Despite dif-
ferences in their formal positions and roles in
these cases, it may be concluded that trade
organizations and industry representatives can be
new, strong actors in the environmental field
(Christensen et al., 1997). They play a role in
bridging across various communities of practice
(Clarke, 1997; Roome, 1997) by stimulating learn-
ing by government and industry (Neumann et al.,
1997).
A consequence of the increased importance of
civil society is that the differentiation between
legal and social legitimacy has sharpened. As a
result, companies may find it more difficult to
obtain social legitimacy for their activities simply
through state approval. Grolin (1998) discusses
the experiences of Shell in the Brent Spar conflict.
He argues that the process of globalization of
multinational companies, such as Shell, invokes
a wider circle of stakeholder interests which
imposes a broader scope of requirements on
the companys activities. Thus, multinational
companies are increasingly forced to engage in
open dialogue with stakeholder groups, just as
Shell started to do in the final episode of the Brent
Spar conflict.
Hartman and Stafford (1997; 1998) have ana-
lysed a number of such green alliances, notably
in the United States. They argue that both
companies and environmental groups may benefit
from such alliances: for example, companies gain
early access to the views and demands of environ-
mental groups, which in the long term may help
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BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
strategic planning and result in cost savings.
Environmental groups may also benefit due to
increased probability of success and higher visi-
bility. There are pitfalls too, notably in relation to
credibility (Hartman and Stafford, 1997; 1998) and
capture (Fuchs and Mazmanian, 1998).
Transformation 2. How the organizational
field may enhance the greening of
organizations
A significant number of papers presented at Santa
Barbara illustrate the role of the organizational
field in influencing the greening of individual
organizations. Over the years many different
greening factors have been mentioned. For
example, financial institutions, having limited
direct environmental impacts themselves, can
play an important role in the process of eco-
transformation by modifying their lending prac-
tices and incorporating environmental concerns in
investment decisions (Scholes, 1997). However,
an integrated understanding of how greening
factors relate, and how they may work synergis-
tically or antagonistically, is beyond the current
state of knowledge (Fuchs and Mazmanian, 1998).
Schrama (1997) attempts to build a comprehen-
sive theoretical model of corporate responsive-
ness to environmental issues. His model is based
on the assumption that a firms activities have a
real (as opposed to perceived) impact on the
natural and social environments, affecting the
interests of stakeholders upon whom the firm
may be dependent for resources. Since firms aim
to minimize resource dependency, this provides
an incentive for environmental management.
Whether and how this incentive materializes
depends on the firms awareness and recognition
of the importance of environmental aspects in the
legal, social and economic realms. Interestingly
enough, this model does not preclude companies
from developing pro-active environmental strat-
egies, nor developing specific competencies in
doing so (Sharma, 1998), but the question of
whether companies are able to develop and imple-
ment environmental management seems to be less
relevant.
Firms may turn to other actors in their organ-
izational field to find assistance in developing the
capabilities for implementing environmental man-
agement. Several models were presented, includ-
ing citizen advisory panels (Feyerherm and
Milliman, 1997) and cross-sectoral industry clubs
with support from academia (Azzone, 1997; Clark,
1997). CERES, too, plays a role in enhancing
Bus. Strat. Env. 7, 179192 (1998)
185

corporate environmental management through
information exchange and stakeholder dialogue,
although a special one because of its insistence on
the publication of environmental reports.
Nash et al. (1997) offer preliminary, yet chal-
lenging, thoughts on the role of CERES as an
agent of change, following an earlier evaluation of
the Responsible Care Program of the chemical
industry (Nash and Howard, 1995). Nash et al.
argue that the success of private codes, such as
CERES and Responsible Care, depends on the
codes normative scope and the inclusion of a
sanctioning mechanism. Based on interviews with
a sample of three out of 77 CERES endorsing
companies, they find that CERES management
and endorsing firms have substantially different
views on the transformational impact of the code.
While of limited statistical significance, their find-
ings nonetheless raise questions about the sanc-
tioning power of corporate codes of conduct.
They suggest that the normative scope of organ-
izations such as CERES, which has the most far
reaching of any code, may be less than expected
because companies can use their endorsement of
the CERES principles as a symbol of approval, not
as a source for new values to move beyond
regulation and compliance (Nash et al., 1997). As
an expanding number of companies sign up to
corporate codes of conduct such as CERES and
others, there is a need and opportunity to evalu-
ate the impact of the codes of environmental
performance, and to determine the forms of
engagement and dialogue that can best realize the
tranformative potential of the organizational field.
Transformation 3. How organizations may
change their organizational field by pursuing
pro-active strategies
As indicated above, workshops on the agricultural
and automotive sectors presented several exam-
ples of how relatively small companies may
transform their businesses into being environmen-
tally more benign (Chouinard and Brown, 1997;
Maier et al., 1997; Elzen et al., 1997). The unifying
question in these cases is how stepwise learning
and reflection may generate the insights, tools
and arguments needed to make things change.
However, in the different context of developing
countries, Edelmann and Ries (1997) suggest
that such firms need external support for their
strategies to be viable in the long run.
Each of these cases is an interesting extension
of the suggestion that firms holding a structural
position of dominance within a supply chain have
 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
186 BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
A. BRAGD ET AL.
a large impact on the greening of that chain
(Boons, 1998). On the one hand, the cases suggest
that dominance is not absolute but is a matter of
degree: i.e. it is related to the specific characteris-
tics of the supply chain, such as a presence in
specific market segments. The very core of stra-
tegic niche management as proposed by Elzen
et al. (1997) is that a company creates a supportive
environment for the further development of rela-
tively immature technologies by shielding itself
from full-blown market competition in specific
niches. The ability to create an effective coalition
with suppliers, clients and institutional actors
would seem to underlie dominance, rather than
absolute size or market power. On the other hand,
there is evidence that the structural position of a
firm may also be a significant source of inertia in
that it prevents the company from being able to
adapt to changing situations. For example, firms
in the agrochemical industry do not succeed in
changing their innovation strategies to better
respond to an increasingly important demand for
non-pesticide crop protection technologies (Den
Hond et al., 1997).
Transformation 4. A transformation based
on changes in market demand?
No papers directly addressed questions of how
the organizational field is influencing civil society.
However, the market, in which consumers express
values and create norms through their buying
behaviour, is an important element of a firms
organizational field. From this perspective, ques-
tions of how consumers express their needs, to
what extent they make use of environmentally
related knowledge in expressing their needs and
to what sort of incentives they are receptive, are
highly relevant for studying whether and how
organizations may influence civil society.
A useful starting point, then, is to study
consumers conceptions and understandings of
environmental issues. In an interesting paper, Lane
(1997) investigated this in relation to car use. He
finds that the public is aware of the existence of
several environmentally beneficial technologies,
such as the catalytic converter and electric
vehicles, but less so of their precise environmental
benefits. His suggestion is that such research may
be helpful in devising more effective educational
programs. Yet, Meijkamp (1998) warns that con-
sumer behaviour is difficult to influence. So far,
policy instruments of a motivational, economic
and psychological nature, aimed at a reduction of
the environmental impact of consumption, have
Bus. Strat. Env. 7, 179192 (1998)
BEYOND GREENING
largely failed. Moreover, developing eco-efficient
products may have considerable rebound effects,
as their introduction may have an impact on the
level of consumption and may create a new
market demand rather than substitute for existing
products (see, for example, Tenner, 1994).
Overall it should be concluded that there was
relatively little focus on consumer perspectives at
Santa Barbara. There was, for example, only one
session in which consumption-related issues were
directly debated. This may be a consequence of
the composition of the Networks membership.
Hence it could be advantageous to invite other
constituencies such as consumer groups to work
with the Network. It is clear that there is a
significant opportunity for companies to refocus
their innovative efforts towards addressing func-
tionality in meeting customer needs through ser-
vices, for example, rather than by adding to the
range of existing products in order to boost
product sales.
SUSTAINABILITY AND
GLOBALIZATION: A DIALOGUE (OF
THE DEAF?)
The conferences invitation to dialogue on sus-
tainability gave participants sufficient latitude to
explore and challenge industrial transformation in
the context of increasingly popular concepts such
as globalization, and to examine the implications
for sustainability of the corporate strategies, pub-
lic policies and material and energy flows associ-
ated with a geographical expansion of economic
activity. Many participants, however, took a
narrower, managerial perspective on questions
of sustainability and globalization by focusing
instead on how recent strategies of global invest-
ment might be harnessed to deliver sustainable
development. A perceptible tension emerged dur-
ing the course of the conference between those
identifying the economic and environmental per-
formance of enterprises as the sine qua non of
sustainability, and those who remained sceptical
about congruence between the strategic interests
of multinational capital and the environmental
and social pre-requisites of sustainability.
Such tension can potentially be a creative part
of the research process, yet it can also degenerate
into what Fehsenfeld (1997) terms, in the context
of competing community and corporate objec-
tives of environmental reporting, a dialogue of
the deaf. Two decades after widespread concern
 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
at de-industrialization within OECD countries
brought the global nature of manufacturing
into popular perspective (e.g. Blackaby, 1979;
Bluestone and Harrison, 1982), and over a decade
after sustainability became a household word
with the publication of the Brundtland report
(Brundtland Commission, 1987), there is still a
tendency, even within the Network, to see glo-
balization and sustainability as two conceptually
separate areas. This conceptual isolation is
expressed, for example, in studies which draw
conclusions about progress towards sustainability
by reviewing diffusion of environmental manage-
ment strategies throughout the branch plants of a
multinational manufacturer, as opposed to exam-
ining the environmental and social implications of
the full suite of strategies adopted by firms in
their efforts to remain competitive. By isolating
environmental strategies from a study of the
environmental implications of strategies per se, it is
possible to identify progress in the environmental
performance (e.g. waste minimization) of a specific
firm but at the same time ignore the impacts of
increased material extraction, energy throughput,
and strategies adopted to reduce labour costs on
local communities.
Globalization as the Greening of
Everywhere
A popular reading and critique of globalization is
that it comprises the eradication of national and
local distinctiveness as the increasing international
spread of firms, markets and corporate best
practices results in the homogenization of
spatial variation. In short, in the global village
(McLuhan, 1960), everywhere is becoming just
like everywhere else. This narrow reading of
globalization is neither theoretically coherent nor
empirically justified. Yet, a number of papers
tapped into this popular reading of globalization
as geographical shrinkage. They argued that the
widening international scope of investment under
conditions of increased environmental awareness
is leading to a reduction in the variation of
environmental performance from place to place
and to a harmonization of national environmental
standards. Geisslhofer et al. (1997) for example,
focus on the creation of western financial regimes
in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe as
a pre-requisite to greening, while Olson and
Rainey (1997) describe the diffusion of ISO 14000
to China as playing an essential role in global
environmental progress, allowing all countries to
catch up to those that have had environmental
Bus. Strat. Env. 7, 179192 (1998)
187

issues at the forefront of policy initiatives, tech-
nology and regulations for over two decades. In
short, several authors asserted that the processes
of globalization were creating a more level play-
ing field, a transnational economic and political
environment in which it was increasingly difficult
for firms with poor environmental performance to
survive.
On what does this assertion of globalized
greening depend? A review of the papers, work-
shops and discussions at Santa Barbara indicates
the assertion that economic and political strate-
gies of globalization are promoting the greening
of everywhere rests on five assumptions about the
process of globalization.
1. Globalization of investment leads to the trans-
fer of cleaner technologies and best-practice
management practices as firms invest in state-
of-the-art equipment at greenfield sites or in
retrofitting and modernizing existing plant
(Molloy and Ueki, 1997; Warren and
Ortolano, 1997; Edelmann and Ries, 1997).
2. Market demand for high-value, natural prod-
ucts in the industrialized economies can
promote investment in organic or environ-
mentally sensitive production in the develop-
ing world (Shoobridge, 1997; Chouinard and
Brown, 1997; Edelmann and Ries, 1997).
3. The emergence of international environmental
standards such as the ISO 14000 series
together with steps towards self-regulation
through the adoption of voluntary codes of
corporate responsibility decreases the possi-
bility of adopting different standards of
environmental performance from one part of
the world to the next (Olson and Rainey,
1997; Peterson, 1997; Nash and Howard,
1995).
4. The emergence of environmental conditions
attached to credit and insurance, investor con-
cerns about environmental and social liability
and end-use consumer pressure is raising the
threshold of acceptable environmental per-
formance world-wide (Geisslhofer et al., 1997;
Scholes, 1997).
5. The globalization of environmental awareness
and the professionalization of environmental
advocacy has increased the influence of stake-
holders, the range of interests they represent
and the geographical scale at which these
interests are expressed. Telecommunication
technologies have made it impossible to hide
poor performance the so-called CNN effect
and have confirmed the importance of pur-
 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
188 BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
A. BRAGD ET AL.
suing a global strategy of best practice
(Schrama, 1997).
Re-framing Globalization
Caution is warranted, however, regarding any
necessary linkage between globalization and a
global greening of industry. Papers by Hveem
(1997), Bs (1997), Fauchald (1997) and Greaker
(1997) capture the need for rigorous, context-
specific research on the links between globaliz-
ation and industrial greening from the perspective
of the on-going debate over the environmental
impacts of trade liberalization, specifically the
North American Free Trade Agreement, the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and
the anticipated Multilateral Agreement on Invest-
ment. By addressing the impacts of de-regulation
and economic growth in political economic
rather than corporate terms, it is possible to
re-frame an engagement between globalization
and sustainability. Instead of restricting the ana-
lytical focus to the environmental strategies of
industry, new avenues for research are opened up.
These address the full suite of impacts from
de-regulation and economic growth on energy
and material use, local biophysical and cultural
diversity, and the impacts on locally based pro-
duction systems as a result of their integration
with the world economy.
There is opportunity here: dialogue between
Network researchers and more established lines
of inquiry within fields such as economic and
industrial geography and development economics
will illustrate the availability of more complex
treatments of the processes of globalization. Take,
for example, the specific assertion that foreign
direct investment diffuses cleaner technologies
world-wide. At least three well established
critiques within industrial geography suggest
that the transfer of state-of-the-art technology
to the developing world via the global strategies
of transnational corporations is not a necessary
process, but is instead context dependent.
First, optimal strategies for cost reduction dur-
ing the manufacture of standardized products may
create incentives for firms to retain innovative
production technologies within core economies
and export only relatively mature production
technologies to the developing world (Hymer,
1976; Mansfield et al., 1983; Barff, 1995). Thus,
even if one accepts the argument that state-of-
the-art technologies are necessarily more efficient
and therefore less polluting (see, for example,
Romm, 1994; Porter and van der Linde, 1995), the
Bus. Strat. Env. 7, 179192 (1998)
BEYOND GREENING
locus of environmental innovation and product
development is often maintained in core econ-
omies and is not necessarily diffused to the periph-
ery. Next, by suggesting that investments in
manufacturing plants in the developing world may
lack a significant research and development com-
ponent, this critique also raises questions about the
ability of investment to promote innovative ca-
pacity within local economies which is part of any
move towards sustainable development. Finally,
since the export of state-of-the-art technology
through the investment decisions of multinational
corporations is geographically circumscribed it
cannot be correctly characterized as a global phe-
nomenon. Not only is the impact of investment on
progress towards sustainability highly differenti-
ated in space, but decisions about the location,
timing, size and type of investments reflect an
articulation between the global logic of the multi-
national and a set of specific local conditions. Thus,
not only is greening not a global phenomenon in
the simplistic sense that it does not occur every-
where, but, more fundamentally, local conditions
play a central role in determining the precise form
adopted by the global strategies of multinational
firms, including environmental strategies.
Recognition of the continued importance of
local conditions in the context of globalization
opens up possibilities for research into how
hybrid forms of industrial organization, resource
management and environmental practice can
emerge from the interaction of international
investment flows and the specific conditions of
local places. A small number of conference papers
illustrate that the operation of global economic
and political processes do not free the firm from
the local conditions within which it must also
operate (Grolin, 1998; Boons, 1998; Saether,
1998). As high profile cases such as Brent Spar
demonstrate, globally operating firms encounter
resistance and rejection at specific historical
moments and in certain places. This reflects the
socially embedded nature of a corporations
growth trajectory: that is, the rate of growth, its
sectoral composition, spatial location and the
extent of impacts on environments and commu-
nities are not immutable, but are actively shaped
by the interaction of different interests expressed
at scales from the local to the global.
CONCLUSION
This is an appropriate point to step back from a
discussion of the intellectual achievements of the
 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Santa Barbara conference and consider their impli-
cations for the future of the Greening of Industry
Network. One thing stands out clearly: as Fatkin
and Fischer (1998) illustrate, the Greening of
Industry Network is prospering. The abstract
book contains more contributions than ever
before. The number of participants continues to
increase, as does the diversity of professional and
geographical backgrounds of the conference par-
ticipants. In addition to the established focus on
corporate and organizational greening, Network
researchers are embracing an ever-wider range of
topics including education, consumer behaviour
and public policy. Furthermore, the Network has
strengthened and deepened its activities through
the development of an Asian node, based
at Chulalongkorn Universitys Environmental
Research Institute in Thailand and supported by
the United States Asia Environmental Partner-
ship. Undoubtedly, this geographical expansion
will bring new participation, ideas and perspec-
tives to the Network. By focusing on the process
and forms of growth in emerging markets, it
also helps address a concern raised at previous
Network conferences about the worrying gap
between discussions and research focused on
companies in developed market economies and
the problems analysed and described by contribu-
tors from the Eastern European countries or the
contributions from the Third World (de Bruijn
et al., 1997, p 182).
After a decade or so of rapid growth and
diversification, research on the greening of indus-
try is well poised to take stock of its achievements
and identify research areas and methods best able
to move the research agenda forward. This essay
has advanced the concept of industrial transfor-
mation as a way of bridging between greening
and sustainability since it can both facilitate
focused discussion of the nature of greening and
enable engagement with macro-level concepts
such as sustainability and globalization. More-
over, the notion of transformation leads to ques-
tions of how recent developments in civil society
and the organizational field may influence the
greening of organizations, and vice versa.
The task at hand is to continue to craft an
enduring dialogue within the Network on in-
dustrial transformation which can balance the
diversity of perspectives the hallmark of the
Network and the source of its creative potential
with the methodological rigour and critical stance
required of a maturing field. The source of the
Networks vitality is the integration of reflection
and analysis with creativity and design in the
Bus. Strat. Env. 7, 179192 (1998)
189

research process (Kruijsen, 1998). In this context,
individual and collective efforts to improve the
rigour and practical utility of research, for
example by making explicit research standards,
norms and practices, are positive steps. Yet the
pursuit of utility and focus should not come at the
expense of infusions of creativity from other
disciplines or a diversity of content, style and
language.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We wish to thank Theo de Bruijn, Harry Fatkin,
Kurt Fischer and all those who reported back to us
on workshops during and after the Santa Barbara
conference, for their valuable input, suggestions
and ideas. Responsibility for the final shape and
content of the paper remains with the authors.
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BIOGRAPHY
The authors can be contacted via Dr. Gavin
Bridge, Department of Geography, University of
Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma 73019-1007,
USA. Tel: +1 405 325 5325. Fax: +1 405 325
6090. E-mail: gbridge@au.edu
Bus. Strat. Env. 7, 179192 (1998)