Comprehensive Model of Sustainable Production Development through a Transition from Industrial Production Towards Ecological Production

摘要

In recent decades, there has been substantial environmental pressure on manufacturing companies for predict the eco- nomic benefits of their processes and products and assessing the environmental and social effects of their perfor- mance. As a result, promotion of production processes and products by preserving the social, economic, and environ- mental benefits has become one of the objectives of most companies. This demand has also directly pursued by cus- tomers who wish their products to be built in a sustainable manner. Therefore, this has caused manufacturing compa- nies around the world face a new challenge of maintaining their competitive position in the market by developing and implementing sustainable production practices and tools and pursue sustainable development aiming at social, eco- nomic, and environmental issues in the process of development. The concept of sustainable production, closely asso- ciated with sustainable development, was firstly proposed in the United Nations Conference on Environment and De- velopment in 1992. In this conference, it was concluded that the main cause of environmental destruction is the unsus- tainable pattern of production and consumption, especially in industrial countries. Whereas sustainable consumption is targeted at consumers, sustainable production deals with companies and organizations producing goods or providing services. Focusing on business sustainability, the present paper aimed to identify dimensions of sustainable production with an ecological approach from the perspective of managers of successful industrial companies in Semnan Province, Iran and then propose a model of sustainable production. To this end, 33 successful managers in this province with at least 5 years of continuous activity were interviewed using the repertory grid technique and 33 personal repertory gr- ids were developed. In addition, a total of 175 initial personal constructs of sustainable production were identified. Finally, through the analysis of these constructs, the collective grid of sustainable production consisting of 87 second- ary constructs in 11 sections was plotted. These constructs were analyzed and classified using cluster analysis in SPSS and finally a model of sustainable production with 11 pillars and 87 constructs in 4 sections was developed.