Editorial

摘要

The case for the importance of environmental management has now been well made and it is almost a given that operations management needs to be proactive in its promotion and adoption of greener practices. While the incentive for companies to become "greener" could be simply stated as a moral and ethical imperative to behave as responsible custodians of the planet, there is also growing evidence that the adoption of such practices yields tangible benefits to individual organisations (Simpson et al, 2007; Zhu et al., 2005). Indeed, the levels and rates of adoption of environmental management systems such as ISO 14001 suggest that companies realise sufficient benefits to justify the resources and expenditure required for certification (Viadiu et al, 2006), although Pokinska et al. (2003) suggest that the improvements in organisational efficiency and control and better relations with stakeholders are more significant benefits than any improvements in the environmental impact of products and services. Of course, as green practices are extended across the whole supply chain the impacts are potentially much greater, whether these practices are associated with environmental monitoring by the buying organisation (to evaluate and control its suppliers) or whether they are of a collaborative nature comprising direct involvement of the buying organisation with its suppliers to jointly develop environmental solutions (Vachon and Klassen, 2006). One industry which has been subject to stringent environmental regulation and legislation is the automotive sector, since it has been shown to have a significant and pervasive environmental impact right across the world (Orsato and Wells, 2007). Throughout its life cycle, automobile manufacture involves environmental implications which range from material extraction, which may lead to, for example, ecosystem destruction, to usage, which includes emission-causing global climate change and acid rain, and finally at the end of the life cycle to disposal of hazardous and solid wastes and product recovery and recycling.