Critérios de seleção de fornecedores no Brasil

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Are supplier selection criteria
going green? Case studies
of companies in Brazil
Ana Beatriz L.S. Jabbour
Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCAR), Sorocaba, Brazil, and
Charbel J.C. Jabbour
São Paulo State University (UNESP FEB), and University of São Paulo,
Bauru, Brazil
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to verify if Brazilian companies are adopting environmental
requirements in the supplier selection process. Further, this paper intends to analyze whether there is a
relation between the level of environmental management maturity and the inclusion of environmental
criteria in the companies’ selection of suppliers.
Design/methodology/approach – A review of mainstream literature on environmental management,
traditional criteria in the supplier selection process and the incorporation of environmental requirements in
this context. The empirical study’s strategy is based on five Brazilian case studies with industrial
companies. Face-to-face interviews and informal conversations are to be held, explanations made by e-mail
with representatives from the purchasing, environmental management, logistics and other areas, and
observation and the collection of company documents are also employed.
Findings – Based on the cases, it is concluded that companies still use traditional criteria to select
suppliers, such as quality and cost, and do not adopt environmental requirements in the supplier
selection process in a uniform manner. Evidence found shows that the level of environmental
management maturity influences the depth with which companies adopt environmental criteria when
selecting suppliers. Thus, a company with more advanced environmental management adopts more
formal procedures for selecting environmentally appropriate suppliers than others.
Originality/value – This is the first known study to verify if Brazilian companies are adopting
environmental requirements in the supplier selection process.
Keywords Brazil, Supplier evaluation, Selection, Environmental management,
Supply chain management
Paper type Case study
1. Introduction
Great environmental challenges, such as global warming, have demanded greater
concern by organizations regarding their environmental management (Boiral, 2006;
Lin et al., 2001; Hunt and Auster, 1990; Winn and Angell, 2000). However, in order to
improve their relations with the environment, these organizations must contribute
towards a reduction in environmental impacts from their supply chains, stimulating
improvements in their suppliers’ environmental performance (Svensson, 2007;
Handfield et al., 2002; Kovács, 2008; Ofori, 2000; Lamming and Hampson, 1996).
As indicated by Humphreys et al. (2003), the transformations desired by companies in
developing products and processes are related to the capacity of their suppliers to
become environmentally fit.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0263-5577.htm
Case studies
of companies
in Brazil
477
Received 30 July 2008
Revised 9 January 2009
Accepted 20 January 2009
Industrial Management & Data
Systems
Vol. 109 No. 4, 2009
pp. 477-495
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0263-5577
DOI 10.1108/02635570910948623
The importance in studying the insertion of environmental requirements in the
supplier selection process becomes clear when reviewing mainstream literature for the
theme and the main trends in environmental management (Bras et al., 2006). However,
when we examine Brazilian literature, we find a theoretical-empirical gap in the topic.
We can thus declare that the motivation that guided this study is: do Brazilian
companies consider environmental requirements when selecting suppliers?
Consequently, the objective of this paper is: verify if environmental criteria are
considered during the supplier selection process, analyzing the relationship between
traditional criteria for supplier selection and emerging environmental criteria.
This paper is structured as follows: Sections 2 to 4 explore the insertion of the
environmental dimension in organizations, traditional criteria for supplier selection
and the insertion of the environmental variable in this process, theoretically and,
respectively. Section 5 presents the methodological procedures that were adopted.
After that, in Section 6, we show the results obtained and in Section 7, we discuss the
paper’s main implications. In Section 8, we recover the main results from this paper
and introduce suggestions for future studies.
2. The environmental issue in the business context
Some authors rank environmental management not only as a new management
function, but also as the main change in the recent business scope (Rosen, 2001), almost
a “new industrial revolution” (Berry and Rondinelli, 1998). After all, it is through the
organizations, especially through the characteristics of the products and processes
they develop (Cagno et al., 2005) that humanity has been engendering environmental
impacts of an unprecedented magnitude. Consequently, improved global
environmental conditions have significant implications for organizations as well as
on the conditions for dealing with business environmental management. The
systematization of literature permits the identification of approximately ten conceptual
definitions for environmental management, as seen in Table I, underscoring the
essential assumptions shown in each of these concepts.
The above definitions do not present significant differences between each other and
thus do not raise conceptual contradictions. Thus, based on the main assumptions of each
contribution, this study considers business environmental management as a consistent set
of adaptations or isolated actions, carried out in an organizational context, altering
structure, responsibilities, guidelines, administrative practices, and operational aspects to
confront the inherent complexity of inserting the environmental variable, achieving
previously established expectations and goals through the mitigation of negative effects
caused by business activities, especially in terms of product and process development.
Advances in theoretical-empirical knowledge in environmental management are
carried out with a predominantly evolutionary focus on the inclusion of environmental
issues in a business context. The ascendance of this methodological perspective
coincides with the very genesis of studies on business environmental management and
the consequent disclosure of publications whose scope is evidence of the many
positions organizations set regarding the natural environment. This form of conceiving
of business environmental management phenomena is growing, promoting a broad
range of evolutionary proposals whose similarities permit their systematization
according to a common denomination. The main evolutionary proposals for analyzing
business environmental management are shown in Table II.
IMDS
109,4
478
As can be seen, each proposal involves a set of stages, understood as phases of a
gradual implementation process of environmental management practices in a given
company (Barbieri, 2004). Generally, classification models are adopted with three, four,
or five levels, to characterize the company’s concerns with environmental
aspects (Rohrich and Cunha, 2004), with a predominance of three-stage approaches.
Study Concept of environmental management
McCloskey and Maddock (1994, p. 29) Business environmental management is the set of
adjustments and structure plans for the company’s systems
and activities in order to establish a certain position in face
of the environmental variable
Borri and Boccaletti (1995, p. 38) Environmental management concerns compliance with a
continuous improvement program to deal with problems of
an environmental nature, demanding the acquisition and
development of tools and methodologies to deal with the
complexity involved
Nahuz (1995, p. 62) Environmental Management “is the set of general
management function aspects for an organization, including
planning,needed to develop and maintain the policy and the
organization’s environmental objectives”
Richards and Frosch (1997, p. 4) Environmental management concerns the set of activities
that aim for the projection of products, productive processes
and strategies that avoid the emergence of environmental
problems
Corazza (2003, p. 4) Organizational environmental management involves the
company’s planning and guidance to achieve the specific
environmental goals, in analogy to quality management
Barbieri (2004, p. 20) Environmental management concerns the “administrative
and operational guidelines and activities, like planning,
direction, control, resource allocation and others carried out
with the objective of obtaining positive effects on the
environment, whether by reducing or eliminating damage
or problems caused by human action, or by avoiding their
occurrence.”
Moura (2004, p. 54) “Business environmental management encompasses the
activities performed by companies with the objective of
working towards their improved environmental
performance”
Rohrich and Cunha (2004, p. 3) Environmental management is a “consistent set of
administrative and operational policies and practices that
considers the protection of the environment through the
mitigation of environmental impacts and damage resulting
from planning, implementation, operation, expansion,
reallocation or deactivation of ventures or activities,
including all of the product’s life cycle phases”
Rowland-Jones et al. (2005, p. 213) Environmental management is developed in organizations
that evaluate and redefine their operations to ensure they
are operating in an environmentally legitimate way
Source: The authors
Table I.
Selected concepts of
environmental
management
Case studies
of companies
in Brazil
479
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Table II.
Systematization of
selected stages of
corporate environmental
management
IMDS
109,4
480
In this study, we assume the evolution of business environmental management in three
increasing stages:
(1) Reactive, in which the environmental management area is created and geared
exclusively towards meeting legislation and is isolated from the organizational
context.
(2) Preventive, in which there is growing engagement of other areas in environmental
management, but the environmental dimension is not systematically viewed as
strategic.
(3) Proactive, where all of the company’s areas systematically seek to explore
competitive advantages through environmental management.
3. The debate over supplier selection
Supplier participation in providing direct inputs for manufacturing companies has
intensified in recent years. We have increasingly seen suppliers supporting customer
quality improvement processes (continuous improvement), working together in customer
product development activities (early supplier involvement) and in production inside
customer production units (modular consortium). One of the reasons for underscoring
supplier functions is explained by Prahalad and Hamel’s (1990) perspective in which
companies emphasize their internal competence demanding greater ties to suppliers to
support non-central activities of the production system, where companies are responsible
for managing suppliers. In this sense, supplier selection, and most especially, the
establishment of selection criteria, has been structured at the companies.
Suppliers have played strategic roles in organizations, as indicated in studies like
those by Vonderembse and Tracey (1999) and Hsu et al. (2006), who affirm that
suppliers play a vital role in creating a competitive advantage and their actions have a
positive impact on the organization’s performance. Once suppliers become responsible
for the parts and subsystems of the final product, they incorporate production costs,
technological development and quality performance in them, which is why they are
important and selected according to operational and strategic factors. Using selection
criteria that are compatible with the company’s competitive strategy, it is possible to
achieve an alignment between the two in terms of goals and objectives. Several articles
cited below indicate that the most used criteria in literature are related to the
competitive production priorities defined by Hayes and Wheelwhight (1984).
Dickson (1966) was one of the first authors to deal with supplier selection criteria
and is a reference on the subject until today. He carried out a survey with American
and Canadian companies and identified about 23 selection criteria used by companies
and underscored quality, cost and delivery performance history as the most important.
Many other subsequent articles corroborate these conclusions:
. The bibliographic review by Verma and Pullman (1998) on 74 articles.
. Vonderembse and Tracey’s (1999) study that correlates the company’s and the
supplier’s performance with the appropriate use of selection criteria.
. The survey by Choi and Hartley (1996) that relates the importance of supplier
selection criteria with the position of the company focused on the supply chain.
. Çebi and Bayraktar (2003) who developed an integrated model for supplier
selection and used quality, costs and delivery as analysis criteria.
Case studies
of companies
in Brazil
481
. The study by Hsu et al. (2006) which answers the question concerning the
appropriate measures for selecting key suppliers and groups the measures to
highlight quality, price and delivery criteria.
. Lee et al. (2001) who propose a methodology to help in the supplier management
process based on information obtained from the supplier selection process and
the criteria used are quality, costs, delivery, and service.
Furtado (2005) made a literature compendium concerning supplier selection criteria
that have been used since the 1960s and then categorized and defined them. There
are no issues that refer to environmental concerns as supplier selection criteria in the
results and studies cited therein, which is why this study is being conducted.
This fact reveals that changes in organizational actions that seek greater
productive efficiency, leading to environmental awareness, are not yet present in the
externalization of relations with suppliers. The following section discusses these
conditioning factors better.
4. The insertion of environmental requirements in supplier selection
Ascan be observed in the above section, the body of knowledge on supplier selection
tends to consider traditional aspects, such as cost, quality, etc. However, there are few
theoretical or theoretical-empirical studies that consider environmental criteria in the
supplier selection process and in supply chain management (Lin et al., 2001). This was
endorsed in the study by Humphreys et al. (2003).
Of the studies conducted along these lines, pioneerism must be attributed to
Lamming and Hampson (1996), who proposed a series of environmental indicators for
supplier selection. The researchers concluded there was no standard for criteria, or for
use, on the part of analyzed companies. Additional considerations were developed later
(Azzone and Noci, 1996; Walton et al., 1998). Although these studies identify the need
and tendency to include environmental criteria in the supplier selection process, they
fail to systematize, categorize and detail a framework for this theme.
Significant progress in the search for a framework to consider environmental
aspects in the supplier selection process was achieved by communicating the results of
the study by Humphreys et al. (2003). These authors discussed a model comprised of
environmental criteria that must be considered when selecting suppliers. These criteria
can be grouped according to two perspectives:
(1) Quantitative criteria.
(2) Qualitative criteria.
The quantitative criteria, in lower number than the qualitative ones, must be expressed
in monetary value, i.e. indicating their costs to the company that selects the suppliers.
This quantitative grouping generates two analytical categories, which are, costs
generated to mitigate supplier pollution and costs generated to improve and support
environmental management at suppliers.
The model’s second grouping (Humphreys et al., 2003) involves criteria evaluated
qualitatively, which are organized in the following categories:
. Environmental management competencies.
. Environmental image of suppliers.
IMDS
109,4
482
. Development of products with high environmental performance.
. Environmental management system.
. Environmental competencies.
The schematic representation of these proposals can be observed in Figure 1. These
criteria are aligned to the most recent proposals in the area (Zhu et al., 2008).
Besides, the model presented, some assumptions regarding the insertion of
environmental criteria in the supplier selection process deserve reference:
. Systemically analyze supplier environmental performance. This assumption
recognizes that various elements, such as the business policy, forms of
merchandise transportation, products and productive processes must be
environmentally fit and considered during the supplier selection process
(Enarsson, 1998; Michelsen et al., 2006).
. Supplier selection must consider if a given supplier has the capacity to deal with
the growing demand for improvements in its environmental performance,
expressed through environmental clauses in supply contracts (Simpson et al.,
2007).
. The insertion of environmental criteria must involve the most diverse suppliers,
of different sizes and branches of operation (Lee, 2008).
. Suppliers with more modern management practices, such as lean production,
have the propensity to become environmentally fit (Simpson and Power, 2005).
. The insertion of environmental criteria in the supplier selection process for a
given firm will be proportional to the environmental demand of final consumers
(Vachon and Klassen, 2006).
. Growing trend for interrelating inputs and outputs of the many players in
the production chain, heading towards closed loop supply chain models
(Srivastava, 2008).
. The buying company’s greater environmental awareness tends to generate a
domino effect, seen in a stricter analysis of the suppliers’ environmental
performance (Kovács, 2008), depending on the industrial sector involved (Ferretti
et al., 2007; Michelsen et al., 2006; Vachon and Klassen, 2006).
. There is a scarcity of environmental information on suppliers (Humphreys et al.,
2003).
If on one hand, environmental criteria and assumptions for supplier selection based on
environmental performance are encouraging, they tend to be more of a theoretical
argument than an organizational practice inserted in the dynamic of the supply chain
(Ofori, 2000). Along these lines, Handfield et al. (2002) affirm that in practice, the more
sophisticated and important environmental criteria are not used by firms, which opt for
criteria that provide a simplified analysis. One example of this supplier selection
simplification process based on environmental criteria is prioritizing ISO 14001
certification as a requirement for selecting and maintaining suppliers.
Case studies
of companies
in Brazil
483
Figure 1.
Framework for supplier
selection based on
environmental criteria
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IMDS
109,4
484
5. Methodology
The empirical study evolved qualitatively (Strauss and Corbin, 1990), through the case
study method (Yin, 2005; Cauchick-Miguel, 2007; Voss et al., 2002) along its multiple
front (Cunningham, 1997). The case studies were inductive, based on the analysis of
data collected to understand the insertion of environmental criteria in the selection
process of suppliers located in Brazil.
The comprising of the sample following criteria of companies with ISO 14001
certification, whose transformation processes can result in significant environmental
impacts, who play a leading role in supply chains and who declare a search for
environmental fitness. As a consequence, and after an intense contact process between
the researchers and the initial group of companies, five were chosen as case studies for
this research. In order to preserve their anonymity, the companies were given the
names of V, W, X, Y, and Z.
All these companies are located in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, and they are
classified as large companies by Brazilian legislation. We asked if each of these firms
met the requirements to become case studies (Voss et al., 2002):
. Is it a significant company with regard to the adopted conceptual model.
. Could it evidence the phenomenon being studied.
. Did it presentappropriate conditions to be studied throughout the entire case
study period.
The case studies were conducted by the authors of this paper. Case studies V, W, X,
and Y began in the beginning of 2006 and case Z began in the beginning of 2007. Data
collection thus lasted nearly two years. Each company was visited on average eight
times with company Z permitting greatest access to company information. The
information gathered in case studies was recorded in field logs and then completed
with information described in documents gathered from informal conversations during
technical visits and e-mails exchanged with some respondents.
Data gathering in case studies tends to predominantly occur through interviews,
which should have support instruments based on the study’s conceptual model (Voss
et al., 2002). An interview script was elaborated by the authors of this paper (Appendix).
This script had themes and some issues raised during literature review that needed to be
observed during the case studies. Literature review was thus important to create
guidelines and highlight aspects that needed to be observed in the case studies.
Interviews are important because they reveal relationships with people involved with
the phenomena being analyzed on a daily basis, and who experience them fully (Shah
and Corley, 2006). Thus, responsible for the environmental, purchasing and production
sectors were interviewed at all the companies.
In order to confer greater reliability on case study data and conclusions, it was
recommended to use diverse sources of information, i.e. to triangulate data sources
(Yin, 2005). The methods that complement these interviews are predominantly (Shah
and Corley, 2006):
. Observation, which consists of verifying the phenomenon in its original context
and under which configurations it presents itself.
Case studies
of companies
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. Document analysis, which involves the gathering of previously existing
documents, such as the organization’s voluntary publications and reports that
comprise a case.
Table III contains some details about the data collection process during case studies
and may be useful in future repetitions of this study.
6. Results
6.1 Company V
Company V is a subsidiary of a multinational organization that produces non-durable
goods where the main raw material is wood. It can be considered a large company
according to its earnings and number of employees, and it is also the most significant
subsidiary in terms of earnings for the organization to which it belongs. The main
focus of this company’s environmental management is the search for efficiency in the
use of natural resources for its transformation processes. The environmental issue is
timidly considered during development of products and processes. Because of this, it is
Data collection sources
Case Interviewees Observation Analysis of documents
Company V EnvironmentManager
PurchasingManager
Training and Development
Supervisor
Quality Management
Supervisor
R&D Manager
Visits to administrative sector
Visits to production line
Visits to R&D center
Digital documents
Social-environmental
balance sheet
Criteria for supplier
selection meeting
Company W Occupational Health & Safety
and Environment Manager
Purchasing Manager
People Management Manager
Environmental Analysis of
Products Manager
Visits to administrative sector
Visits to production line
Visits to the waste treatment
and recovery complex
Digital documents
Social-environmental
balance sheet
Documents gathered at
the site
Criteria for supplier
selection meeting
Company X Responsible for
Communication & Press
Quality, Environment and
Productivity Manager
Purchasing Supervisor
Visits to administrative sector
Visits to production line
Visits to the Center to
Accompany Underground
Water Quality
Digital documents
Criteria for supplier
selection meeting
Company Y Business Unit Director
Quality Supervisor
Environment Supervisor
Purchasing Supervisor
Personnel Supervisor
Visits to the Business Unit
Visits to administrative sector
Visits to production line
Digital documents
Criteria for supplier
selection meeting
Company Z Purchasing Manager
Two Suppliers
Environment Manager
Visits to administrative sector
Visits to production lines
Visits to suppliers
Digital documents
Documents gathered at
the site
Corporate manual for
supplier selection
Source: The authors
Table III.
Details of the data
collection process in the
selected cases (2006-2007)
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in the preventive stage of environmental management. The highlights of company V’s
environmental management are:
. Certification in sustainable forestry management in the 1990s.
. ISO 14001/1996 certification in 2002.
. ISO 14001/2004 certification in 2005.
. 70 percent of all waste is reused.
The main criteria that guide the supplier selection process are cost and quality. Despite
the company’s clear intention to consider environmental aspects in the supplier
selection process, it can be said that the only environmental criterion that tends to
interfere in this process is the incentive to reduce some chemical components and
materials during the production process. However, a more systematic consideration of
environmental criteria is non-existent and there are no procedures, information,
methodologies, or models to support this practice. The company is in the process of
structuring a database with environmental information of its main suppliers.
6.2 Company W
Company W is a large company and a subsidiary of one of the most innovative
companies in the world in the chemical and manufacturing business. In 2001, it
instituted a life cycle analysis (LCA) project for the more than 3,000 products it
manufactures. The goal is to analyze, systematize, and create conditions to reduce the
environmental impact generated by such products by 2010, which has become one of
the organization’s greatest challenges. Many reasons induced company W to get ISO
14001 certification, making it different from the others by:
. Seeking an increase in shareholder value, which culminated in the inclusion of
the company in the Dow Jones sustainability index.
. Explore opportunities for highly innovative environmental performance in a
systematized manner.
As consequence, we consider this company in the proactive stage of environmental
management. Its business environmental management can be considered proactive,
involving:
. Installation of a solvent recovery station in the 1980s.
. Implementation of the LCA program in 2000s.
. Stand out unit in the corporate program for pollution prevention.
. 75 percent of all waste is reused.
. ISO 14001/1996 certification in 2001.
. ISO 14001/2004 certification in 2005.
Until 2001, traditional aspects predominated in the supplier selection, like cost, quality
and capacity for innovation. With the LCA, the purchasing area, along with other
areas, initiated a process to systematize the environmental information of its suppliers.
Based on this effort, a database was created with the environmental impacts of each
component supplied to company W, which also exercises its market bargaining power
to encourage ISO 14001 certification on the part of these suppliers.
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6.3 Company X
Company X is a large company, the subsidiary of a corporation in the world
automotive sector. It has been undergoing pressure to develop automotive components
with high environmental performance and more efficient in energy consumption and
transformation. However, company X has not been developing its environmental
competence although its discourse privileges environmental management. An example
of its reactive environmental management is that it achieved an increase in the
environmental performance of its products due to the exploration of environmental
improvements in supplier supplied components, i.e. it did not directly insert
environmental criteria in its product development process. An example is the adoption
of the bifuel injection system,flex, which was led by one of the company’s suppliers.
The organization adopted this innovation to accompany competitors who had already
adopted it. As a result of these actions this company is in the reactive stage of
environmental management. The highlights in its environmental management process
include:
. First factory in the corporation to obtain environmental certification.
. ISO 14001/1996 certification in 1997.
. ISO 14001/2004 certification in 2004.
Company X selects its suppliers based on cost and quality criteria and there is pressure
for them to adopt higher quality standards and to obtain ISO/TS16949 certification. In
a general sense, the insertion of diverse types of environmental criteria in this selection
process is not considered by the company.
6.4 Company Y
Company Y is a large subsidiary of a corporation in the metal-mechanical sector and its
main clients are large industrial groups in the household appliance segment. The
company’s discourse reveals great interest in proactive environmental management
practices, but in practice, we see that environmental issues occupy the back burner in
the organization’s dynamics, thus having a reactive nature. For example, it does not
have a systematic means to include environmental management in the product
development process and sees this potential as limited. The main transformation in
this sense was forced by law, when several countries in the world ratified the Montreal
Protocol in the 1990s, which prohibited the use of CFCs in member countries, many of
which import nearly 70 percent of company Y’s annual production. The company
decided to use tetrafluoride-ethane, not considering, at the time, isobutene as an
alternative, even though it presented significant improvements in environmental
performance (does not harm the ozone layer and has reduced impact on global
warming), but incurs higher production costs because it has less refrigeration capacity
than other products. Thus, we classify this company in the reactive stage of
environmental management. The highlights of it environmental management are:
. Received the FIESP Environmental Merit Award in the 1990s.
. ISO 14001/1996 certification in 2001.
. ISO 14001/2004 certification in 2006.
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Company Y was recently hit by an increase in the international prices of its main raw
materials, especially commodities, like copper. In this context, supplier selection began
to incisively emphasize cost. The company does not have procedures or information on
supplier performance.
6.5 Company Z
Company Z is a large company, the subsidiary of a multinational corporation in the
household appliance segment. Z declares that business and environmental issues are
aligned and thus it seeks to develop products that consume less electricity and water.
Z’s intention is to be at the forefront of environmental legislation in order to meet its
client’s environmental concerns. One action it underscores as an example of this is the
replacement of CFC gas in refrigerators and freezers. As consequence, we consider this
company in the preventive stage environmental management. The highlights of Z’s
environmental management are:
. Z launches the first CFC-free refrigerator in Brazil in 1997.
. The air conditioner unit obtains ISO 14001 certification in 2000, the first in the air
conditioner segment in Brazil to do so.
. The refrigerator unit obtains ISO 14001 certification in 2001, the first in the white
line sector in Brazil to do so.
Acquired raw materials and components constitute a large part of the content of
products manufactured by Z, and consequently, the quality of these materials and
components is of utmost importance for total product quality. Supplier selection
procedures are guided by this logic. According to Z, a good quality supplier has no
quality failure or is quickly heading in that direction. Besides that, the supplier must be
flexible to deliver or stop delivering within the necessary deadline and to adjust to the
dynamics of the household appliance sector. And it must do this at a cost that is
compatible with the competition.
As a consequence, of company Z’s environmental policy and vision, purchasing has
considered issues that refer to environmental management to evaluate eventual
suppliers. Company Z has a manual to guide supplier selection, and it considers
environmental management issues:
. Does the company have an environmental management system based on
international standards?
. Does the company comply with local and social legislation?
. Does the company have an environmental policy?
. Where environmental audits conducted by third parties?
. Does the company publish an annual environmental report?
. Has the company performed an LCA to assess its products’ environmental impact?
. Does the company avoid the use and inclusion of hazardous materials, as per the
European Union lists?
. Does the company use recyclable and/or returnable materials/packages?
Although there is a proposal to select suppliers based on environmental criteria, in
practice we see that company Z does not demand ISO 14001 certification and it
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requests the mere filling out of an environmental registry, revised annually, concerning
the disposal of liquid effluents, measurement of factory noise levels, identification of
solid wastes and measurement of atmospheric emissions.
7. Discussion
In light of the objective of this study, we can point out some important conclusions.
The first is the growth by studied companies regarding the insertion of environmental
criteria in the supplier selection process. However, there is dissonance between the
business intention and its effects on supply chain dynamics. Indeed, all of the cases
analyzed underscored the importance of the topic, but only company W presented
evidence of a transformation in the supplier selection process in order to incorporate
environmental criteria. This reveals that companies are in different stages of
environmental management, as indicated by literature (Hunt and Auster, 1990;
Venselaar, 1995; Borri and Boccaletti, 1995; Azzone et al., 1997; Winn and Angell, 2000;
Berry and Rondinelli, 1998).
It would not be inappropriate to suggest that this first conclusion is conducive to the
verification that the literature that represents the theme’s mainstream is far from the
reality observed in the cases presented. For example, the environmental criteria model for
the supplier selection process systematized by Humphreys et al. (2003) is not verified in the
reality of the five case studies. The most evident approximation occurs at company W,
mainly because this organization implemented LCA for its products, which requires the
insertion of environmental criteria in supplier selection. Thus, the adoption of LCA tends
to generate significant transformations in environmental management at companies, as
already indicated in literature (Kaebernick et al., 2003; Angell and Klassen, 1999).
This study contributes towards specialized literature by showing that there tends to
be a correlation between the level of environmental management development for a
given company and the level with which that company inserts environmental criteria
in the supplier selection process.
Thus, we see companies X and Y, positioned in the reactive stage of environmental
management for they do not select suppliers with environmental requirements as an
organizational practice. Companies V and Z, in the intermediate stage of environmental
management (or preventive), have environmental selection practices for suppliers that
are also at an intermediate level. Company W, at a more advanced stage of
environmental management has the highest level of systematized environmental
requirements for supplier selection.
Further, we see that the highest level of environmental management for the
company tends to create pressure for its suppliers to improve their environmental
performance, such as the pressure exerted by companyW for its suppliers to obtain
ISO 14001 certification. On the other hand, we see a significant scarcity of
environmental information on suppliers (companies V, X, Y, and Z) and we also see
that this aspect proved to be crucial for company W to achieve the success observed. It
is also important to report that the development of products with high environmental
performances tends to precede the inclusion of environmental criteria in the supplier
selection process. This proves that environmental management practices must be
analyzed in an integrated manner (Lin et al., 2001).
These and other verifications have been systematized in Table IV.
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8. Conclusions
This paper analyzed the inclusion of environmental criteria in the supplier selection
process at five companies located in Brazil. We verified that these companies have
difficulties in including environmental aspects in the supplier selection. The more
advanced companies were those that presented greater environmental management
maturity, with changes in their product development process. This shows that the
selection of environmentally fit suppliers must be part of a broader environmental
performance process by organizations.
However, these results must be analyzed based on case study strategy limitations.
Thus, these results cannot be understood as being the reality at all companies located
in Brazil. Based on these verifications, we suggest that future studies explore the
following research hypotheses:
H1. The stage of business environmental management relates positively to the
level of insertion of environmental criteria in the supplier selection process.
Cases
Stage of environmental
management
Traditional criteria
for the supplier
selection process
Environmental criteria
for the supplier
selection process
Company V Preventive stage of
environmental management
Search for eco-efficiency
Continuities and discontinuities
in proactive environmental
management
Cost
Quality
Restricted number of criteria
Reduction of chemical and
toxic material substances
Company W Proactive stage of
environmental management
Life cycle analysis
Environmental criteria part of
the innovation process
Cost
Quality
Innovation
Broad range of criteria
Quantitative analysis of
environmental impact
Information database on
supplier environmental
performance
ISO 14001
Company X Reactive stage of
environmental management
Search for eco-efficiency
Environmental management as
an additional cost
Cost
Quality
Without systematic
consideration
Company Y Reactive stage of
environmental management
Disarticulation in
environmental management
practices
Search for eco-efficiency
Environmental management as
an additional cost
Cost Without systematic
consideration
Company Z Preventive stage of
environmental management
Search for eco-efficiency
Cost
Quality
Delivery
Has a corporate manual of
environmental criteria, but it is
without practical effect
Source: The authors
Table IV.
Systematization of
empirical evidence
Case studies
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H2. The greater environmental performance of products relates positively with
the greater environmental performance of suppliers.
H3. The availability of environmental information on suppliers relates positively
with the possibility to select suppliers with high environmental performance.
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Appendix
Examples of questions used during data collection:
. What were the company’s most important environmental management events?
. Why does the company adopt an environmental management system?
. What are the main supplier selection criteria?
. What is the most important factor required of suppliers?
. Does the company monitor its suppliers’ environmental performance?
. How is the suppliers’ environmental performance evaluated?
. How often is the suppliers’ environmental performance evaluated?
Corresponding author
Charbel J.C. Jabbour can be contacted at: cjabbour@terra.com.br
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