In addition six subcategories identify inputs of materials, energy and services, the
supply of inputs, the design installation, maintenance, and operation of the physical
facilities and equipments, output of products, services, wastes, and emissions, and
finally the delivery of outputs. Bennet and Martin (1998) mention that changing drivers
for environmental performance management must include stakeholders’ growing
expectations about contentious issues, the need to respond to environmental pressures,
Figure 3.
Design of a performance
measurement system
utilizing the continuous
improvement
plan-do-check-act process
from ISO 14031 guidelines
Green supply
chain
management
343
the need to measure life cycle analysis and take-back programs, and general links
between the environments as other typical business performance indicators, and need
to be designed into an environmental management system and especially a
GSCM/PMS. Thus, not only should team members in design of a GSCM/PMS be from
internal functional areas of an organization, but should preferably include customer
and supplier functional representatives and other stakeholders as shown in Figure 3.
The effort required to put together a GSCM/PMS can be quite extensive. A key
aspect of the early planning stages will be a form of evaluation and justification for
such a system using strategic and operational cost/benefit analyzes. For example,
Lokkegaard (1999) in a case study of a Malaysian glove manufacturer indicated only a
few key environmental aspects and an ability to visualize the performance trends over
time using the indicators was required. Thus, smaller organizations and their supply
chain elements may not require as extensive a system. Yet, large multinational firms
like advanced micro devices with complex supply chains may require more complexity
in their performance measurement systems. In fact, the dynamic design characteristics
may also mean varying requirements depending on product, component and material
characteristics. Advanced micro devices requires their chemical suppliers, especially of
hazardous chemicals, to be more involved in performance evaluation and data
gathering than their office materials suppliers (Trowbridge, 2001).
The other steps of the ISO 14031 environmental performance management system
requirements include assessment and documentation delivery. Next, our discussion
shifts focus to these items with a discussion on tools (for assessment) useful in
GSCM/PMS design in the next section. The “results” discussion in the following
section focuses on documentation and other deliverables as outputs from a
GSCM/PMS.