The Role of Structural Context in Making Business Sense of Investments for Sustainability–A Case Study

Josefine Rasmussen
Additional contact information
Josefine Rasmussen: Division of Business Administration, Department of Management and Engineering, Linköping University, SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 17, 1-25

Abstract: Energy efficiency is an important means for sustainable manufacturing. One action for manufacturing companies to improve energy efficiency is through investments. While these investments often are profitable, opportunities remain unexploited. This paper explores the structural context of the investment decision-making process by examining the associated activities, procedures, and the role of information. While the structural context may limit complex investments that do not fit predefined rules and controls, such as energy efficiency and other sustainability-related investments, it remains a scarcely studied aspect of investment decision-making for energy efficiency investments. Method-wise, the paper is based on a case study of a major investment at a pulp and paper company, motivated and justified based on productivity, strategic, energy, and sustainability rationales. The paper contributes with illustrating how configurations of internal investment activities and procedures may be crucial for sustainability-related investments to pass through the investment process. Moreover, the configuration of activities and procedures is also indicated as influential for the way in which an investment is executed. Hence, for energy efficiency and other sustainability-related investments to make business sense constitutes more than achieving desirable payback periods; the structural context should be considered.

Keywords: energy efficiency; sustainable manufacturing; investment decision-making; structural context; non-energy benefits (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/17/7006/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/17/7006/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:17:p:7006-:d:405237

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().