Eco-innovations in more sustainable supply chains for a low-carbon economy: A multiple case study of human critical success factors in Brazilian leading companies

Charbel José Chiappetta Jabbour, Angelo Saturnino Neto, José Alcides Gobbo, Maisa de Souza Ribeiro and Ana Beatriz Lopes de Sousa Jabbour

International Journal of Production Economics, 2015, vol. 164, issue C, 245-257

Abstract: The success of eco-innovations in sustainable supply chains aiming a low-carbon economy is related to a broad range of human critical success factors. Thus, the goal of this research was to analyse how certain human critical success factors are related to specific low-carbon eco-innovation projects in leading companies in Brazil operating in some of the most sustainable supply chains in the country. As a consequence, this study qualitatively analysed three cases of low carbon eco-innovation discussing the necessary human critical success factors (HCSF). The results show that the companies in this study are at different stages of maturity with respect to climate change mitigation practices. It was found that the role of HCSF in the process of developing low-carbon products tends to intensify as corporations respond to advances in climate change mitigation. In organisations adopting a sustainable supply chain perspective (for example, adopting Life Cycle Assessment approach) and with a more evolved response to climate change, the product development process tended to be supported by all of the HCSF in the area of product innovation. In contrast, organisations whose practices for mitigating climate change were in the early stages tended not to show evidence of support from HCSF. This is the first study relating eco-innovation, sustainable supply chain, climate change and cases from leading Brazilian companies.

Keywords: Eco-innovation; Low-carbon economy; Sustainable supply chain; Human critical success factors (HCSF); Human resources; Innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (37)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925527314003776
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:proeco:v:164:y:2015:i:c:p:245-257

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpe.2014.11.015

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Production Economics is currently edited by Stefan Minner

More articles in International Journal of Production Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().