1 Introduction

Environmental management in product chains

1.1 The purpose and the structure of the project

1.1 The purpose and the structure of the project

The Environmental Council for Cleaner Products initiated in 2000-2001 a collection of experience from the environmental co-operation in 25 product chains (Ettrup & Bauer 2002). This collection of experience was to elucidate the concrete co-operation between suppliers, enterprises and purchasers, to go through tools and to report on opportunities and barriers for environmental efforts in the entire product chain (Ettrup & Bauer 2002).

The aim of this rapport is to give a comprehensive analysis of the experiences from the 25 case studies with focus on how environmental management in product chain management functions and how governmental regulation can support the further diffusion of environmental management in product chains.

All 25 cases take their point of departure in companies who have some kind of environmental management, where some activities to a smaller or larger degree have included parts of the product chain, and companies who the Danish Environmental Protection Agency (Danish EPA) had some knowledge about beforehand. Some of the companies have got resources from the Danish EPA’s different environmental programmes. The Danish EPA chose to focus on the product chain perspective on environmental management in order to assess the possibilities for a expansion of the perspective of corporate environmental management to the whole product chain and thereby a greening of the whole product chain.

The analyses in the report of the 25 cases are based on a social shaping approach. The emergence and stabilisation of environmental aspects in the companies and their product chains are seen as shaped by the existing practice in the product chain with respect to the roles of supplier and customer, and the different actors’ interpretation of the need for addressing environmental aspects. Explanations are sought on how actors give meaning to environmental concern within existing practice and the role of knowledge, aspects of product quality, environmental concern, customer demands and market opportunities, national and international schemes, personal relations and confidence etc.

The development of the environmental initiatives will be analysed as a co-shaping between direct and indirect demands, governmental regulation and product chain relations. The role of product chain relations and governmental regulation in stabilizing environmental management in product chains are discussed.

The phases in the project have been:

Reading cases and development of an analytical frame
Analysis of the 25 cases and development of perspectives on the conditions for the shaping and embedding of the environmental initiatives
Organising a small international workshop based a working paper with the developed perspectives with participation of researchers and representatives from the Danish Environmental Protection Agency
Development of strategic recommendations for governmental regulation which can strengthen environmental management in product chains
Writing the report