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Sustainability Indicators for Industrial Organizations: Systematic Review of Literature

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  • Alexandre André Feil

    (Department of Sustainable Environmental Systems, Centre of Organizational Management, University of Taquari Valley—Univates, Lajeado 95914-014, Brazil)

  • Dusan Schreiber

    (Department of Creative Industry and Environmental Quality, University Feevale, Novo Hamburgo 93525-075, Brazil)

  • Claus Haetinger

    (Centre of Exact and Technological Sciences, University of Taquari Valley—Univates, Lajeado 95914-014, Brazil)

  • Virgílio José Strasburg

    (Department of Social Medicine, Medical school, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre 90035-003, Brazil)

  • Claudia Luisa Barkert

    (Centre of Biological and Health Sciences, Psychology course, University of Taquari Valley—Univates, Lajeado 95914-014, Brazil)

Abstract

In this study a systematic literature review was carried out to analyze the characteristics, indicators, limitations, benefits, and conclusions of scientific productions on industrial sustainability to propose a set of generic sustainability indicators for industrial organizations. The identification of the scientific productions occurred through the use of key words, in addition, the snowballing technique was also used, which resulted in a final set of 24 papers from 1998 to 2018. The technique used to select the indicators was the text mining with the help of NVivo Software. Finally, the multiple advisor method was applied. The main results show that the studies on sets of indicators with a Triple Bottom Line approach began in 1998. In addition, the papers show studies that analyze the industries generally being published by journals with a high impact factor, with authors from universities in Europe, from America and Asia, which use an average set of 30 indicators, with the lowest percentage of studies using mixed and mixed-scale approaches. The limitations revealed by the papers are the lack of initiative and actions of organizations for the adoption of sustainability. The benefits are linked to the informational assistance they provide to managers in decision-making, and the conclusions reveal a lack of research on the use of the praxis of the set of sustainability indicators in industrial organizations. In this sense, we conclude that the set of indicators suggested in this study is in line with the theoretical findings of the reviewed literature, with a balance between the Triple Bottom Line aspects and the synthetic number of indicators that provide the ease of its application and analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexandre André Feil & Dusan Schreiber & Claus Haetinger & Virgílio José Strasburg & Claudia Luisa Barkert, 2019. "Sustainability Indicators for Industrial Organizations: Systematic Review of Literature," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-15, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:3:p:854-:d:204015
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