Strategic sustainable production: Exploring practices and context in Norwegian manufacturing SMEs

Strategic sustainable production: Exploring practices and context in Norwegian manufacturing SMEs Bjørg M. Granly Torgeir Welo NTNU – Department of Engineering Design and Materials, Rich. Birkelands v. 2B, N-7491 Trondheim, Norway. Due to scarce human and financial resources, SMEs often have a strong need for prioritising their sustainability efforts, but fail to translate general guidelines into knowledge that allows them to do so. In order to engage SMEs effectively in sustainability efforts, more research related to development of context- specific tools for SMEs is thus desired. The current study provides and discusses empirical data from in- depth interviews with 15 Norwegian manufacturing SMEs, focusing on drivers, challenges and enablers related to their sustainability practices. The research indicates that legitimation motives are key drivers of formal sustainability practices such as the adoption of management systems, evaluation of chemicals, and engagement in value chain management. Practices reducing resource consumption were generally driven by competitive motivations, but these were often overlooked by the companies lacking a formal management system. Although the study identified major differences in the adoption of environmental practices among the case companies, no significant differences were found in practices related to work environment. It is suggested that this may be explained by the particular Norwegian context, which has recently been given considerable research attention due to the success of the so-called ‘Nordic model’.