Sustainability Assessment Instruments for Consumers - IEEE Xplore

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available sustainability assessment instruments which provide sustainability information for consumers. It covers both industrial engineering and marketing fields ...
Sustainability Assessment Instruments for Consumers -A multi-domain review from industrial engineering to marketing

Jing Shao

Marco Taisch

Dept. of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy [email protected]

Dept. of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy [email protected]

Dept. of Industrial Engineering, Business Administration and Statistics,Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain [email protected] Abstract— This study presents a multi-domain review of available sustainability assessment instruments which provide sustainability information for consumers. It covers both industrial engineering and marketing fields. It is found that only few of the indicators focus on the environmental and social performance assessment which fits consumers’ interests. The study shows that gap exists between present sustainability assessment instruments and consumers. And we explored insights of consumer awareness on sustainability related information which provided by producers. Reasons of nontransparency from environmental concerns to consumer purchasing habits are analyzed. Furthermore, gaps between performance assessment instruments and consumers are further defined from several perspectives. Finally, suggestions for development of future theory and research are offered. Keywords—sustainability; performance assessment instruments; consumers; marketing instruments; information transparency

I.

Miguel Ortega Mier Dept. of Industrial Engineering, Business Administration and Statistics, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain [email protected] This study scanned the existed instruments in both industrial engineering and marketing fields. B. Methodology In this paper, a review has been conducted by following methodology of “producing a systematic review” [3] and numbers of approaches which are attempted to be applied or already implemented for consumers will be analyzed. In this paper, not only electronic database were involved, “grey literature” such as books, website, conference papers, seminars, workshops, conference papers, doctor thesis, technical reports has been taken into account. The search of literatures started from investigation of citation databases, Science Direct and Scopus. And our search method is to use a combination of exact phrases and truncation characters. The research revealed 107 applicable publications of which 62 were considered direct relevant. Clusters of literatures are collected focused on three main domains shown in Fig.1.

INTRODUCTION

A. Purpose Sustainability which includes environmental, social and economic performance is assessed by researchers and practitioners in various ways. Numerous instruments which collect sustainable related information emerged not only in industrial engineering field, but also in the domain of marketing science. Sustainability (or the lack of it) depends on the individual actions of over 6 billion human beings [1]. It is because consumer purchasing behaviors reflect their consumption patterns which could promote incentives for manufacturers to adopt clean(er) technologies through marketing [2]. On the other hand, through awareness of business managers, marketing instruments such as eco-labels could offer information of environmental performance of product and have now been applied widely in the market. 978-1-4799-4735-5/14/$31.00 © 2014IEEE.

Fig. 1, Clusters of literatures

Fig. 1, Cluster of Literatures

In cluster of literatures of performance assessment methodologies, literature findings are categorized into two main types. One of them is regarding to existed guidelines

and standards which include ISO standards, EU Policies, LCA (Life-Cycle Assessment), and another type of literatures are about numerous indicators developed by international organizations, researchers and practitioners. Relevant indicators selected based on the principles developed as [4] in which consider the various characters of each indicator. The criteria includes: relevance of content of measurement, measurement objective and assessment emphases (see section III.A.). It has become increasingly clear that sustainable economies must be built around sustainable products, services, and consumption patterns, not just sustainable industrial processes [6]. Research topic on sustainable production and consumption has emerged in recent years. As we mentioned above, instruments which focus on assessing and providing sustainability information have developed to effect consumption patterns in marketing as well. It is noted that different from marketing researches, we do not focus on most of its traditional research domain, such as store audit or brand equity but to the field of sustainability related marketing instruments which contained in area of consumer decision process research. Therefore, in study of marketing instruments, the relevance of the literature findings was determined by whether the purpose of instruments are designed for provide sustainability related information. In study of sustainable production and consumption, the relevance of the literature findings was determined by whether the scope comprised product-related sustainable information and consumers’ perception. More attention has been put on sustainability related consumer awareness and propensity, consumer behavior to marketing instruments. C. Framework In this study, firstly we go through the definition of sustainability to offer an overview of object of performance assessment within industrial engineering. And then listed available sustainability assessment methodologies in categories of guidelines and standards, instruments of sustainability assessment in industrial engineering which includes indicators developed by international organizations, researchers and practitioners, and marketing instruments. Typical standards and indicators are discussed in each category. Secondly, we went through the literatures in marketing instruments, such as eco-labels, Energy Star, WalMart index have been described and discussed. Thirdly, consumer behavior, sustainable consumption within scope of sustainable production and consumption has been summarized based on the literatures, and their effect on how to influence the industrial producers through market have been analyzed and discussed. Lastly, we have conclusions on present study, further research suggestions and directions are provided for academic researchers and practitioners.

II.

GUIDLINES AND STANDARDS

A. Definition of Sustainability and Motivation of Sustainability Assessment With energy shortage, imminent rising energy prices, and even potential energy crises, increasing energy efficiency and reducing industrial energy usage are becoming very crucial issues now in the field of sustainable manufacturing. Applications on renewable energy resources such as solar, wind, oceans, geothermal and biomass are soaring but each of them has some difficulties for mass application, and need approximately another 20 years in improvement of techniques. In 2007, the EU has set a target to reduce 20 percent of use of resources and the carbon footprint by 2020. But according to IMS 2020 report, only half of this goal will be achieved by 2020 based on current figures [7]. One of the main reasons is due to the low awareness of importance of energy in many production processes. The world needs to act immediately to conserve energy derived from non-renewable resources to prevent their depletion in the near future and to prevent further ecological deterioration [8,9]. Green campaigns are launched now all over the world by diverse industries and organizations of all types through implementing innovative methods and techniques. Instead of only focusing on cost and quality, techniques associated with energy related consumption and environmental impacts are emerging. As M. Taisch pointed out that “the only way for a large company to survive in the future will be to provide a green product in a green manufacturing environment” [10]. Due to the attention focused on the shortage of energy, the first time the definition of sustainability which has been introduced in “Our common future” was inside of definition of “sustainable development”. Sustainable development means “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” [11]. In the field of engineering, sustainability could be defined as “the application of scientific and technical knowledge to satisfy human needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs correspondently” [12]. Facing to the energy challenge all over the world, several global strategies have been promoted. In Rio Earth Summit in 1992, twelve cities were honored by the Local Government Honors Award for innovative local environmental programs. Different programs such as Sudbury in Canada, Austin in the United States, and Kitakyūshū in Japan are included. Most of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies have made energy conservation policy a top priority in terms of their energy policies [13]. At the World Summit (Rio+10) in 2002, the plan of implementation for Agenda 21 integrated the three pillars of sustainable development, including economic development, social development and environmental protection. In Agenda 21, it is introduced that development of “sustainability indicators” as a key approach to provide a basis for sustainability-related decision-making processes [14].

B. Guidelines and Standards Tools and methodologies for pursuing and managing industrial sustainable practices are emerging in last several years. Each of them has various characteristics and different application mode. The most representative international adopted standards are ISO 14000 and Life-cycle assessment (LCA). 1) ISO Standard ISO 14000 series provide a relatively flexible way for firms to develop their environmental management systems (EMS) which is appropriate to their own situations. Some standards in the ISO 14000 series which related to environmental performance provide guidelines from various perspectives and listed in Table I. Theoretically, ISO 14001 could serve as a comprehensive framework for significantly improving performance in a firm with minimal environmental management or as a set of common sense guidelines for enhancing performance in a firm with regulatory compliant practices [16]. Many companies have certified or in the progress in certifying their environmental management system underline the ISO 14001 or European Eco- Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS). However, some firms may, indeed, simply use ISO 14001 as a ‘label’ for image-building and have not completely alleviated all the potential negative environmental impact manufacturing plant have, as in Mt Holly case conducted by Rondinelli, D. TABLE I. ISO 14000 [15]

LIST OF ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE RELATED ISO STANDARDS ISO 14001 ISO 14010

Environmental Management Systems (EMS) Environmental Auditing (EA)

ISO 14020

Environmental Labeling (EL)

ISO 14031

Environmental Performance Evaluations (EPE) ISO14040. Principles and Lifeframework; 1997. Cycle Assessme ISO14041. Goal and scope nt (LCA) definition and inventory analysis; 1998. ISO14042. Life cycle impact assessment; 2000. ISO14043. Life cycle interpretation; 2000. Product Standards

ISO 14040

ISO 14060

2) LCA LCA (Life-cycle Assessment, ISO 14040), so called “fromcradle-to-grave” technique, is an environmental management tool in the product development process and is applied to assess environmental impact associated in the whole life of product. It is a standardized method and has been endorsed by many international organizations. The concept of lifecycle management has been suggested as the way a company organizes itself in response to environmental life-cycle thinking. Life cycle thinking integrates effectively into

existing business routines and is argued to be the most critical step for more sustainable business models [17,18]. LCA models have been implemented to waste management and waste water systems, chemical production, agricultural pesticide emissions and cement production [17,18,19,20]. And there are still increasing calls to use LCA in business and policy makers. The whole LCA usually consists of four stages in which phases of life cycle impact assessment (LCIA, ISO 14042) is the most important one and launched by following three steps: selection of impact categories, classification characterization, normalization and weighting. The environmental impacts and the “caused” by the act of consuming per functional unit could be fully addressed through LCIA. It is concerned that LCA has the potential to reveal the ‘world behind the product’ [21] and empower consumers to make more responsible decisions based on environmental performance of a product. However, LCA provides the data extremely technical, featuring long lists of environmental pollutants and abounding with technical terms. This highly inaccessible data could not provide quick overview of most important issues to consumers who make decisions every day [19]. So the key priority in academia should be to develop information accessible, and further to evaluate usability of the information. Another important focus should be the usability of the information: how well it works in the context of different decision-making situations [22]. Avoiding the long list of technique terms, LCA-based information in communications to consumers could be presented by method of “eco-benchmark” [19]. A benchmark method is a common method in LCA community. A project launched by OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) to develop a toolkit to help business benchmark performance and improve their production processes and products from 2009 [23]. Benchmarking tools are useful for presenting information but not always applicable. It based on the expectation that the results would be easier to understand if they were linked to a familiar frame of reference, and compared to an everyday object. Benchmark Value can be defined as a targeted value of an indicator. An example would be that the limit of the quantity of CO2 in kg emitted by a factory in a year is chosen by the factory management to limit the CO2 emission from the factory. III.

INSTRUMENTS OF SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT

Numbers of various sustainability assessment instruments will be discussed in this section. It consists of two main categories which indicate to instruments derived from industrial engineering oriented and marketing oriented, as shown in Fig.2.

effort to gauge countries against a set of 16 specific environmental policy targets [27].

Fig. 2, Structure of Instruments of Sustainability Assessment

A. Instruments of Sustainability Assessment in Industrial Engineering Indices in industrial engineering are useful in attracting attention and often simplify problems by making the impact visualization [24]. And they are beneficial for policy making and public communication in sending information of countries’ performances regarding to environment, energy, society and economy [5]. In 2001, the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) published a list of about 140 indicators, which cover social, economic, environmental and institutional aspects of sustainable development [25]. In Agenda 21, it is introduced that development of “sustainability indicators” as a key approach to provide a basis for sustainability-related decision-making processes. 1) Sustainable indicators developed by international organizations Several studies have tried many different ways for summarizing and generating indicators from various perspectives span over more than forty years. Along with the international standard and EU policies, several indexes are developed, shown in Table II. TABLE II. LIST OF SUSTAINABLE INDICATORS DEVELOPED BY INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Name of Indicator Consultative Group on Sustainable Development Indicators Eco-Efficiency Indices Environment Performance Index Environmental Sustainable Index Human Development Index Total Material Requirements Environmental Press Indicator b

2) Sustainable indicators developed by researchers and practitioners Numerous indicators developed by researchers and practitioners are collected based on the literature review “An overview of sustainability assessment methodologies” written by Prof. Singh, R. K. in 2009 [5]. It provided an overview of all indicators available and has listed more than 68 indicators which are well-known and applied in industry. This review is seemed as the most complicated review that has done on sustainability assessment methodology in academia. Additionally, new methodologies and methods which were developed by researchers and practitioners after 2009 are added to keep the list of indicators up to date. Reviewing on available sustainable indexes have been done in reference [4], in which numerous indicators have been squeezed to limited number through critical mapping tool. After then, along several key dimensions - type of index, application area, degree of comprehensiveness and assessment emphases, selected indexes are categorized and analysed in detail. Additionally, we added new methodologies and methods which were developed by researchers and practitioners after 2009 to keep the list of indicators up to date. Derived from different perspectives, both academic researchers and practitioners have developed large number of indicators for achieving various purposes. For example, Eco-indicator 99 is one of the most widely used impact assessment methods in LCA and allows the environmental load of a product to be expressed in a single score; Ford of Europe's Product Sustainability Index (F-PSI) is used to address the sustainability challenge for the automotive industry; G score is to measure firms’ environmental performance and mainly applied in oil industry companies. They all addressed good link between sustainability assessments with specific purpose which they are pursuing.

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TABLE III.

LIST OF SUSTAINABLE RESEARCHERS AND PRACTITIONERS

CGS DI

By IISD a

[28]

Overall Sustainability

EEI EPI ESI HDI TMR EPI’

By WBCSDb By WEFc By WEF By UNDPd By EEAe By EU

[29] [27] [26] [30] [31] [36]

Name

Abbr.

Ref

Compass of Sustainability Composite Sustainability Performance Index Sustainability Performance Index Ford of Europe's Product Sustainability Index

CS CSPI SPI F-PSI

[32] [12] [42] [33]

E99 EF G ITT MEW

[34] [35] [37] [38] [39]

PQLI ISP

[40] [41]

LInX SEIs BS

[43] [44] [45]

No

a International Institute for Sustainable Development World Business Council for Sustainable Development c World Economic Forum d United Nations Development Programme e European Environmental Agency

The Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) index serves as a basis that makes cross-country comparisons possible [26]; Environment Performance Index (EPI) is a method of quantifying and numerically scaling the environmental performance of a set of companies or countries. The EPI is not an update of ESI, but rather a new

1 2 3 4

INDICATORS DEVELOPED BY

Environmental performance

5 6 7 8 9

Eco-Indicator 99 Ecological Footprint G Score ITT Flyg Sustainability Index Measure of Economic Welfare

Social Performance

10 11

Physical Quality of Life Index Index of Social Progress

Social and Environmental Performance

12 13 14

Life Cycle Index Social-Ecological Indicator Barometer of Sustainability

In Table III, the indicators are categorized according to its assessment emphases. Many of the indexes try to assess and scale overall sustainability of a product or an organization. Compass of Sustainability (CS), Composite Sustainability Performance Index (CSPI) and Ford of Europe's Product Sustainability Index (F-PSI) are all in this category. Some other indexes are focusing on environmental impact evaluation; for example, G Score measures firms’ environmental performance based on companies’ voluntary environment, health, and safety (EHS) report. 3) Social-environmental related indicators In research of Harrison, social and environmental effects of technological advance is seemed as the most important factor that has influence on ethical sustainable consumption [62]. Seldom indicators are founded that focus on the environmental and social performance impact. The barometer of sustainability has been developed [45] to evaluate both the environmental and social components of sustainable development. It consists of two components, namely ecosystem well-being and human well-being that both have to be improved for achieving sustainable development. Social-Ecological Indicator (SEIs) which is made with respect to four principles of sustainability. Four complementary sets of indicators deals with the societal use of lithospheric material/ emissions of compounds produced in society/ societal manipulation of nature and the long-term productivity of ecosystems/ efficiency of the internal societal resource use [44]. LInX comprised of four important subindices- environment, health and safety (EHS), cost, technical feasibility, and socio-political factors [43]. The attributes domain refer to environmental and social impact of a process/product in its manufacturing phase. It seems as the most relevant literatures to our study purpose but with the purpose to aid the selection and design of processes and products. B. Marketing Instruments Besides industrial applied instruments, some methods are introduced as commercial tools applied widely in marketing, such as eco-label and Energy Star label. Consumers could get more information on environmental performance of product through eco-labels when they are purchasing. Energy Star provides consumers an overview about the energy consumption of the product in its using phase. We address a review on each of above categories and have explanation on their application area and influence. It is noted that different from marketing researches, we do not focus on most of its traditional research domain, such as test marketing, price testing, demand estimation, store audits, distribution channel and brand equity. Our topic of research lead us to the field of sustainability related instruments which contained in area of consumer decision process research. Studies on customer value have been addressed both in industrial engineering and marketing research. Managers in marketing have more and more awareness of offering better information of resource and performance impact related issue to customers. From global survey of McKinsey,

“customer request and preference” is the second important factor of influencing factors which influence company to take climate change into consideration, only beside the factor of “cooperation reputation” [46] and it climbed up to the number one factor in 2013 [47]. In recent studies, “green marketing” is to include environmental issues in the marketing efforts, while "marketing" is defined as ‘‘the interface between consumption and production’’ [48]. In marketing science, “market of a product” is defined not only limited to an existing number of interested consumers, but extended by attracting buyers who are currently unaware of or resistant to the product [48]. Therefore, as to Green marketing, it is discussed has been used to not only depict marketing activities with the aim to reduce the negative environmental and social impact that products might cause, but how to promote those products to reach its consumers an effective way [49]. It has raised a wide debate that if business provides consumers with better information about the green properties of the products, this information will be included in their purchasing decisions. Similar assumptions have been proposed in many studies [2,3,6,48,50]. 1) Eco-labels Many kinds of marketing instruments are applied widely for extending market of product. Marketing instruments are categorized into “Supply oriented” market-based instruments or “Demand oriented” instruments [50]. One of ‘Demand oriented’ marketing instruments is Eco-labeling which was introduced firstly in policy from German Blue Angel in 1977. Large numbers of eco-labeling programs have developed after then. The most successful eco-labels now are Nordic Swan, EU Flower, Environmental Choice (Canada), Eco-Mark (Japan), Green Seal (USA), etc. a) The reason for its successful could be categorized as following: Reliability assured by the 3rd party: Beyond manufacturing companies, eco-labels are authenticated and monitored by a third-party, so it is seemed as one of the most promising forms of environmental information policy for consumers. Nordic consumers are subject to product-related environmental information that is available when purchasing and perceive highly recognized and well-known eco-labels as trustworthy ones [22]. Through survey [51], contribution of EU Eco-label in changing consumption and production patterns has been shown. They help environmentally friendly products to show their unapparent characteristics to consumers. Consumers show their recognition of eco-labels and willingness to pay for surcharges in certified environmentally friendly products. Additionally, Eco-labeling now is a promising marketbased approach for improving the environmental performance of products through consumer choice [3,52,53]. It provides incentives for manufacturers to adopt clean(er) technologies and to produce green products as an efficient tool in the market. b) However, problems occurred after eco-labels emerged in last decade:

Numerous and miscellaneous labels: 447 eco-labels in 197 countries, and 25 industry sectors are tracked by ECOLABEL-INDEX [54]. And the number of labels is increasing time by time. Very board domains have been covered, such as animal protection, education, eco-efficiency, inventory management, biology concerning, environment protection, global green issues, tourism business, indoor air controlling, green manufacturing, carbon footprint, organic food, sea food safety, etc. Specific application area: All kinds of eco-labels cover different industry and evaluated by different methodologies in different country. Valuable information for local consumers on specific products seemed as its limitation, such as Thai Green Label, Swiss Q-label, Tunisia Eco label. For example, "ANAB–Architettura Naturale" is a certification scheme that assesses the sustainability of building products and furniture in Italy. Polarity information provided: Some of eco-labels only show one specific characters which belong to the green domain, for example, "British Allergy Foundation Seal of Approval logo" is a endorsement scheme provided for a wide range of products which specifically restrict or remove high levels of named allergens from the environment. Repeat or incomplete information provided: For example 4 eco-labels regards to carbon reducing and carbon footprint are found in the database- Carbon Reduction Label, Carbon Free® Certified, Carbon Footprint of Products and Carbon Care. 2) Energy Star Furthermore, ENERGY STAR designed to make consumers aware of the relative energy-efficiency of appliances in using phase. It was a voluntary energy efficiency-labeling program launched in US. In 1992, EU Directive on Energy Labeling of Household Appliances (“Labeling Directive”) required retail stores are obliged to provide household appliances with energy labels at the point of sale. And now ENERGY STAR has become a leading international brand for energy- efficient products [55]. It is the most significant government effort to reduce U.S. residential energy consumption [56]. Consumer awareness of Energy Star labeling has grown significantly to more than 75% of the population in 2008 according to report from Environmental Protection Agency of U.S [55]. And it causes consumers to shift from non-Energy Star appliances to Energy Star appliances when they making decision of purchasing. However, energy star label has only considered the index which is based on the annual energy consumption in the usage state of after buying but nothing about the energy consumption in the process of manufacturing and transportation. Another good example is putting “GHG” label (Green House Gas) on the product and it enable customer to make their decisions based on carbon emission during process of using [57]. Obviously, limited information about resource consumption and carbon emission are insufficient. 3) Wal-Mart-Sustainable Product Index

More recently, with the awareness that the growing consumer demand for environmentally responsible products, Wal-Mart announced to start a Sustainable Product Index program from 2009 and continued till now [58]. This index will rank products on multiple measures of environmental impact and offer customers a better way of information and help them to make better purchasing choices. The index will be post as a single number or symbol next to an item’s price tag, as they expected. This project is still in the middle phase of “Creation of a Lifecycle Analysis Database” which is quite difficult to accomplish in a short time since little information available. However, this index has just considered the examining of its supply chains, initial assessment are done by survey of most of their suppliers. No information of producing processes is included and attentions on green manufacturing level has lost. IV.

SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION

A. State-of-the-art It has become increasingly clear that sustainable economies must be built around sustainable products, services, and consumption patterns, not just sustainable industrial processes [6]. In World Summit for Sustainable Development in 2002, sustainable consumption and production (SCP) was reaffirmed as the central role of in achieving sustainable development. Therefore, the research topic on sustainable production and consumption has emerged in recent years. Our topic of research lead us further to the field of sustainability related consumer awareness and propensity, consumer behavior on eco-label. 1) Government effects is inadequate Environmental performance of products has gained increased political attention and influencing consumer behavior became a central priority [22]. In order to reduce the emission of carbon, a carbon trading market has been designed. This market is being promoted as a mean for big emitters of greenhouse gas to meet the requirements from government. Unless the emitters cut the amount of emission to the certain given goal, the companies need to pay for extra emission or buy for offset [57]. Similarly, EU ETS which stands for EU Emission Trading Scheme now become the largest multinational greenhouse gas trading scheme. 2) Sustainable consumption Although governments have promoted several efforts in controlling and managing industrial processes from big enterprises, besides sustainable industrial processes, sustainable products, services and consumption patterns play important roles in achieving sustainable economics. Sustainable consumption becomes complementary strategies with sustainable production for making economics more sustainable [6]. More and more attention has been focused on sustainable consumption. The Sustainable Consumption Roundtable (2006) recommends action according to the four E’s (encourage, exemplify, enable, engage) with consumers [59]. Indeed, as Luskin, J. argued, “changes in societal consumption patterns have often offset the environmental

gains that have been achieved through programs aimed at making production processes cleaner and more efficient”. 3) Consumer behavior From 1990’s, European Commission noticed that consumer’s patterns of purchasing, use and product discard have influencing on the entire product life cycle [60]. Consumer purchasing decision behavior reflects their consumption patterns and lifestyles. Sustainability (or the lack of it) depends on the individual actions of over 6 billion human beings [1]. However nowadays, it is hard for individuals to appreciate the significance of the cumulative impact of serials small actions which may have sustainable impact to the world. Often global environmental problems such as decreasing climate change or environmental protection sound too big for individuals to apply any effort. B. Discussion on the Reasons of Ambiguous Phenomenon From literatures, although consumers begin have a concern about environmental and social performance of products they are purchasing, environmental concerns are not necessarily translated to consumer purchase habits. Even consumers who are environmentally concerned do not buy green products in overwhelming preference [61]. The phenomenon has been noticed in academia and some possible reasons are summarized as following: 1) Acknowledgement on influence of collaborative purchasing behavior Acknowledgement of consumers that purchasing decision is the first step to promote incentives for manufacturers to adopt clean(er) technologies is lack. Corresponding education and communications on the awareness of influence from collaborative purchasing behavior are rarely to observe in reality. 2) Gaps exist between customers’ expectations and their perceptions It is verified that customers’ expectations are higher than their perceptions in all 11 items which related to environmental attributes of green information products, by comparing between the mean value of customers’ expectations and their perceptions. So to speak, the products in the market do not meet the expectation of customers [48,61]. 3) Non-competitive price Green products normally have even higher price that mainly attribute to the cost of production and transportation. It makes consumers harder to make a decision to accept green products many times although they are intent to be green. 4) Inadequate information provided for customers The degree to which consumer use environmental information of a product is disputed [22]. “Green customers” who are sensitive to energy saving and environment protection are ignorant of how to make better purchasing decisions since lack of energy consumption and environmental impact information of products. The problem involves two dimensions of discussions:

a) Information about market of green product is missing: The awareness of existing of green products is lack in current marketing mainly attribute to their low shares of market. This point of view leads by low availability of green products and they are said to be usually hard to find in normal market. b) Inadequate information on the product when purchasing: Most important obstacle for environmentally conscious product purchasing is the lack of adequate information with which allow consumers to obtain reliable information about sustainability information of a product and make informed purchasing decisions. 5) Consumers are lack of trust and motivation Literatures have a wide discussion that consumer trust and motivation are the key determinants for consumers to accept related information of product [22,48]. However, as we discussion above, although ecolabeling has become policy tool in marketing, sustainable consumption patterns is still on a voluntary basis to a large extent. The willingness to pay extra for green products was less than anticipated. Furthermore, consumers are distrustful and suspicious of environmental advertising and claims from industry [48]. Numerous eco-labels offered extraordinary chances for customers to get the green related information, but it confused consumers mainly because most of them provide polarity, repeat and incomplete information. 6) Pattern of provided information Therefore, patterns of information which provided to the consumer become one of the key issues in this subject. Indicators which provided by international environmental organizations, industries practitioner and researchers are have long lists of environmental pollutants and abounding with technical terms. They are designed only adaptable for industrial application or academic research, but not the time limited situations such as purchasing. V.

CONCLUSION

A. Summary This paper covers an overview of various sustainability indices and sustainability related marketing instruments. Attempts have been made to compile the sustainability assessment methodology which could provide information for not only practitioners but also consumers in both industrial engineering and marketing fields. It has been found that only few of the indicators focus on the environmental and social performance assessment. Marketing tools such as Eco-label with polarity, repeat or incomplete information are numerous and miscellaneous. And Energy Star label has only limited its focus on annual energy consumption in the usage state. Consumer purchasing decision behavior reflects their consumption patterns and sustainability could be depended on collaborative individual actions. However, the

acknowledgement of consumer that purchasing decision is the first step to promote incentives for manufacturers to adopt clean(er) technologies is lack. Reasons of nontransparency from environmental concerns to consumer purchase habits has analyzed. It is mainly subject to the nontransparency of information from producers to consumers and, even there are some possible ways to achieve such information, trust and motivation are still lack from consumers. Therefore, the paper shows that no appropriate instrument could be applied for consumers. A gap is existed between present performance assessment instruments and consumers and could be further categorized from four perspectives: • No instruments are designed and applied specifically for the consumer or stakeholders of the product. • Lack of presenting tool: Benchmarking tools are useful for presenting information but not always applicable.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT This research is partly conducted within the framework of the European Doctorate in Industrial Management (EDIM) which is funded by The Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) of European Commission under Erasmus Mundus Action 1 programmes. Furthermore, this research is partly funded by the European Commission through the PREMANUS Project (FoF-ICT2011.7.3: Virtual Factories and Enterprises, www.premanus.eu). REFERENCES [1] [2]

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• Conceptual frame works are not well structured for developing such information transparency instrument. • Decision support tools are not well developed to further refine the model. B. Further research suggestions In order to allow consumers to obtain reliable information about sustainability information of a product and make informed decisions, further effort should be put on increasing transparency about the acknowledgement that purchasing decision is the first step to promote incentives for manufacturers to adopt clean(er) technologies from business to consumer. Conceptual framework for successfully presenting sustainability related information of a product to its consumers could be further developed. Practitioners could set their emphases in the phase of manufacturing, besides using and disposal phases of product. Social and environmental impact which could be attractive to consumers should be carefully estimated and considered. Attributes and dimensions from such categories of impact should be further defined and aggregated via appropriate approaches or methods. It is noted that neither too technical, nor too simple indicators (or a set of indicators) are needed for consumers. Academics should pay attention on the indicator development derived from critical engineering research methodologies to ensure the reliability of indicator, but considering the adaptability degree of consumers. Since sustainable production and consumption is an emerging topic in recent years, the research boundary is hard to define sometimes. The corresponding methodologies and tools are in need to be further developed. Furthermore, the validation of these innovative methods and its outcomes is challenging.

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