The Conceptualization of Sustainability in Operations Management

Regardless of the pervasiveness of sustainability, a deeper understanding of sustainable operations management is still needed. The aim of this article is to provide theoretical foundations of sustainability (environmental) in operations management, based on which patterns of sustainability operations strategies could be researched. Thus, sustainability (environmental) is first positioned within the enterprise on the managerial and operational level. Secondly, a framework depicting the relationships, impacts, functions and limits of sustainability as an operations strategy is designed. Thirdly, operationalized from the previous concept, a process for the planning of sustainability operations strategies is designed and proposed.