Received: 17 November 2022 Revised: 25 May 2023 Accepted: 27 May 2023 DOI: 10.1002/csr.2541
RESEARCH ARTICLE
The value of data for environmental sustainability as perceived by the customers of a tissue-paper supplier
Päivi Luoma 1
| Romana Rauter 2
| Esko Penttinen 3 | Anne Toppinen 1
1 Department of Forest Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland 2 University of Graz, Institute of Systems Sciences, Innovation and Sustainability Research, Graz, Austria 3 Department of Information and Service Management, Aalto University School of Business, Espoo, Finland Correspondence Päivi Luoma, Department of Forest Sciences, University of Helsinki, Latokartanonkaari
Abstract To manage their increasingly ambitious environmental agendas successfully, companies need better and more versatile data, yet the elements and mechanisms through which businesses and the environment benefit from data remain poorly understood. A single-case-study setting was designed for examining the perceived value of data for environmental sustainability as seen by the customers of a tissue- paper supplier. The findings, from material collected during interviews with cus- tomers in 2022, showcase the multifaceted nature of data's value for business opera- tions and associated ability to support decisions and activities that encourage environment-informed choices and environmental improvements. Also, fully exploit- ing data's potential for environmental sustainability requires greater volume and detail of product-specific data, transparency of value chains and environmental impacts, and data's better management and sharing. The emerging insight related to the value of data strengthens understanding of how companies could, with data, sup- port their customers' environmental performance.
7, 00014 Helsinki, Finland. Email: paivi.luoma@helsinki.fi
Funding information The Metsämiesten Säätiö Foundation, Grant/Award Number: 21VE049KE; Kaute-säätiö, Grant/Award Number: 20220113
KEYWORDS customer value, environmental sustainability, forest industry, tissue paper, value of data
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INTRODUCTION
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These external pressures, in combination with the internally set objec- tives, call for companies' better management of their sustainability agendas by all means at their disposal, including versatile use of data to support setting the objectives, identifying improvement opportuni- ties, implementing appropriate actions, and seeing that objectives are met (Busch et al., 2022). In this connection, data on diverse aspects of business activities, service and product life cycles, and related environmental impacts can inform environment-linked sustainability efforts when the integration, discovery, and exploitation of said data (Miller, 2013) produce valu- able insight in support of environmental sustainability (Song et al., 2018). This is the case, for example, when data revealing the carbon footprint of a product are available and influence customers'
Companies have ambitious internal objectives for environment- related sustainability, connected with climate-change mitigation, cir- cular economy, and biodiversity protection. At the same time, they must contend with growing demands of external stakeholders for transparent and accountable activities (Comas Martí & Seifert, 2013). Customers desire traceability of products' value chains and evidence for the environment-related claims made (Rusch et al., 2022), and investors likewise ask for business transparency and data that attest to genuine environmental improvements and sustainability (Herzig & Schaltegger, 2006). Regulators, in turn, seek verified compliance and elimination of greenwashing (European Commission, 2020).
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. © 2023 The Authors. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management published by ERP Environment and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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Corp Soc Responsib Environ Manag. 2023;1 – 14.
wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/csr
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