8
LUOMA ET AL .
transparency of the data sources (e.g., clear statements of whether the calculations applied product-specific standardized impact assess- ments with real data versus average data for a larger product group), and they saw an increasing need for third parties to verify and improve the quality of the environment-related data.
choose more sustainable product alternatives, set environment- related policies for their product portfolio, comply with regulations that are in the pipeline, and educate their own customers in more sus- tainable purchasing. Therefore, the participants need access to com- prehensive data, with finer granularity, pertaining to the products' materials and their origin especially, as informant F, a retailer's sus- tainability director, noted: “ There is a need for increasingly detailed data [ … ] the scope, quantity, and themes of data are expanding all the time; all the time, there are new data that need to be collected . ” For instance, awareness of the manufacturing conditions can reveal opportunities for environment-related improvements. In the case of the tissue-paper market, the transparency envi- sioned would entail some ability to trace the journey of the paper from the forest and the mill to use – and even to the second and third cycles in the product's “ life, ” when doing so is feasible. This supports understanding the product's sustainability along its entire journey. However, the informants recognized how tricky it is to make compre- hensive product-specific data available. Acknowledging the chal- lenges, one informant pointed out, “ It is more about starting the process [than having 100% correct numbers]. Just start asking and nudg- ing the next level of companies [before you in the chain] to gather that data ” (B, a sustainability manager for a customer selling to professionals). Per the interviewees, the data available for each product should not be general or averages but that product's actual context-specific data, enabling comparison between distinct products and finding of sustainable alternatives. Informant C, working as the sustainability director for a customer carrying out retail sales, stressed, “ I would like to have data on the product and a comprehensive view [of] its various sustainability impacts: the product in the center, and then it has data attributes . ” More specifically, the interviewees expressed a desire for products' content details, data related to their origin, and quantifica- tion of environmental impacts. Relevant product-content data would cover the product's materials and composition (e.g., any recycled material), corresponding details for the packaging, and even “ product recipes ” revealing the chemicals used. The origin data should identify the sources of at least the product's most critical materials, so that issues such as possible biodiversity risks can be identified. Finally, the environmental-impact data should address carbon footprints at the very least, but the informants detect increasing focus also on biodiversity-related data. Circular-economy data too are of interest, though they were not emphasized in the interviews (there was proba- bly a sense of limited applicability of circularity in the tissue-paper domain). Informants sought reliability and comparability of product-specific and environment-related data both, to support greater environmental sustainability. In current conditions, the data's reliability, particularly in the case of product-specific details, is seen as a challenge. While some standards for life-cycle assessment and methods of calculating carbon footprints have been developed, the product-related environmental data available today are typically not comparable; the background assumptions, definition of boundaries, and other variations render the data practically unusable. Informants also cited a need for
4.1.2 | Workable data-management systems and data integration
The interviewees stressed that practical data-management systems and integration mechanisms for managing and sharing environment- related product and business data are required for efficient collection, management, and use of data to support environmental sustainability. They concluded that their respective companies' existing data- management systems are not suited to managing the burgeoning vol- umes of product-specific data or serving solid management decisions rooted in up-to-date environment-related data. The aim, as one infor- mant described it, should be “ the data [coming out of] the system with the push of a button, such as the financial data, so that we could check with the management team once a quarter where we are going in terms of our emission targets for this year ” (H1, sustainability manager for a retail-sales customer). Informants pointed out that their product- management systems were created for purposes very different from working with sustainability data; therefore, managing environment- related data requires large amounts of manual effort: “ It is very precise data that is needed, but our information systems do not necessarily sup- port that data; [for that reason] we have to do a lot of manual work ” (F, the retail-entity sustainability director quoted above). The informants articulated a need extending beyond their company's boundaries, for effortless sharing of data along their supply chains. In place of the cur- rent practice involving questionnaires and Excel sheets shared by e-mail, establishment of joint data platforms and interfaces between data-management systems were cited as opportunities for efficiently sharing of data, decreasing the duplication of work, and improving the data's quality.
4.2
| The variety of potential uses for data
4.2.1 | Creation of further value, for second-tier customers and end consumers
Informants saw the data described above as a promising tool for responding efficiently to their own customers' and to consumers' environment-related questions and data requests: consumers “ keep asking more questions and demand [ … ] transparency – they want to know where the products come from, where and how they are manufac- tured and under what conditions, and how the environment has been taken into account ” (H1, speaking from the perspective of a retail cus- tomer's sustainability manager). As things stand, addressing these questions and requests is time-consuming since the data are scattered across various systems, must be specifically requested from suppliers,
Made with FlippingBook Digital Publishing Software