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LUOMA ET AL .
5
DISCUSSION
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helping them to comply more easily with stricter requirements for data collection and reporting. In the markets where the operations of the informants' companies were concentrated, EU regulation is impel- ling ever-increasing requirements for product- and environment- related data: “ It's a huge regulatory tsunami [from the EU] and the need for new data and reporting ” (informant F). Among the topical regula- tory instruments mentioned are the new Corporate Social Responsi- bility Directive, expanding the reporting requirements; the proposed directive on corporate-sustainability due diligence, calling for compa- nies to take responsibility for their global value chains; and a circular- economy package tightening the restrictions applied to environmental claims, to limit greenwashing. The informants saw high-quality data as also affording a coherent and credible picture of the company's environmental performance. At listed companies especially, gaining the trust of investors demands this: “ I don't see it as possible to get very far by repeating set phrases [related to the company's environmental performance]. The data really need to be out there for investors too, so that they believe that your story is coherent and credible ” (H1). Part of the communication with inves- tors is participation in third-party systems for rating corporate- responsibility performance, such as EcoVadis's. This too calls for extensive provision of data. In sum, the interviewees perceived environment-related data of consistently high quality as helping concretize things and avoid greenwashing in sustainability communications. Data attest to the legitimacy of what the company is saying and are necessary for avoiding a market flooded with greenwashing: “ It's good to have some really good strong data so that people can see it's not greenwash- ing ” (A, from the perspective of a managing director). Informants recognized a need for digestible, simple customer-facing communi- cation about data that maintains a focused message: “ When you get specific with people's exact usage, then that's when it becomes really powerful ” (D, the sales director quoted above). Not only customers but also employees ask for concrete examples of what the company has done for the environment (for example, how much plastic waste has been avoided). In addition, some informants listed attracting tal- ent as another potential source of value cultivated via the data: “ Employees also start to expect a certain level from their employer, such that they too need to get data to prove that – not just sentences like what is being done but the kind of data that makes them believe that we are actually doing things ” (H2, a sustainability specialist with a retail-sales customer). In addition, data can exert an effect on pub- lic opinion. This dovetails with the findings related to data's power to drive learning. One informant stressed the importance of bring- ing the right information to the public so that, for instance, old assumptions can be dismantled. When asked about the monetary value of data supportive of envi- ronmental sustainability, the informants were unable to quantify it. This type of data was addressed simply in qualitative terms, as the future of the business, crucial for business goals, key to creating new client relationships, and the difference between gaining and losing business.
5.1
Implications for theory
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The project participants found that successfully supporting busi- nesses' environmental sustainability necessitates meeting several con- ditions related to the content and reliability of data and how the data are managed and shared. The presence of these characteristics enables utilizing the data in a wide range of decisions and activities – in the business itself, in its value chains, and among stakeholders – that support environmental-consideration-based choices and operations that entail improvements. The spectrum extends from introducing environment-linked attributes for purchas- ing choices to tracking progress toward set environmental targets. We can connect these elements to two levels in the hierarchy of per- ceived customer value that Woodruff (1997) identifies as essential when customers are assessing the value of products: the characteris- tics, which he calls “ attributes and attribute performances, ” and the uses of data, which he describes as “ desired consequences in use situ- ations. ” While that hierarchy was developed primarily with regard to products, our findings indicate that it meshes well also with assessing the value of data for customers. Importantly, Woodruff's hierarchy has a third level: customers' goals and purposes. These affect the desired consequences in use sit- uations and, further down the line, the attributes and attribute perfor- mances. In our analysis, the clustering of the decisions and activities that data could support revealed the higher-level goals and purposes of the informants and their organizations for the utilization of data for environmental sustainability. First, data can serve as a resource enabling creation of added value for the tier-2 customers and, in turn, consumers. Second, the informants perceived data as able to support better environmental-factor-informed business decisions and improve the management of corporate responsibility. Also, there is recognized value in data for supporting regulatory compliance as EU rules grow stricter and for gaining stakeholder trust (which influences drawing in investors, attracting talent, and swaying public opinion). While the importance of the goals varies somewhat among the informants, the first two of these goals were strongly emphasized. The findings reveal an apparent need for greater quantities and detail of products' value-chain data and related environmental impacts, to provide transparency and reveal the environmental perfor- mance of full supply chains; this conclusion is consistent with prior lit- erature (Elias Mota et al., 2020; Gandolfo & Lupi, 2021; Rusch et al., 2022). Research has found this type of data to be increasingly crucial for meeting transparency needs and complementing sustain- ability reporting in communication of companies' sustainability com- mitments and efforts to stakeholders (Engert et al., 2016; Stewart et al., 2018). Likewise, many of the challenges emphasized by the find- ings in relation to data availability and reliability are recognized well in the literature. Gaps or inaccuracies in even the simplest supply-chain data, such as factory locations, are among the factors identified as hin- dering their use, and another is limited comparability of product-
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