Integrating greenness into a balanced scorecard in a food processing company

Abstract

urpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how and why a case company integrated an environmental management system (EMS) into a performance management system (PMS), specifically a balanced scorecard (BSC).

Design/methodology/approach – This interpretative case study utilized qualitative methods in semi‐structured interviews, internal documents and e‐mails.

Findings – The company integrated its environmental measures into the process perspective in its BSC. The integration centralized its fragmented PMS, stimulated its strategic control and complemented its financial reporting. This integration also crystallized the causality between the company's environmental actions and financial performance. Therefore, the integration enabled improvements to environmental performance and strengthened the finance‐oriented culture of the company.

Research limitations/implications – The study has general limitations associated with the qualitative methods used.

Originality/value – The paper shows that environmental measures are worthwhile elements to integrate into the process perspective of a PMS if a company is in an industrial sector. Environmental measures can be worth selecting due to the way the measures affect a company's financial performance, if the company has a very finance‐driven culture. BSC can be useful for different purposes, such as for centralizing a fragmented information system, legitimizing environmental actions and for strengthening corporate culture.