Lean & Green Management

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Lean & Green is a concept that combines increases in efficiency in the value creation processes of companies with environmental and sustainability aspects. The focus is on the question of how a company's resource efficiency can be increased and how a sustainable corporate orientation can be supported.

Expansion of lean management

→ Main article: Lean management

Lean management is a holistic management philosophy with the intention of continuously optimizing costs, quality and delivery capacity. The aim is to optimally coordinate all activities that are necessary for value creation and to avoid unnecessary activities (waste, Japanese “ Muda ”). Lean & Green represents a further development of lean management approaches and aims to continuously improve the environmental balance sheet of companies in addition to increasing competitiveness.

Core idea

Growth and continuous improvement have always been the goal of companies. In addition to the economic figures, social and ecological factors are increasingly coming into the focus of customers, the public and investors. These developments are driven by political framework legislation and initiatives, increasingly conscious consumers, scarcity of raw materials and cost pressure. The design of resource-efficient (production) processes is developing into one of the critical success factors for companies.

Lean & Green concepts therefore pursue the goal of strategically, operationally and organizationally combining lean management with the topic of environmental protection and resource efficiency and thereby creating a basis on which ecological topics are also promoted as part of the continuous improvement process. With Lean & Green concepts, optimizing processes and minimizing waste is not only a means of increasing the company's success, but also improves the company's environmental and social impact, which in turn brings benefits to society as a whole.

Methodical connection

The proximity of classic lean approaches to environmental and resource efficiency issues is due to the common focus on waste . The aim of lean management is to avoid or minimize waste (i.e. activities that do not add value). This leads to more efficient processes and thus also to fewer resources. The use of resources is central to achieving sustainability goals (green management) in all of the concepts . The key question is how best to use these to support sustainable development . Lean & Green thus shows two sides of the same coin that influence each other and have a direct impact on a company's resource efficiency . A particularly lean company is also more resource-efficient and therefore green.

Link in management systems

Lean management is referred to as a corporate philosophy and is not just a set of optimization tools. Lean management is usually the basis of holistic management systems in companies. Such lean management systems offer a broader basis for making processes leaner and more sustainable. The aim of Lean & Green approaches is to expand these systems with ecological principles (e.g. zero emissions or circular economy). This allows the principles and practices to be integrated holistically and the philosophy of continuous improvement is deeply anchored in the organization and workforce. Lean & Green thus becomes part of the corporate culture and leads to participation and willingness to change being strengthened. In addition, production and management systems are used to set guidelines that help support the company's long-term orientation and make strategic objectives operationally tangible.

Lean & Green in the supply chain

In lean management , the integration and development of suppliers and partners plays a major role. Active supplier development and partnership-based exchange help to harmonize processes and implement continuous and mutual improvements. In Lean & Green concepts, in addition to the classic Lean approaches, ecological principles must also be improved along the value chain . Lean & Green approaches help to create both economic and ecological added value and thus make it easier for companies to make their own supply chains more sustainable. It is precisely in this area that there are decisive levers to improve the ecological and social performance of your own company.

Lean & Green Awards

Lean & Green Management Award

The "Lean & Green Management Award" has been honoring particularly successful approaches in the field of lean management and resource efficiency since 2012 and has set itself the task of making the results available to interested companies in order to stimulate an exchange of best practice between companies and industries. The focus is on the question of how all types of waste can be reduced in a company. The award is carried out as part of a cooperation between the industry magazine “Automobil Industrie” and the consulting companies “Growtth® Consulting Europe” and “Quadriga Consult”. The award is given internationally and is aimed at companies in all manufacturing sectors with at least 100 employees at their participating production site.

Lean and Green Award Logistics

The aim of the "Lean and Green Logistics Award" is to certify participating companies for their success in reducing their CO 2 emissions in warehouse and logistics processes. It is up to the company to decide what specific actions to take to reduce CO 2 emissions. The award was launched by the Dutch logistics company "Connekt". In Germany, "GS1 Germany" certifies companies that want to save CO 2 in their logistics. If successful, the company will receive the Lean and Green Award and will be able to use the Lean and Green logo and marketing materials in the future.

literature

  • Pamela J. Gordon: Lean and Green: Profit for Your Business and the Environment. 2001, ISBN 1-60994-363-5 .
  • Turan Paksoy, Gerhard-Wilhelm Weber, Sandra Huber: Lean and Green Supply Chain Management . Springer, 2019, ISBN 978-3-319-97510-8 .
  • Keivan Zokaei et al .: Creating a lean and green business system: techniques for improving profits and sustainability . Productivity Press, 2016, ISBN 978-1-4665-7113-6 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Reichert, Daniel, Claudio Cito, Ivan Barjasic: Lean & Green: Best Practice: How to increase resource efficiency in industry . Springer-Verlag, 2018, ISBN 978-3-658-21685-6 .
  2. ↑ M. Florentina Abreu, Anabela C. Alves, Francisco Moreira: Lean-Green models for eco-efficient and sustainable production. In: Energy. Volume 137, 2017, pp. 846-853.
  3. ↑ Pedro José Martínez-Jurado, José Moyano-Fuentes: Lean management, supply chain management and sustainability: a literature review. In: Journal of Cleaner Production. Volume 85, 2014, pp. 134-150.
  4. ↑ Michael D'heur: Sustainable Value Chain Management. Springer International Publishing, 2015, ISBN 978-3-319-12141-3 .
  5. ^ Daniel Reichert, Claudio Cito, Ivan Barjasic: Lean & Green: Best Practice: How resource efficiency can be increased in industry . Springer-Verlag, 2018, ISBN 978-3-658-21685-6 .
  6. ^ Daniel Reichert, Claudio Cito, Ivan Barjasic: Lean & Green: Best Practice: How resource efficiency can be increased in industry . Springer-Verlag, 2018, ISBN 978-3-658-21685-6 .
  7. ↑ Carolina Machado, J. Paulo Davim (Ed.): Green and Lean Management . Springer International Publishing, 2017, ISBN 978-3-319-44907-4 .
  8. ↑ Martin Kurdve et al: Lean and green integration into production system models – experiences from Swedish industry. In: Journal of Cleaner Production. Volume 85, 2014, pp. 180-190.
  9. ↑ Michael D'heur: Sustainable Value Chain Management. Springer International Publishing, 2015, ISBN 978-3-319-12141-3 .
  10. ↑ lean-and-green.de
  11. ↑ gs1-germany.de