Implementing Sustainability in Service Operations at Scandic Hotels

Abstract

The case of Scandic Hotels shows, first, that sustainable strategies and practices can be just as useful in service operations as in manufacturing operations; and second, that such strategies and practices can support a corporate turnaround effort. Scandic Hotels, Nordic Europe's biggest hotel chain, was on the verge of collapse in the early 1990s. A new CEO, Roland Nilsson, turned the company around by introducing two business principles, decentralized management and sustainable development. The company's new value system, embodied in the concept of sustainability, linked customers and employees, who were calling for more environmental responsibility. Through employee-training programs, environmental information systems, and innovative collaborations with suppliers, Scandic was revived within a few years as a profitable corporation well on the road to sustainability.

The Adoption of Environmental Practices in Small Hotels. Voluntary or Mandatory? An Empirical Approach

“…This study illuminates different aspects: first, there are already studies on the adoption of EPs in the hotel sector [16][17][18][19][20][21], and some of them have already indicated the competitive advantages of implementing proactive initiatives for certain environmental issues: [22] finds that performance levels increase as environmental proactivity grows; [23] finds that the link between environmental management practices and financial performance is stronger for proactive hotels; [24] suggest that a proactive environmental stance is vital to maintain the image of hotels; and [20] claim that hotels proactive on environmental issues have a higher level of economic performance. However, to the best of our knowledge, there are no studies specifically focused on studying the differences in the results obtained depending on whether the EPs are adopted voluntarily or under pressure, and few studies are focused on small hotels.…”

The role of supply chain leadership in the learning of sustainable practice: Toward an integrated framework

“…Collaboration with suppliers and customers is essential for driving environmentally sustainable practices (Carter and Carter, 1998;Zhu and Sarkis, 2004); incentives are needed to reduce suppliers' risks when adopting these collaborative processes (Goodman, 2000); so focal companies need to educate their suppliers and have their suppliers educate each other (Rao and Halt, 2005). In a SSCM context, Van Hoof and…”

Shedding Light on Eco-Innovation in Tourism: A Critical Analysis

“…Previous research on sustainability in the tourism sector originated two decades ago as an analysis of the adoption of environmentally friendly practices among other works [9,[14][15][16][17][18][19][20] and its economic impact [21]. Sustainability impacts the economy in three ways: (1) it has a direct effect through energy savings; (2) it has an indirect effect because an environmentally friendly image creates a competitive advantage; and (3) the business gains the advantage of being positioned as a green company [14][15][16][17][18][19][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]. To a lesser extent, previous research has found that there is a social impact [2,11] and an impact on the acquisition of unique capabilities [2,29,30].…”