Combining organizational performance with sustainable development issues: the Lean and Green project benchmarking repository

To become and remain competitive, companies must adopt evolving strategies. Lean Manufacturing is one such strategy used in several industrial companies. It is based on the identification and elimination of waste in various production processes. The originality of our work consists in proposing an approach which adds environmental and social dimensions to the consideration of economic earnings received through Lean actions. Adopting a case study research methodology, we analysed the literature and the practices of 21 Alsatian industrial companies in order to assess how Lean and Green actions could be enhanced when used together. Based on our analysis, we propose a framework for Lean and Green management, which includes Lean indicators, Green performance indicators and Green intentions indicators. This framework enables a consortium of companies to benchmark their Lean and Green practices in order to target the best in class and the associated best practices. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.