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The use of environmental performance indicators in “the greenest city in Europe”

Jan Alpenberg (Department of Accounting and Logistics, Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden)
Tomasz Wnuk-Pel (Department of Accounting, Faculty of Management, University of Lódz, Lódz, Poland) (Department of Accounting and Logistics, Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden)
Philip Adamsson (Department of Accounting and Logistics, Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden)
Johannes Petersson (Department of Accounting and Logistics, Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden)

Baltic Journal of Management

ISSN: 1746-5265

Article publication date: 8 November 2018

Issue publication date: 4 January 2019

359

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine why and how municipal managers and CEOs for municipally owned companies use the environmental performance indicators.

Design/methodology/approach

A case study approach as a research design was used. In total, 18 semi-structured interviews were conducted among managers for administrative departments and municipal company CEOs.

Findings

This study found that the environmental performance indicators are used by department managers mainly for resource allocation, control and for teaching the employees. The CEOs of the municipal companies use the environmental indicators for communicating with external stakeholders and see the indicators primarily as marketing tools. The main reason why the environmental performance indicators are used in the municipality can be the strong demand from the local politicians to push the “green agenda,” and therefore the managers have to comply.

Research limitations/implications

As in any case study, generalizations from the research should be made with care, but since this is only one municipality, further research is needed to find additional evidence.

Practical implications

The findings of this study have a number of implications for future practice, and it is worth mentioning that clear guidelines for how the information could be made more useful for managers at the managerial level in Växjö municipality (VM) are requested for both the municipal managers and the CEOs.

Social implications

Overall, this study strengthens the idea that environmental performance indicators could be used to a larger extent for communicating with external stakeholders both for municipal departments and companies.

Originality/value

The research adds to the literature by examining different patterns of using environmental performance indicators in a unique setting – in VM, which is called “the greenest city in Europe” and is one of the “pioneers” in environmental work and extensively uses performance indicators.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This paper forms part of a special section “Accounting and performance management innovations in public sector organizations”.

This paper is part of a larger research initiative with a focus on sustainability performance measurement in the public sector. The authors would like to thank reviewers and editors for the special issue for constructive comments during the submission process. We also would like to thank seminar participants at the 13th Asia-Pacific Management Accounting Association Annual Conference in Shanghai, China, November 6–9, 2017 and at the 2nd Trends in Accounting Research Conference in Kaunas, Lithuania, October 4–6, 2017 for valuable comments. The empirical data for this paper have been gathered by Philip Adamsson and Johannes Petersson for their master’s thesis under the supervision of the co-authors.

Citation

Alpenberg, J., Wnuk-Pel, T., Adamsson, P. and Petersson, J. (2019), "The use of environmental performance indicators in “the greenest city in Europe”", Baltic Journal of Management, Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 122-140. https://doi.org/10.1108/BJM-01-2018-0028

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited

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