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This paper examines the role played by environmental issues during the new product design process. These issues are studied through an exploratory research project based on case studies of ten companies. The firms studied can be categorized into one of five major groups: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards. These groups strongly parallel the model of new product acceptance initially developed in the computer industry, as presented by Moore (1991). Of interest is the gap that exists between the early adopters and early majority users. This gap forms a chasm. Those factors that account for acceptance of environmentally responsible manufacturing in the innovators and early adopters are significantly different from those factors observed in the early majority, late majority, and laggards. This paper examines these and other differences, and the impact of these differences on the acceptance and use of environmental concerns within the new product design process.

An area that so far has been neglected within organizational theory research is the examination of the relationship of characteristics of the environment, formalized planning, and organizational structure, along with their resultant effects on firm performance. This paper examines these relationships based on three environmental dimensions, four design dimensions, and two dimensions of formalized planning used by decision makers within an organization. The results of an empirical investigation suggest that environmental characteristics and organizational design do have an impact on both performance efficiency and performance effectiveness. In addition, interactions of environmental characteristics and organizational design on performance effectiveness were significant.

This research investigates the status of environmental design implementation in Taiwan’s industries (Certified by ISO 14001) by employing questionnaire survey. The correlation between the degree of environmental design implementation in Taiwan’s industries and the relevant entrepreneurial characteristics are examined. Twenty‐six environmental design principles in foru phases: design, manufacturing, sales and transportation,a nd disposal are used to define and assess the current status of environmental design. The data analysis methods applied to this research includes descriptive statistics, T‐test, Chi‐square test, and single‐factor analysis of variance (ANOVA). It is evident that 21 out of the 26 environmental design principles are frequently and consistently employed by the manufactureers in Taiwan. The results indicate that environmental design implementation is becoming mature in Taiwan’s industries.

The purpose of this study is to examine the feasibility of using 3D simulation transfer processes to streamline the environmental assessment of buildings that have been designed digitally using building information modelling (BIM). The case study presented relates to a competition (“Build Qatar Live”) in which one of the winning team’s objectives was to create a smart process for assessing the design against the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) criteria. The experience indicated that a rapid, concurrent and efficient LEED evaluation was possible within the BIM process. The study presents technological approaches that can be adopted within the BIM environment to simplify the environmental assessments and embrace practices that reduce environmental and ecological impacts.

The methodology encompassed an overview of how rapid high-value data exchange occurs within BIM to achieve a sustainable building design as part of an international design competition. Achieving a LEED rating through sustainable design was a key requirement of the competition.

The findings of this case study has revealed that key credits in LEED can be integrated within the BIM design process. Therefore, tackling such important environmental design issues in parallel to building design and providing key information on building elements needed to meet the sustainability criteria.

This research highlights the benefits of streamlined, architectural and data software exchange through applying data interoperability of a building design; thus, skipping conventional 2D building and conventional documentation for environmental and energy designs simulations needed for LEED certifications and general low carbon design.

This study aims to identify the most critical concerns of property developers in terms of the transaction costs involved in compliance with environmental laws at the building scheme design stage when key design decisions are made.

Sixteen structured interviews were carried out with experienced industry practitioners in Hong Kong. Transaction cost theory is used to explain the regulatory compliance costs.

The results show that the most significant impacts of transaction costs were due to uncertainties in negotiations with government, which takes time to obtain approvals and overcome ambiguous legislative requirements.

The government could make use of the research findings to formulate a clear environmental policy to coordinate various departments and laws to address uncertainty with time for project delivery, and conduct quantitative regulatory impact assessments in the development of new legislation.

This study identifies and explaines “uncertainties” as the most critical concern for property developers in terms of the transaction costs involved in compliance with environmental laws. The results of this study would help policymakers to improve policy design, which would in turn increase efficiency and productivity in the property development process.

Aiming to find out how to incorporate green building into the architectural curriculum, this study aims to explore the psychological path for cultivating architectural students’ awareness and motivation to learn the green design concepts and related technologies.

Based on a global review of relevant architectural courses in universities, a set of green building learning behaviors was proposed and a survey was conducted in architectural schools in South China to verify the “value-belief-norm” theory through the lens of green building learning behaviors. The psychological path that affects students’ green building learning behaviors was analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The results showed that biospheric and altruistic values could directly affect students’ motivation to learn green building, while personal norms served as the mediating condition for personal values and beliefs, and ultimately improved motivation.

The study suggests that the cultivation of environmental awareness and a sense of the ecological crisis should be developed through foundation courses, by establishing an ecological architecture curriculum, to more effectively guide students to learn and practice green building.

This study, for the first time, applied the “value-belief-norm” theory, which was developed to explain the psychological path for pro-environmental behaviors, to green building learning behaviors of architectural students.

To examine the interplay between sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) and circular economy, this research conceptualises and empirically tests an integrative framework of environmental information exchange with suppliers (ES), environmental product design (EPD) and cost performance (CP) with the contingency effect of digital orientation (DO). The associations proposed in the integrative framework provide a configuration of SSCM practices that support circular economy's restorative processes in the digital age.

The resource orchestration theory and contingency theory are used to investigate the mediation and moderating effects, which were tested by a moderated mediation analysis of survey data of 100 firms in Australia.

The results show that EPD fully mediates the relationship between ES and CP. Further, DO was found to moderate the relationship between EPD and CP, but not the relationship between ES and EPD.

The empirical findings of this study offer an effective SSCM practice configuration for firms seeking to target advanced circular business models and economic benefits. Managers should be aware that ES may not be enough to improve CP; EPD is a required mechanism to translate the ES benefits into cost superiority. Managers should also stimulate a DO culture to develop effective EPD capabilities, which leads to improved CP and a foundation for companies seeking to target circularity.

This study advances prior theoretical and practical knowledge. The authors propose and empirically test an integrated SSCM and circular economy model that incorporates mediation and moderation effects to clarify inconsistent findings in prior work, which provides a more holistic and practical understanding of SSCM practices in the digital context. Furthermore, the SSCM literature recommends the adoption of circular economy principles. The integrated model in this study provides a bridge between SSCM and circular economy.

This paper comprehensively and systematically reviews and critiques the product eco-design practice in green supply chain management studies. It seeks to explore drivers, barriers and initiatives of eco-design practice with a specific emphasis on China in comparison to non-China countries.

This paper adopts a systematic literature review approach. It also uses a conceptual thematic landscape of the global eco-design practice along supply chains to critically evaluate published studies. The Web of Science™ Core Collection database is used as the source.

Results show that although common factors exist, China exhibits a higher number of barriers, leading to an overall lag in eco-design adoption. China’s advantage lies in pressing market demand, actively engaged human resources and a cooperative culture. Alternatively, non-China countries demonstrate their relative superiority in eco-design tools, knowledge and innovation. Findings also indicate stakeholders simultaneously act as the three roles of eco-design practice in all countries, so do environmental regulations in China.

A thematic framework is introduced that can be used to further investigate and identify research opportunities. This study aids practitioners take stock of current eco-design management issues. It also includes pertinent recommendations on international eco-design performance improvement. It especially provides significant insights into successful eco-design implementation to green supply chains in China.

While prior control studies typically focus on organizations with an instrumental approach to corporate sustainability, this study concentrates on organizations with an integrative approach, as the latter is needed to address the grand challenge of sustainable development. As such organizations do not single out the financial objective as the dominant one, they pursue a hybrid mission. This study investigates how a control package can be designed that ensures the persistence of such a hybrid mission.

A case study is undertaken at a luxury hotel chain in which a financial and an environmental objective are continuously balanced. Self-determination theory is used to substantiate insights into how psychological need-supportive controls can be designed at all organizational levels.

This study highlights how controls are not only needed to direct staff behaviour towards the environmental objective but also to ensure that staff at all organizational levels prioritize the objectives in such way that the hybrid mission can be sustained. Besides structural differentiation and centralization of decision-making, the case organization designed need-supportive controls to foster staff's internalization of the environmental objective and value as well as of the integrative approach.

As the need-supportive socialization process fostered staff's integration of the environmental value, this study highlights the transformational potential of controls.

This study provides a unique account of a control package directing staff behaviour towards the balancing of multiple objectives.

Selection of sustainable building materials represents an important strategy in the design and construction of a building. A principal challenge therefore is the identification of assessment criteria based on the concepts and principles of sustainability, and the process of prioritizing and aggregating relevant criteria into an assessment framework. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to fill these gaps by describing the development stages of key assessment criteria used within an assessment tool under development for sustainable building material selection in the UK building industry.

After conducting a thorough and systematic literature review, a total of 24 sustainable assessment criteria (SAC) based on the triple bottom line and the need of building stakeholders were identified. A survey of UK architects and designers was conducted to capture their perceptions on the importance of the criteria. A total of 490 questionnaires were mailed out to participants for completion. An initial and follow‐up administration of the postal survey generated an overall response rate of 20.2 per cent. Factor analysis was utilized to group the criteria into assessment factors for modelling sustainability of building materials.

The result revealed that all criteria were considered important, with “aesthetics”, “maintainability” and “energy saving” the three top criteria considered for building materials selection. Factor analysis shows that these SACs can be aggregated into six factors namely: “environmental impacts”, “resource efficiency”, “waste minimization”, “life cycle cost”, “socio benefit”, and “performance capability”. Since these criteria were derived from the survey through expert opinion, consideration of these six criteria in material selection will ensure sustainability of building projects.

The sampling method does not include other stakeholders, who in a way influence material selection, such as the client. The sample size may need to be extended to include more stakeholders involved in material selection in order to minimize sampling error. However, the importance of the study remains, for the limitations do not detract from them, but merely provide scope for further research.

The current study contributes to the building industry and sustainability research in at least two aspects. First it widens the understanding of selection criteria as well as their degree of importance. It also provides building stakeholders a new way to select materials, thereby facilitating the sustainability of building projects.