Corporate Sustainability Initiatives: The Next TQM? By Shelly F. Fust & Lisa L. Walker
- Posted August 2nd, 2011 by Sarah
Understanding emerging corporate sustainability practices through the lens of total quality management.
Key Takeaways
Ambiguity surrounds the term sustainability and consequently the scope of corporate sustainability initiatives; understanding the parallels between total quality management (TQM) and sustainability programs can help lessen that ambiguity
Companies poised to derive competitive advantages from sustainability treat their programs as an opportunity and not simply an added cost to absorb, another risk to manage or one more regulation with which to comply with.
Successful corporate sustainability programs to date share four important characteristics: a CEO champion, carefully chosen initiative leaders, multi-disciplinary teams and a dual focus on risk and opportunity. Successful corporate sustainability programs also produce multiple talent management benefits.
- Posted August 2nd, 2011 by Sarah
- Categories: SRO · 3 comments »
August 3rd, 2011 at 10:22 am
Great article from 2007 – will ASQ update it??
August 10th, 2011 at 10:39 am
Having worked in the Defense Industry implementing TQM in the early ’80s, and the Commercial Electronics industry since the ’90s, I found your article to be very relevant to today’s sustainability needs. As an ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 Lead Auditor, I see more companies like GE today implementing sustainability initiatives as it not only helps the environment, but makes great “business sense.” My thanks to the authors for an insightful article.
August 10th, 2011 at 9:24 pm
Excelent article!!
First time I have read an article that explains the deep relation between TQM and Social Reponsibility. Is the holistic form of applying Quality & Sustainability.