Environmental performance as an operations objective

The traditional approach of operations management has evaluated an organisation’s performance based on four main areas: cost, quality, time and service. However, the necessity to introduce environmental protection measures in firms so as to achieve sustainable development has forced a redefinition of the operations function. This paper reviews the literature on operations management and environmental issues, in order to determine the role of operations in sustainability. We justify the need to include environmental performance as a new dimension of operations performance. Finally, we analyse environmental performance as an operations objective and present certain aspects that should be taken into account when measuring it.