Conference Agenda

The accelerating climate crisis demands that firms commit to carbon neutrality and leverage diverse carbon abatement technologies, such as purchasing offsets, installing renewables, optimizing transportation, or redesigning products, toward this goal. While operations management research has investigated the economic implications of well-established pollution control and prevention technologies, it is not clear whether pursuing carbon neutrality can generate positive economic returns, and whether such a relation is contingent on the choice of specific carbon abatement technologies. To address this underexplored relation, we build upon the Natural Resource-Based View of the firm to theorize on the future economic implications of diverse carbon abatement technologies. We conduct an event study on 230 carbon neutrality announcements issued by US stock-listed firms between 2019 and 2022. Our findings indicate that carbon neutrality has the potential to generate positive economic returns. Moreover, carbon neutrality announcements associate with abatement technologies that reduce carbon emissions at the source, such as product redesign, transportation optimization, and renewable energy installation, display greater stock returns than carbon neutrality announcements associated with abatement technologies simply compensating carbon emissions, like carbon capture or offsets. Overall, our research contributes to the theory and practice of sustainable operations, revealing the subset of carbon abatement technologies that, based on stock market reactions, are likely to generate positive future economic returns as firms transform towards carbon neutrality. These findings have important implications for managers and policymakers on how to de-risk the climate transition.

As we move beyond the traditional scenario of products reaching the end of their economic lifespan, the need to phase-out certain products and processes due to their detrimental impact on environmental resources and social communities is becoming increasingly crucial. This study, therefore, takes on the novel task of systematically investigating the causes and approaches to capacity ramp-down. It combines a conceptual analysis and systematic literature screening. Initial findings reveal a significant gap in the academic discourse, with production ramp-down receiving far less attention than capacity expansion. Furthermore, environmental and social considerations are rarely acknowledged as valid reasons for production decrease in the economic literature.

Given the recent advances in manufacturing technology, as captured by the Industry 4.0 concept, and the increasing demands for more sustainable production, there is a great need to understand the relationship between these. This relationship is, however, not fully understood, and previous research has pointed to a need for more such studies. To add to this knowledge, this paper presents an empirical analysis of the impact of Sustainability Orientation (SO) and Digital Technology Readiness (DTR) on Green Process Innovation (GPI) and the mediating role of Digitalized Manufacturing Processes (DMP). It also includes an analysis of the extent to which SO and DTR moderate the relationship between DMP and GPI. The paper is based on 328 complete and usable responses to a questionnaire survey conducted from November 2022 to January 2023 among Danish manufacturers. The findings reveal a significant direct positive relationship between SO and GPI, and when mediated by DMP. However, the results did not show a significant direct relationship between DTR and GPI; instead, they revealed a fully mediated indirect effect through DM. Additionally, the study found no support for a moderating effect of SO and DTR on the relationship between DMP and GPI.