A proposed framework of sustainable self-evaluation maturity within companies: an exploratory study

Abstract

Companies are still struggling to implement ecodesign in their daily product development processes. It is believed that this occurs because companies should firstly improve their strategy and management skills towards sustainability before introducing any ecodesign tool. As a consequence, this paper aims to propose a self­evaluation framework to rank companies into different classes according to their level of maturity in terms of sustainability. It also discusses ̈minimum requirements ̈ to move from one level to another towards sustainability. This will help companies to better understand which strategic and managerial actions they need to take before implementing any ecodesign.