Society is at an energy crossroads today. How will our global economy become sustainable for future generations? For today's global organizations can the right thing and the profitable thing be the same thing? Can (or should) successful organizations improve the human condition? Worldwide, buildings account for 17 per cent of fresh water withdrawals, 25 per cent of wood harvest, 33 per cent of CO2 emissions and 40 per cent of material and energy use. Integrated 'green' and sustainable building design is being heralded as the fastest route to ecological modern buildings in Europe, North America and Asia (United States Green Building Council, 2008). On average North Americans spend 90 per cent (United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2009) of their time indoors, a large portion of this time in commercial buildings. Furthermore, salaries and wages account for approximately 90 per cent (Romm and Browning, 1994) of an organization's building-related expenses. However, in our rush to create 'green' and sustainable North American commercial buildings and a laser-like focus on reducing carbon footprints and reducing energy costs have we lost sight of the purpose of the commercial building which is the generation of wealth through the productivity of the commercial building occupant and by extension the occupant's organization. For if any slight increase or if any slight decrease in occupant and organizational productivity can be proven this would easily justify or (un)justify respectively most if not all North American commercial building sustainability initiatives as 'productivity is the fundamental economic measure of a technology's contribution' (Brynjolfsson, 1994). In other words have we increased or at a minimum maintained occupant and organizational productivity as we move our North American commercial building occupants and organizations into these newly created enhanced 'green' and sustainable structures with their new or enhanced 'green' and sustainable systems, processes and designs. The originality of the research will be in the linking of these two distinct areas namely; organizational productivity to North American commercial building 'green' and sustainability initiatives. Furthermore, through the mixed-methods research methodology approach we will attempt to develop new knowledge and findings as we implement measureable 'green' and sustainable strategies into comparative North American commercial building research settings.

Over the past number of decades, Canadian governments (both federal and provincial) have made commitments to preserving and protecting the natural environment and to using its components efficiently in order to benefit both current and future generations. These commitments, this thesis argues, translate into duties to strive for sustainable economic growth and intergenerational equity. One of the key challenges is to figure out which are the best policy tools and legal instruments that are capable of leading Canada towards these goals. Unfortunately, the economic measures typically employed by decision makers (GDP, GNP, productivity) tend to exclude or under represent natural capital, which may lead to decisions which actually degrade and deplete the natural environment and therefore violate the aforementioned legal commitments. One clear strategy to help Canada meet its commitments to sustainable economic growth and intergenerational equity is to ensure it uses its natural capital as efficiently as possible. This thesis proposes that green productivity is a useful tool for improving decision making because it considers the efficiency of use of natural capital a criteria important to helping achieve both sustainable economic growth and intergenerational equity. Green productivity is presented in this thesis as an umbrella term for productivity measures which include or account for, in some way, the (mis)use of natural capital. Specifically, the dissertation discuses three measures of green productivity used within economics: natural resource productivity, environmentally adjusted productivity, and natural capital and the residual. In addition to exploring the differences between these three measures of green productivity, the dissertation shows that they can be used to improve decision making in a number of ways, including as a broader public policy agenda item used by the government to target sustainability objectives. Additionally, measures of green productivity can be used to identify more specific policy and legal instrument goals, in designing and evaluating legal instruments, and in stakeholder consultation. For example, natural resource productivity can help identify leaders and laggards, thereby allowing decision makers to target certain industries or areas which are lagging. It can also help decision makers learn from leading jurisdictions which may ultimately lead to the implementation of new ideas in legal instrument design. The dissertation concludes with a case study of one type of green productivity measure (water productivity) in order to illustrate how the information it produces could be applied by decision makers.

Submitted by Maria Medeiros (maria.dilva1@ufcg.edu.br) on 2018-06-13T15:37:37Z No. of bitstreams: 1 LUÍS JORGE MONTEIRO FERNANDES - TESE (PPGRN) 2016.pdf: 2407892 bytes, checksum: 00b8a0bdd5cbe7187d7a9f6b01c6d6a9 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-06-13T15:37:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 LUÍS JORGE MONTEIRO FERNANDES - TESE (PPGRN) 2016.pdf: 2407892 bytes, checksum: 00b8a0bdd5cbe7187d7a9f6b01c6d6a9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016 / Capes / A Produtividade Verde (PV) é uma estratégia que tem por base a integração da proteção ambiental com vista à melhoria da produtividade e, com isto, gerar benefícios socioeconômicos, cuja mensuração tem sido feita através do cálculo do Índice de Produtividade Verde (IPV) e do Rácio da Produtividade Verde (RPV). Não obstante a importância dessas métricas no apoio à tomada de decisão, tanto em nível de gestão empresarial como também na definição de políticas públicas, constatou-se que elas não evidenciam a quantificação dos aspectos econômicos e ambientais das unidades industriais, enquanto os aspectos sociais não são considerados, tampouco mensurados, e, por isso, não apresentam uma abordagem integradora das três principais dimensões da sustentabilidade. Nesse âmbito, levando-se em consideração o fato de que a indústria calçadista, apesar de contribuir para a geração de emprego e renda, também se destaca pelos consideráveis impactos sociais e ambientais negativos que a caracterizam, tornando-a, assim, um campo de pesquisa para aplicação de modelos de mensuração, definiu-se como objetivo da pesquisa propor um modelo de mensuração da PV para empresas da indústria de fabricação de calçados concebido a partir da integração das dimensões econômica, ambiental e social da sustentabilidade. O modelo proposto, entre outros aspectos, é composto por uma métrica de cálculo do índice de produtividade verde em nível organizacional (IPVorg), por um método de avaliação do IPVorg e por um framework que suporta a métrica de mensuração de PV em um contexto organizacional. A definição do IPVorg é dado por uma relação matemática definida pela razão entre a produtividade (que ficou determinada pela razão entre o faturamento e os custos do processo produtivo - que incorpora separadamente os custos de produção, custos ambientais e custos sociais) e os impactos (sociais e ambientais). Para calcular os impactos, foram caracterizados 73 indicadores, sendo 39 da dimensão ambiental, divididos em 5 categorias (gestão organizacional; matérias-primas; água e energia; subprodutos; e comunidade), e 34 da dimensão social, agrupados em 6 categorias (legislação e normas; saúde e segurança; recursos humanos; ambiente laboral; comunidade; e clientes e consumidores) e seus respetivos parâmetros de análise. Quanto aos procedimentos metodológicos, trata-se de uma pesquisa exploratória e descritiva, com abordagem qualitativa e quantitativa, apresentando visão de conhecimento construtivista. Os procedimentos de coleta de dados tiveram como base fontes primárias e secundárias, através de instrumentos de coleta que incluem a observação não participante, a entrevista, o questionário e a pesquisa bibliográfica. O modelo foi aplicado empiricamente a partir de uma fábrica de calçados e, com isso, analisaram-se os três tipos de custos e também os índices ambientais e sociais com origem nas atividades da unidade fabril, além dos impactos sociais e ambientais sobre os funcionários, sobre a população das comunidades do entorno e sobre os consumidores. O modelo proposto, além de vir a contribuir para o avanço na literatura sobre PV e suas métricas, também demonstra ser uma importante ferramenta na definição de um quadro norteador de acompanhamento do desempenho das questões econômicas, ambientais e sociais de uma organização e, a partir disso, ter parâmetros de comparação em nível interno de uma organização, como também com outras organizações dentro do setor em que opera. / Green Productivity (GP) is a strategy that is based on the integration of environmental protection to improve productivity and, thus, generate socio-economic benefits whose measurement has been made by calculating the Green Productivity Index (GPI) and the Ratio of Green Productivity (RGP). Despite the importance of these metrics, it was found that they do not present an integrative approach of the three main dimensions of sustainability, and they do not show the quantification of the economic and environmental aspects of industrial units, while the social aspects are not considered, neither measured. Within this context the footwear industry, which contributes to the generation of employment and income, becomes a research field for the application of measurement models, due to the considerable negative social and environmental impacts that characterize it. The objective of this paper is to propose a Measurement Model of GP for the companies of the shoe manufacturing industry, designed from within the integration of the economic, environmental and social dimensions of sustainability. The proposed model, among other aspects, comprises a calculated metric of the green productivity index at organizational level (GPIorg), through an evaluation method of the GPIorg and a framework that supports the GP measurement metric in an organizational context . The definition of the IPVorg is given by a mathematical relation defined by the ratio between productivity (determined by the ratio between revenues and costs of the production process – which separately incorporates production costs, environmental costs and social costs) and impacts (social and environmental). Therefore, 73 indicators were used to calculate the impacts, 39 out of which belonging to the environmental dimension, divided into 5 categories (organizational management, raw materials, water and energy, by-products, and community), and the remaining 34 belonging to the social dimension, grouped into six categories (legislation and regulations, health and safety, human resources, work environment, community, and customers and consumers), and their respective parameters of analysis. The methodological procedures consisted of an exploratory and descriptive research, with a qualitative and quantitative approach, presenting a constructive view of knowledge. Data collection procedures were based on primary and secondary sources, whose collection instruments include the non-participant observation, interview, questionnaire and literature research. The model was empirically applied at a shoes factory located in the backlands of Paraiba, generating a GPIorg value that was used for the analysis of the three types of costs as well as the environmental and social indicators originating from the activities of the unit, in addition to the social and environmental impacts over staff, population of surrounding communities, and consumers. We conclude that the proposed model has provided a clear contribution for an advancement in the literature on GP and its metrics. It has also shown that the selection of indicators presents a relaxation which allows the incorporation of new indicators and new forms of measurement. It was also seen as an important comparison tool of financial, environmental and social parameters, both within the company and with other organizations in the sector where it operates