Title: Design of ''green grade'' rating system for the environmental performance assessment of a firm

Authors: Yan Liu, Miao He

Addresses: School of Management, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China. ' School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Nanyang Avenue, 639798, Singapore

Abstract: In this paper, a new concept called ||green grade|| was introduced to assess the environmental performance of a firm. Seven links of the green value chain of a firm, including green management, green suppliers, green design, green process, green marketing, green consumption and green recycle, were thoroughly analysed and researched, resulting in the development of a new model to assess environmental performance of a firm quantitatively. The proposed model, known as green grade rating system, employed the Analytic Hierarchy Process, and was demonstrated as a practical, feasible and effective quantitative method to assess the environmental performance of a company. The proposed green grade rating system can be of great significance to small- or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) since these produce the majority of output values in the industry of any country and are the main pollution sources due to their dated technology and limited capital.

Keywords: green grade; environmental performance; analytical hierarchy process; AHP; SMEs; sustainable development; town; township enterprises; green value chain; green management; green suppliers; green design; green processes; green marketing; green consumption; green recycling; reuse; environmental management; performance evaluation; sustainability.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMED.2005.006310

International Journal of Management and Enterprise Development, 2005 Vol.2 No.2, pp.183 - 203

Published online: 16 Feb 2005 *

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