title: The Motivations for Environmental Commitment in the Airline Industry: A Case Study of Scandinavian Airlines
Creators: name: Lynes, Jennifer Kristin
Publisher: name: Griffith University
Year: 2004
Subjects: subject: Scandinavian Airlines
subject: environmental sustainabliity of business
subject: airline industry
subject: airline environmental policy

description: The greening of management theory suggests that to ensure the environmental sustainability of businesses, a paradigm shift is required away from valuing profit maximisation as the fundamental objective of business, towards incorporating more ecocentric goals and corporate social responsibility into the management equation. The development of mechanisms and tools for a business's environmental sustainability needs to take into consideration the complex issue and value-laden environment in which corporate environmental policy-making occurs, if tools are to be socially and politically legitimated. In this policy-making context there has been growing importance placed on the role of social science in environmental decision-making, as the natural sciences alone may no longer be sufficient to guide the development of sustainable environmental management. This thesis uses a case study of Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) to examine an airline's decision-making processes and drivers for environmental commitment. The airline industry is the focus of this research. Although the airline industry is part of the service sector, it possesses several characteristics similar to those of manufacturing industries including intense regulation, high entry barriers and high capital costs, with tendencies towards oligopolies. It thus provides an interesting juxtaposition between the 'heavy' industries sectors such as the chemical, mining and energy sectors (the focus of much of the empirical research on environmental motivations) and the more consumer-oriented service components of the service industry. The increasing uptake of ecolabels and benchmarking practices in service sectors such as the tourism industry demonstrate growing corporate interest in voluntary and market-based mechanisms to address the management of environmental impacts. Although aviation has been examined with respect to its impacts on the environment, it has not been considered with regard to the internal management processes which are used to develop company policies. The research for this thesis was carried out using a mixed method approach for data collection that included interviews, an interactive discussion tool, document analysis and a literature review. The case study, SAS, is an international commercial airline and one of the founding members of the Star AllianceTM network. SAS operates predominantly at the Scandinavian and European Union level, a domain that has given much attention to environmental issues. This study uses two key decisions that were made in SAS to demonstrate how environmental issues were taken into consideration in the airline's decision-making process. The first decision focuses on a strategic move by the airline in 1995 to purchase 'environmentally-friendly' aircraft engines, and the second decision deals with a new inflight service concept, Scandinavian Direct, that was created by SAS following the economic downturn in the industry in 2001. Based on an in-depth analysis of the drivers identified by both Scandinavian Airlines and related industry officials, this study shows that attitudes, values and beliefs generated both internally and externally have a critical impact on the airline's environmental policy-making. Although there are numerous influences that drive SAS's level of environmental commitment, three of these 'motivators' are particularly noteworthy in the findings. Firstly, this research demonstrates that eco-efficiencies, in various forms, are indeed a strong motive at SAS. Secondly, the Scandinavian culture also plays an influential role in the value SAS puts on the environment at a strategic level. Thirdly, it was found that internal leadership, in the form of environmental champions in senior management positions, played a key role in the positive outcomes of the airline's environmental performance. The implications of this study are three-fold. Firstly, the study provides empirical evidence of the motivations and influences for an individual company at a level of depth provided in few case studies. Secondly, it provides findings that can be used in the development of mechanisms to encourage airlines to continually improve their environmental performance. Thirdly, the significance of this research is founded on the notion that it is crucial to understand the external and internal drivers that influence the development of airline environmental policy if realistic and appropriate benchmarks are to be set for different sectors of the tourism industry. Given the historic and forecasted growth in air travel, the salience of this research is demonstrated.