The traditional approach of operations management has evaluated an organisation’s performance based on four main areas: cost, quality, time and service. However, the necessity to introduce environmental protection measures in firms so as to achieve sustainable development has forced a redefinition of the operations function. This paper reviews the literature on operations management and environmental issues, in order to determine the role of operations in sustainability. We justify the need to include environmental performance as a new dimension of operations performance. Finally, we analyse environmental performance as an operations objective and present certain aspects that should be taken into account when measuring it.

Purpose: This paper analyses the relationship between environmental protection and mid‐term financial performance, focusing on when and why this relationship is positive. In particular, the paper disaggregates environmental protection, differentiating between environmental management practices, environmental proactivity and environmental performance of the organization.Design/methodology/approach: It uses a cross‐section survey of 2,122 Welsh companies to gather information on environmental practices and the FAME database to collect data on accounting based financial performance. The paper uses regression analysis on a combined sample of 186 Welsh companies to evaluate the effect on performance of different types of environmental protection.Findings: On the whole, the results show a positive effect of environmental protection on mid‐term financial performance. Financial performance has a positive and significant correlation with environmental proactivity and with environmental performance, while it has a no significant relation with environmental management.Originality/value: The paper presents a disaggregated analysis of environmental protection in relationship with financial performance. The paper differentiates between environmental management practices, environmental proactivity and environmental performance of the organization in their relationship with financial performance.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to interpret the relationship between supply chain integration (SCI) and performance and to find empirical evidence of the moderating factors that affects said relationship, as well as to describe, classify, and discuss the empirical evidence. Design/methodology/approach: A systematic review of 72 studies published during the period 2001-2015 is offered. A multi-criteria approach is used to sort, structure and classify papers with the purpose of contributing to the discussion. Findings: The direct relationship between SCI and performance shows mostly positive results; however, the moderating effects analyzed show a clear lack of consistency since their effect and significance vary depending on the measures used, both in SCI and performance. Research limitations/implications: The use of specific keywords of SCI to select an initial sample of papers may lead to a narrow perspective, although snowballing was used to include relevant papers initially excluded. Originality/value: The analysis and classification of moderating factors as well as the measure of their tendency help to better understand the questions that remain unsolved regarding SCI and performance. Propositions for further research are suggested.