Integrating sustainability into business is gaining increased attention. Yet, implementing long-lasting sustainability approaches remains a complex task. Many empirical studies have identified the barriers to such implementation but the variation in challenges faced by companies, depending on the focus of the approach being implemented, is not addressed. The aim of this paper is i) to explore the barriers related to implementing different types of sustainability approaches and ii) to look for indications of similarities and differences across types of approaches. The research builds on data about the barriers, collected from a sample of twenty-two empirical studies in academic research and additional reports. The findings show that performance measurement systems and access to industry-specific information, benchmark or reference cases are common areas of difficulty across all types. The main variation is an increase in barriers beyond the company's boundaries, when shifting from a production to a value proposition focus. The results are limited by the unbalanced distribution of studies and the variety in methodologies present in the sample. Further research on barrier identification, prioritization and influential parameters is recommended

The need for understanding the context of the case company during Design for Sustainability (DfS) implementation has been a long identified need among the researchers in the field. Yet, studies on company context have primarily focused on studying, enlisting, and prescribing standardized solutions for companies or clustering companies based on similarities. Such approaches have not been able to overcome the organizational “soft side” challenges that have been long addressed in DfS literature. This explorative paper takes insights from 20 case interviews conducted in Norwegian and Danish manufacturing companies and with sustainability experts and uses the concept of persona from design studies to explore the potential of defining “company personas” to better define the context of the company. The interview analysis produced 14 dimensions, including both hitherto identified factual needs of companies and soft-side elements required to create a company persona, thereby informing practitioners and researchers to take a DfS implementation approach tailored to the company context.

Companies are increasingly expected to develop products with better environmental performance throughout their life cycle. Academic literature on ecodesign integration, which investigates firms’ practices of dealing with environmental concerns associated with their products, indicates a need for more focus on formal and informal organizational aspects. From the general management literature, the four-lens view of organizations provides a rich understanding of organizations by embracing their formal (structural lens) and informal (human, political and symbolic lenses) functioning. This article aims to explore the extent to which the four-lens view may support ecodesign integration in companies. This exploratory study builds on fifteen interviews about ecodesign integration at seven manufacturing companies in Denmark and Norway. The main results are threefold: (i) the different lenses of organizations could be found in measures mentioned at the case companies; (ii) measures from the architect’s perspective seemed necessary to provide an official scene for ecodesign and help prioritizing it in organizations; and (iii) the catalyst’s, advocate’s, and prophet’s perspectives seemed necessary to facilitate or complement the architect’s perspective. In the light of these findings, the four-lens view seems relevant to strengthen ecodesign integration, and its potential use as a reflective tool is an avenue for future work.