Lean-green integration and its impact on sustainability performance: a critical review

Lean and green management concepts provide approaches to managing organisations and their supply chains with the aim of improving organisational performance. In particular, the integration of lean and green concepts holds promise for addressing the sustainability performance or triple bottom line (TBL; economic, environmental and social dimensions) of an organisational production system. This paper provides a systematic literature review on the topic of lean and green integration and its impact on sustainability performance and critically reviews findings from 80 articles from 2006 to 2018 in leading operations and supply chain management peer-reviewed journals. The overall argument in the papers is that lean and green share common features and that the integration of lean and green strengthens the performance outcomes of organisational production system. However, the overall effect is moderated by various contingencies. The impact on sustainability performance is mixed, but it is also evident that most studies conclude that integrative adoption of lean-green positively impacts sustainability performance, especially in comparison to individual adoption of lean or green concepts in isolation. The study also proposes future research directions based on gaps in existing studies.