Sustainable Operations Management: An Enduring Stream or a Passing Fancy?

Paul Kleindorfer was among the first to weigh in on and nurture the stream of sustainable operations management. The thoughts laid out here are based on conversations we had with Paul relating to the drivers underlying sustainability as a management issue: population and per capita consumption growth, the limited nature of resources and sinks, and the responsibility and exposure of firms to ensuing ecological risks and costs. We then discuss how an operations management lens contributes to the issue and criteria to help the sustainable operations management perspective endure. This paper relates to a presentation delivered by Morris Cohen for Paul's Manufacturing and Service Operations Management Distinguished Fellows Award, given at Columbia University, June 18, 2012. We wrote this paper at Paul's request.