Road-mapping the business potential of sustainability within the European manufacturing industry

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to explore the required changes, outline business potential and envisage the key steps that a networked manufacturing industry needs to take to reach more sustainably performing manufacturing in the future. Design/methodology/approach – The paper utilises a visionary road-mapping approach to study the required changes and the business potential related to sustainable development in the manufacturing industry. Findings – The results were summarised in three sub-roadmaps empowerment of stakeholders, increase efficiency and creation of new performance criteria. On the basis of the summary of the sub-roadmaps, the framework was configured to describe the opportunities and challenges of sustainable business development in the European manufacturing industry. Research limitations/implications – A clear implication of this study is that a more system-oriented approach, new models for collaboration between network actors and transparently shared network-level KPIs are requir...