| dc.description.abstract | According to Erik Osmundsen, the CEO of Norsk Gjenvinning (NG), the waste
management business is intrinsically a very sustainable industry, but it is
operating in a non-sustainable way. Sustainability has become the defining
challenge of our time and organizations have taken steps to realize the many
benefits that lie within this field. Since the introduction of Altor in 2011, NG has
gone through a dramatic turnaround. Altor was aware of some challenges,
however, they found that the organization had several unexpected challenges.
Together with the new top management they started to focus on the opportunities
and challenges within NG. In order for management to understand the needs of
the organization, Osmundsen, the new CEO at that time, started a program to
eliminate corruption and improve sustainability, i.e. compliance, circular
economy, recycling, recovery, and re-use. His commitment, together with rest of
the top management, contributed to the facilitation of sustainable implementation
and the new identity of NG.
The purpose of this thesis is to investigate NG’s journey towards a more
sustainable waste management. In order to explore the challenges, changes and
outcomes, we conducted a narrative analysis based on stories given about past,
present and future events, to compare and investigate the perception of these
events within the organization.
We found throughout our research, that there were certain situations and
obstacle components, i.e. absence of control and communication, ‘unsustainably
sustainable’, uncertainty and misunderstanding connected to the concept of
sustainability, culture conflict and poor managerial control, that may have reduced
the effect of the implementations. However, one can find several positive effects
due to Osmundsen’s proactive leadership, i.e. increased compliance,
sustainability, HSSE, rewriting of governmental regulations and laws, cultural
change. We argue that our findings may help NG and organizations in similar
situations to reduce the complexities that surround ethical turnaround. This may in
turn provide a better understanding of efforts to implement sustainable strategies. | nb_NO |
