Implementing sustainability in service operations at Scandic Hotels

The case of Scandic Hotels shows, first, that sustainable strategies and practices can be just as useful in service operations as in manufacturing operations; and second, that such strategies and practices can support a corporate turnaround effort. Scandic Hotels, Nordic Europe's biggest hotel chain, was on the verge of collapse in the early 1990s. A new CEO, Roland Nilsson, turned the company around by introducing two business principles, decentralized management and sustainable development. The company's new value system, embodied in the concept of sustainability, linked customers and employees, who were calling for more environmental responsibility. Through employee-training programs, environmental-information systems, and innovative collaborations with suppliers, Scandic was revived within a few years as a profitable corporation well on the road to sustainability.