Group assignment: GREEN JOBS
Costanzo Eleonora 835320
Poloni Francesca 835289
Ghedin Ilaria 832514
Trentin Gabriella 832525
1. Introduction
The term Green Economy has grown in importance in recent years.
But what does “green economy” mean
Nowadays the term green economy refers to a paradigm that emphasizes the management and business
impact as a vital indicator of the genuineness of the operations implemented by businesses and
organizations. The environment, however, is not the only platform with which we must confront. Certainly
it is the need to make the economy more harmonious with the ecosystem, but it involves a wonderful
creativity, specialized knowledge, and widening the participation of all individuals.
There are six sectors that represent this new economy:
- Renewable energy
- Green building
- Clean transportation
- Water management
- Waste management
- Land management
Considering the previous assumptions about green economy we decided to analyze a multinational
Swedish company called Tetra Pak. The firm operates in the waste management and it is considered the
leader in the packaging and food processing.
Waste management consists in the collection, transport, processing, managing and monitoring of waste
materials. The term usually relates to materials produced by human activity, and the process is generally
undertaken to reduce their effect on health and the environment.
First of all we chose to consider this firm because of its great care of the environment. In fact as it is clearly
expressed in the logo, namely “protects what’s good”, Tetra Pak’s main purpose is to save our planet. The
company adopts a commitment at every step of the consumption and production chain (from society to
raw materials). Such a commitment relates not just to ensuring the safety of the foods we eat and drink: it
is also about minimizing the company’s impact on the environment. It is also interesting to mention the
firm’s mission, which remarks the fact that Tetra Pak wants to create a profitable growth in harmony with
environmental sustainability. Moreover this company cached us as it produces something that we use in
everyday life.
Secondly we picked this organization because of its 2011 climate goal: to cap the greenhouse gas emissions
right along the value chain at 2010 levels by 2020 despite growth. Minimizing the greenhouse gas emissions
means to increase the recycling rate of used cartons. The fact that Tetra Pak tries to reduce its CO2
emissions has made the organization an ideal partner to WWF Climate Savers since 2006.
Finally we were interested in Tetra Pak’s new 2020 strategy, which is considered a milestone in the
company’s drive for environmental excellence.
The structure of our report is organized in three main parts:
1. Analysis of the industry segment in which Tetra Pak operates.
2. Tetra Pak’s job overall quantitative (i.e. number of employees, number of offices and centres
around the world, employee age, manager distribution) and qualitative (i.e. the kind of employees
the company is interested in) analysis.
3. Description of two jobs (“senior supply chain analyst” and “development engineer”) together with
their motivating score.
2.Industry segment
The industry segment covered by this organization is the food packaging one, which is basically included in
waste reduction & management. As the segment itself suggests, Tetra Pak’s main subject is PACKAGE.
About package, what is it made of?
Packaging material:
1) Paperboard
2) Polyethylene
3) Aluminium
But the point is: are the materials that make up Tetra Pak containers easily recyclables?
Yes, they are. In fact once soaked in water, the wood fibbers are detached from plastic and aluminium, so
that individual materials can be reused for new products.
Also wood is widely used by Tetra Pak and it is the basic material of the firm’s packaging field. Such a wood
comes from reliable sources. In fact the company chooses certified suppliers and work with them to ensure
that environmental standards are met. This is why Tetra Pak works together with organizations such as
WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature), FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) and GFTN (the Global Forest & Trade
Network) to increase the sensitivity of forestry worldwide.
The company’s future mission is to create a packaging 100% renewable carton (currently it is still at 70%
renewable carton) with the introduction of green plastic cap, a renewable plastic made from sugar cane,
which performs its job just like its fossil-based equivalent.
What about the “life of a package”?
Three fundamentals steps make up the “life of a package”:
1- Making responsible choices: it consists in understanding which solutions are best from an
environmental perspective.
2- From raw materials to recycling: it consists in the full impact of packages from extraction of raw
materials to production and transportation.
3- Designing the environment: it consists in the use of recyclables resources and cartons, which help Tetra
Pak in the reduction of packages' environmental impact).
What about recycling?
1-Rubbish or resource? What happens to used carton?
There are two different procedures:
1- Carton is transported to a recycling plant, where it is immersed in water to separate the paperboard
from the plastic and aluminium layers. In such a way the paper content can be transformed into new
products such as toilet paper, tissues and notebooks. Plastic and aluminium are typically used to
produce tiles or plastic containers.
2- Old cartons are incinerated and the recovered energy is used to produce heat and electricity.
Number of recycled packages (billion)
2- Making it easier means that:
Tetra Pak wants to make recycling as easy as possible. To do so the company needs convenient and
universally available recycling machines.
3-Recycling projects.
Tetra Pak cooperates with lots of stakeholders, including recycling companies, NGOs, schools and local
government bodies worldwide.
It is interesting to mention the work the company has been doing in cooperation with Egypt (NGOs): over a
five year period, collection rates rose from zero to 13% of all cartons sold.
3. Overall job qualitative and quantitative analysis
Quantitative analysis:
Tetra Pak provides safe and environmentally sound products that meet the needs of hundreds of millions of
people in more than 170 countries around the world. The company dispose of 40 market offices, 79 sales
offices, and 43 packaging material plants (mainly concentrated in the EU area).
A straightforward consequence following from these data is the creation of a huge number of positions to
be filled. In fact:
Number of employees
*Figures as of January 2011
21,812
The very high number of jobs created at Tetra Pak is also shown by the following table, which represents the
numbers of the different types of centres spread out around the world:
Technical service centres
41
Technical training centres
16
R&D centres
*Figures as of January 2011
11
Other interesting data to be analysed may be the ones referring to the employee age and the manager
distribution:
> Employee age
%
30 and below
31 – 40
41 – 50
51 – 60
61 and above
2008
19.7
34.6
28.7
14.9
2.2
2010
16.8
37.8
29.0
14.3
2.1
Looking at the table it clearly appears that the majority of people working at Tetra Pak were aged between
31 and 40 years old both in 2008 and in 2010. The amount of workers aged 30 and below slightly decreased
during the years, while on the other hand workers aged between 41 and 50 experienced a small increase.
It is also important to note as employees at their 60 and above represent a very low fraction of the total
amount of workers.
> Manager distribution (female vs. male)
The bar chart shows the percentages of female and male managers both in 2008 and 2010. It is interesting
to observe that the data remained stable at the same level between the two years (20% for women and
80% for men).
Qualitative analysis:
By 2020, Tetra Pak wants to create a culture of change and individual responsibility together with an
improvement of performance. The company believes that investing in its people would be central to reach
this goal. This is why 100,000 days a year are scheduled for employee training.
Therefore It really seems that the firm is moving towards a more and more flat organization: managers
focus on cross-functional and company-wide areas such as quality, costumer understanding, project
management and leadership. On the one hand, to stay close to costumers and each function, much of the
organization is decentralised, but on the other hand employees are strongly related by similar values,
shared performance indicators and common leadership approach.
As all flat organizations are, Tetra Pak is divided into teams that represent different products, services, or
customers. In fact one of the main purposes of this structure is to create independent small businesses that
can respond rapidly to customers' needs or changes in the business environment. Teams reduce boundaries
not only between employees, but also between the different organizational levels (workers are now
empowered to make more decisions).
Therefore, what is the point of this brief discussion about the organizational structure at Tetra Pak?
Surely the previous analysis can provide us with a better understanding on the kind of employee that the
company is searching for.
Tetra Pak wants people that are able to act, make decisions and contribute to the firm by themselves and
according to its core values (i.e. Customer Focus & Long Term View; Quality and Innovation; Freedom &
Responsibility; Partnership & Fund).
Employees are asked to share their knowledge with colleagues and partners and to always focus on finding
the best solution in every situation. Tetra Pak searches for people that see their work as a vital part of their
life, namely, people that put a great deal of energy into their job contributing to the constant growth and
success of the firm. But at the same time employee's life outside their job is an important source of the
energy needed at work. In fact Tetra Pak believes that the best results are achieved when it is created a
balance between people from different phases of life.
4.Job description
1) SENIOR SUPPLY CHAIN ANALYST
Job summary:
Within the Supply Chain Operation department the analyst has a key role in the delivery of the ongoing
project and future management of the organization. He will be responsible for a wide area covering all SCO
functions such as support model building, data governance and analyses for conclusions.
As a Supply Chain Analyst you are supposed to make the most of your knowledge and professional skills,
and you are always contributing to your own development together with the organizational one. You also
have a network of contacts with parts of Tetra Pak.
Job duties and responsibilities:
-Be an expert in supply chain simulation and optimization analysis using the state of technology.
-Be able to support complex supply chain decision-making.
-Interact with stakeholders to ensure data quality and availability to enable supply chain modelling.
-Support the shaping and forming of future supply chain.
Job requirements:
To be successful in this position you must be able to work with a large amount of data sets and possess
excellent analytical skills. You will be an important leader within the firm, able to work with a high level of
business understanding: you need to have a couple of year’s practical knowledge of supply chain related
work tasks.
To work in this kind of fast moving environment related to the green economy, you must be self-motivated
with excellent communication skills, able to attract and inspire those who work with or for you.
2) DEVELOPMENT ENGINEER
Job summary:
Within the Technology department this engineer is responsible to develop packaging and distributions
system. It is a hard work of constant movement and change: always-new faces, new places and new
problems to solve. You will be responsible for a wide area covering development, planning and
manufacturing of packaging from concept to commercial.
As a Development Engineer you are able to act in close cooperation with customers, market companies and
internally or externally suppliers. You must drive the whole development of components and systems of
the firm. Due to his highly time depended activities, this figure is often involved in stressful situations for
planning, manufacturing or knowledge transferring.
Job duties and responsibilities:
-Be responsible of the development, plan and manufacturing of components from conceptual to
commercial.
-Support supply chain operation department to ensure a continuous production flow.
-Support stakeholders in claims analysis and reduction.
-Be responsible for tests of validation and verification.
Job requirements:
To be successful in this position you must be able to anticipate future needs and identify potential options
and constraints for this constant changing environment. Verbal and written communication skills are
essential to create strong professional relations with different levels of stakeholders. Another key point is
the ability to cooperate together with people and drive them to get results, creating a sort of team climate
based on integrity and trust.
MPS (motivating potential score):
Senior Supply Chain Analyst:
Skill variety=6
It is necessary for him to possess and to use different analytical skills to support and be responsible of the
supply chain decision-making.
Task identity=7
The analyst is at a top level of the organization. We can say that his job is identifiable within each single
product.
Task significance=7
It has lot of responsibility within the firm. Therefore his job is an irreplaceable ‘’piece’’ of work for the
whole organization.
Autonomy=6
This kind of job is ‘’independent’’ in the sense that the analyst has lot of autonomy and responsibility
(about all the SCO functions).
Feedback=4
The analyst, being in a top position, has no direct feedback. He may see the results of its work looking at
the quality, cost and time of production.
MPS=((6+7+7): 3) x (6x4)=160
Development Engineer:
Skill variety=7
It is necessary for him to possess the right personal skills to communicate with people and to be always
ready to react in a changing environment.
Task identity=7
The analyst is at a top level of the organization. We can say that his job is identifiable within each single
product.
Task significance=7
He has lots of responsibility inside the firm. Therefore his job is an irreplaceable ‘’piece’’ of work for the
whole organization.
Autonomy=7 because duties and responsibilities are a lot for this kind of engineer: drive the whole
development of the system of the firm means to be independent.
Feedback=4 because this figure cannot observe too much the results of its work activity from the products
which the company sells.
MPS=((7+7+7): 3) x (7x4)=588
4. Conclusions
On the one hand this report gave us the possibility to get a deeper insight about the main characteristics
and purposes of a Green Economy. On the other hand, the analysis of Tetra Pak allowed us to discuss an
issue that is nowadays becoming more and more important: the waste management.
What we want to stress in our conclusion are the positive effects of having a flat organization. As we also
said during lectures, it clearly appears that in such an organization employees are much more motivated to
do the best they can (recall the motivating score of the two job analysed). They are empowered to make
their own decisions together with other team’s members in order to meet the ongoing changing needs of
customers. Namely employees are given a great level of freedom and responsibility, which push them to
come up with new ideas. This is one of the main secrets of Tetra Pak’s success, and also the only way
through which a worldwide operating company can manage to run its business.
Finally we want to spend a few words about the already mentioned “new 2020 strategy”. This innovative
approach underlines how the company focuses not only in the short term but also in the long term: Tetra
Pak recognises the need to grow in all markets, to accelerate innovation, to enhance its operational
performance, to achieve environmental excellence, to develop its people and build its reputation.
In terms of the new strategy, the CEO Dennis Jonsson recalls the importance given to employees’ autonomy
and states: “My role is to set the goals and create the mindset that will make this happen. At that point, our
success is down to the creativity and the commitment of Tetra Pak people”.
Bibliography:
-
http://campaign.tetrapak.com/lifeofapackage/en/
http://campaign.tetrapak.com/su2011/home/index.html
http://www.tetrapak.com/Pages/default.aspx
http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/in-what-world-can-you-call-tetra-pakgreen.html
http://campaign.tetrapak.com/su2011/peoplesociety/betteraccesstohealt/better-access-to-he.html