Digital Transformation towards Environmental Sustainability Practices in Leading Biscuit Manufacturing Firms in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The intersection of digital transformation and environmental sustainability have become a more prominent source of interest within the context of modern management studies, although empirically, there is a lack of evidence concerning the topic, especially when it comes to the food manufacturing sector. This study fills that gap by discussing the effect of digital transformation on the practice of environmental sustainability in biscuit manufacturing companies in Sri Lanka.

The present study follows a case study research design and uses interpretive philosophy and an inductive approach to research, which is a qualitative research methodology. Six senior respondents were interviewed in depth using semi-structured interviews in two of the major Sri Lankan biscuit manufacturing firms. The thematic analysis was used to analyze interview data, and it involves systematic transcription, coding, classification and development of themes to come up with findings that respond to the central research question and objectives.

The results showed that digital transformation is significantly affecting the environmental sustainability practices in the sector. Enterprise Resource Planning systems, Internet of Things sensors, real time environmental monitoring platforms and data analytics solutions are now deeply integrated in both companies, and, in essence, environmental management has shifted to real time, continuous, evidence-based practice, as opposed to periodic and retrospective governance. The research also finds that digital transformation comes with its own environmental risks such as carbon footprint of digital infrastructure, electronic waste due to the obsolescence of hardware and data integrity risk in the environmental reporting. The two companies showed active risk reducing policies such as sustainable technology procurement policies, responsible management of hardware lifecycles, and independent verification of environmental performance data.

The study concludes that digital transformation, when a strategically planned part of environmental sustainability objectives and managed with proper environmental rigor, can act as a transformational and dynamic facilitator of meaningful and measurable environmental sustainability performance in biscuit manufacturing companies.