*2.1. Natural Resource Based View*

The NRBV extends resource-based theories of the firm by explicitly identifying the natural environment as a resource constraint, proposing that, in order to pursue competitive

advantage, firms must develop strategic capabilities in the areas of pollution prevention, product stewardship, and sustainable development [20]. Pollution prevention includes the substitution of processes and materials in order to reduce the environmental impact of products through continuous improvement. Product stewardship emphasizes the consideration of environmental impacts and costs of products throughout the entire product life cycle. NRBV's conceptualization of sustainable development originally included building markets in developing economies while simultaneously addressing the environmental impacts that result from serving these markets [30]. Since then, the NRBV has evolved with the sustainable development capability further subdivided into two dimensions: clean technology and serving the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) [20]. Following the original premise of sustainable development, clean technology consists of more radical innovations than pollution prevention or product stewardship. However, despite significant work in the areas of pollution prevention and, to a lesser extent, product stewardship capabilities, little work has focused on clean technology and even less on the intersection of clean technologies with serving the world's poorest populations [20]. Within the OM/SCM literature, research has largely examined how to make business processes less *unsustainable* rather than truly sustainable [2].

By integrating the NRBV into the development of food quality dimensions, we incorporate the relationship with the natural environment and societal impacts of FSCs directly into the operations function via product quality systems. Because quality is a critical dimension of OM/SCM performance, this integrated framework places social and ecological dimensions, traditionally considered ancillary performance dimensions, into a more central role. We argue that this framework has several benefits. First, by placing these issues within the realm of quality, managers have the opportunity to consider sustainability at the same time as other dimensions of quality, rather than *post hoc*. Sustainability may still be subordinate to other quality dimensions; however, including it in within the context of quality enables societal and ecological issues to be evaluated for potential order-winning characteristics. Second, as firms seek legitimacy in the eyes of their various stakeholders, embedding sustainability within the quality function combats the perception of symbolic rather than meaningful sustainability initiatives [31–33].

We conceptualize the NRBV as motivating our movement of social and environmental issues into the quality function within operations management. This is justified, in part, by the close relationship between the physical operations of a firm and its impact on society and the environment. Furthermore, reflecting sustainability within the operations function as a part of quality management makes sense because operations strategy and its implementation are critical for firm performance and because the NRBV dictates that sustainability capabilities can lead to long-term competitive advantage [20]. In addition, this conceptualization addresses calls from prior OM/SCM work to make sustainability issues central to OM/SCM research frameworks [2].
