Historically, management theory has ignored the constraints imposed by the biophysical (natural) environment. Building upon resource-based theory, this article attempts to fill this void by proposing a natural-resource-based view of the firm—a theory of competitive advantage based upon the firm's relationship to the natural environment. It is composed of three interconnected strategies: pollution prevention, product stewardship, and sustainable development. Propositions are advanced for each of these strategies regarding key resource requirements and their contributions to sustained competitive advantage.

A natural resource-based view of the firm

Sustainability assessment is being increasingly viewed as an important tool to aid in the shift towards sustainability. However, this is a new and evolving concept and there remain very few examples of effective sustainability assessment processes implemented anywhere in the world. Sustainability assessment is often described as a process by which the implications of an initiative on sustainability are evaluated, where the initiative can be a proposed or existing policy, plan, programme, project, piece of legislation, or a current practice or activity. However, this generic definition covers a broad range of different processes, many of which have been described in the literature as 'sustainability assessment'. This article seeks to provide some clarification by reflecting on the different approaches described in the literature as being forms of sustainability assessment, and evaluating them in terms of their potential contributions to sustainability. Many of these are actually examples of 'integrated assessment', derived from environmental impact assessment (EIA) and strategic environmental assessment (SEA), but which have been extended to incorporate social and economic considerations as well as environmental ones, reflecting a 'triple bottom line' (TBL) approach to sustainability. These integrated assessment processes typically either seek to minimise 'unsustainability', or to achieve TBL objectives. Both aims may, or may not, result in sustainable practice. We present an alternative conception of sustainability assessment, with the more ambitious aim of seeking to determine whether or not an initiative is actually sustainable. We term such processes 'assessment for sustainability'. 'Assessment for sustainability' firstly requires that the concept of sustainability be well-defined. The article compares TBL approaches and principles-based approaches to developing such sustainability criteria, concluding that the latter are more appropriate, since they avoid many of the inherent limitations of the triple-bottom-line as a conception of sustainability.

Conceptualising sustainability assessment

Organizational sustainability (OS) has been guiding the decision-making process of managers in order to generate competitive advantage. This paper aims to identify the sustainable practices performed by large corporations in the implementation of OS. Reports with actions performed by large organizations and their reach in the three pillars of sustainability—environmental, economic, and social dimensions—are disclosed to their main stakeholders, based on short, medium and long-term sustainable goals. These reports often reflect the progress of OS or the progress made toward them. However, few studies investigate the sustainable practices adopted by firms and their reproducibility. A search was performed in reports selected from the firms listed by the Corporate Sustainability Index (CSI) from 2012–2016, belonging to the Brazilian stock market in services sector of the economy and employed the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) methodology. The results showed the strategic planning involving infrastructure, environment, human resources, product innovation, organizational management and deadline setting acted as the baseline for the implementation of the practices found. The findings will guide the managers´ decisions in the development of their strategic planning, based on practical and objective results.

Organizational Sustainability Practices: A Study of the Firms Listed by the Corporate Sustainability Index

Effect of stakeholder collaborative management on off-site construction cost performance

Organisations (civil society, companies, and public-sector organisations (PSOs)) have beeninstrumental in driving sustainability. In the last five years, there has been an increasing interest inorg ...

Proposing a Definition and a Framework of Organisational Sustainability : A Review of Efforts and a Survey of Approaches to Change

Organisations have become interested in using integral management systems to increase their sustainable value. Although global integration models address sustainability in organisations, these models present shortcomings and limitations and do not describe how to achieve the integration of sustainability. This paper proposes an Activity-Based Sustainability (ABS) integration model that complements other models from an inside-out perspective. Its assessment follows a procedure similar to that proposed by the Activity-Based Costing (ABC) model of cost accounting. The model assigns impacts from activities in the value chain of a process to the objects of impact (products, services, clients, or markets) that must be managed in terms of sustainability. The main limitations of the ABS model are the need to identify and describe processes, to locate every activity that constitutes the value chain, and to quantify the impacts of these activities. The ABS model is presented as an alternative to link sustainable management accounting and sustainable communication, as well as sustainable management control and sustainability assessment. It connects these sustainable elements through the bilateral identification of the linkages among skills, processes, and practices. It also links these aspects with the contribution to sustainable development and the development of competitive advantages.

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/6/1072/pdf

Integrating Sustainability in Organisations: An Activity-Based Sustainability Model

The circular economy (CE) is considered a key economic model to meet the challenge of sustainable development. Strenous efforts are focused on the transformation of waste into resources that can be reintroduced into the economic system through proper management. In this way, the linear and waste-producing value chain problems are solved, making them circular, and more sustainable solutions are proposed in those chains already benefiting from circular processes, so that waste generation and waste are reduced on the one hand, and on the other, the non-efficient consumption of resources decreases. In the face of this current tide, there is another option that proposes a certain nuance, based on the premise that, although circular systems promote sustainability, it does not mean that they are in themselves sustainable, given that, in the first place, the effects of CE on sustainable development are not fully known and, on the other hand, the CE model includes the flow of materials, with only scant consideration of the flow of non-material resources (water, soil and energy). This paper aims to contrast both currents from an empirical viewpoint. To achieve this, a sustainability analysis of the circular waste management systems measured through a sustainability indicator, the carbon footprint (CF), as a main sustainable indicator in climate change action, is carried out. A crucial difference between circular models that promote waste management and those that do not is found in the collective systems of extended producer responsibility (or CPR). One of the most efficient recycling processes in Europe, waste tire management, has been chosen. Thus, the aim is to verify the sense of including environmental sustainability indicators, as CF, in the process of these systems. A sustainability management model (SBA) applies to End-of Life tire collection systems (ELT). This model is based on the accumulation of environmental impacts through the activities that generate them. To be transparent, this study requires a publicly recognized CF, so the study is focused on SIGNUS, the main Spanish waste tires CPR. The results achieved allow us to conclude that CF is much lower using CPR than non-linear processes. Despite the role that CPR have in the management and use of waste as secondary raw material, it is a priority to focus efforts on their redesign in order to reduce waste. In terms of circular economy, all actions are necessary in order to achieve system efficiencies, even when externalities occur in this process.

Ana Rodríguez-Olalla

Papers

Integrating Sustainability in Organisations: An Activity-Based Sustainability Model

The Sustainability of Waste Management Models in Circular Economies