From a literature review to a conceptual framework for sustainable supply chain management

The article is intended as a contribution to the ongoing conceptual development of corporate sustainability. At the business level sustainability is often equated with eco-efficiency. However, such a reduction misses several important criteria that firms have to satisfy if they want to become truly sustainable.

This article discusses how the concept of sustainable development has evolved over the past three decades and particularly how it can be applied to the business level. It then goes on to describe the three types of capital relevant within the concept of corporate sustainability: economic, natural and social capital.

From this basis we shall then develop the six criteria managers aiming for corporate sustainability will have to satisfy: eco-efficiency, socio-efficiency, eco-effectiveness, socio-effectiveness, sufficiency and ecological equity. The article ends with a brief outlook towards future research. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment

Beyond the business case for corporate sustainability

A literature and practice review to develop sustainable business model archetypes

Firms engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) because they consider that some kind of competitive advantage accrues to them. We contend that resource-based perspectives (RBP) are useful to understand why firms engage in CSR activities and disclosure. From a resource-based perspective CSR is seen as providing internal or external benefits, or both. Investments in socially responsible activities may have internal benefits by helping a firm to develop new resources and capabilities which are related namely to know-how and corporate culture. In effect, investing in social responsibility activities and disclosure has important consequences on the creation or depletion of fundamental intangible resources, namely those associated with employees. The external benefits of CSR are related to its effect on corporate reputation. Corporate reputation can be understood as a fundamental intangible resource which can be created or depleted as a consequence of the decisions to engage or not in social responsibility activities and disclosure. Firms with good social responsibility reputation may improve relations with external actors. They may also attract better employees or increase current employees’ motivation, morale, commitment and loyalty to the firm. This article contributes to the understanding of why CSR may be seen as having strategic value for firms and how RBP can be used in such endeavour.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Resource-Based Perspectives

Executive Overview The conventional wisdom concerning environmental protection is that it comes at an additional cost imposed on firms, which may erode their global competitiveness. However, during the last decade, this paradigm has been challenged by a number of analysts (e.g., Porter & van der Linde, 1995), who have argued basically that improving a company' environmental performance can lead to better economic or financial performance, and not necessarily to an increase in cost. The aim of this paper is to review empirical evidence of improvement in both environmental and economic or financial performance. We systematically analyze the mechanism involved in each of the following channels of potential revenue increase or cost reduction owing to better environmental practices: (a) better access to certain markets; (b) differentiating products; (c) selling pollution-control technology; (d) risk management and relations with external stakeholders; (e) cost of material, energy, and services; (f) cost of cap...

Does It Pay to Be Green? A Systematic Overview

While sustainability management is becoming more widespread among major companies, the impact of their activities do not reflect in studies monitoring the state of the planet. What results from this is a “big disconnect”. With this paper, we address two main questions: “How can business make an effective contribution to addressing the sustainability challenges we are facing?” And: “When is business truly sustainable?” In a time, when more and more corporations claim to manage sustainably, we need to distinguish between those companies that contribute effectively to sustainability and those that don’t. We provide an answer by clarifying the meaning of business sustainability. We review established approaches and develop a typology of business sustainability with a focus on effective contributions for sustainable development. This typology ranges from Business Sustainability 1.0 (Refined Shareholder Value Management) to Business Sustainability 2.0 (Managing for the Triple Bottom Line) and to Business Sustainability 3.0 (True Sustainability).

https://www.bsl-lausanne.ch/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Dyllick-Muff-Clarifying-Publ-Online.full_.pdf

Clarifying the Meaning of Sustainable Business: Introducing a Typology From Business-as-Usual to True Business Sustainability

Purpose – The reforms in business schools based on the Ford and Carnegie Foundation reports (Pierson, 1959; Gordon and Howell, 1959) have been very successful in embedding management in a research-based body of knowledge, thereby elevating the academic status of business administration. These reforms, however, did nothing toward making management more socially trustworthy or management education more responsible. In the light of the pressing economic, social and environmental crises the world is facing, the feeling is spreading that not only business and economics but business schools also need to change fundamentally, if they want to be a provider of solutions to these crises and thereby keep and regain their legitimacy. The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical analysis of the fundamental challenges facing the role of business schools and their contributions in the areas of education, research, managing faculty, and role of the business school. It presents suggestions what responsible managemen...

Thomas Dyllick

Papers

Beyond the business case for corporate sustainability

Clarifying the Meaning of Sustainable Business: Introducing a Typology From Business-as-Usual to True Business Sustainability

Responsible management education for a sustainable world: The challenges for business schools

Management der Umweltbeziehungen

Management der Umweltbeziehungen : öffentliche Auseinandersetzungen als Herausforderung