Corporate sustainability management
Developing a product stewardship scheme to improve sustainability in the UK precast concrete industry
(Aliyu, A.A. & Glass, J. & Clarke, M.A. & Elhag, H.K. & Price, A.D.F.)
The strategic relevance of sustainability concepts: implications for corporate sustainability management
(Baumgartner, Rupert J.)
Integrated Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management Systems
(Douglas, Calbert H.)
ICRISAT – from a sustainable point of view
(Ehrs, Mikael)
Responsible Management - Opportunity for Sustainable Growth in Slovenian Business Practice
(Gorenak, Štefka)
Self Interests and Core Competencies as Criteria for Strong CSR Impact Case: International Clothing Retail
(Laudal, Thomas)
Environmental and Financial Performance in European Companies: A Partial Least Squares Approach
(Moneva, José M. & Ortas, Eduardo)
A New Sustainability Management System Model for Global Business Organizations
(Sealy, I. & Wehrmeyer, W. & Leach, M.)
Successful Empowerment at work: The Role of Responsible Leadership as a facilitator
(Sharma, Manoj K. & Kaur, Gurvinder)
(1)
Developing a product stewardship scheme to improve sustainability in the UK precast concrete industry
(Aliyu, A.A. & Glass, J. & Clarke, M.A. & Elhag, H.K. & Price, A.D.F.)
ABSTRACT
With a workforce of around 22,000 and an annual production of 35million tonnes, the £ 2.5 billion UK precast concrete industry is widely seen as one of the major players towards the delivery and achieving the targets of sustainable construction. To improve its sustainability credentials, the precast concrete industry is committed to a more sustainable precast sector through a continuous measurement of performance and improvements across the sector. These have led to the development of a set of sustainability policies base on key issues facing the industry.
Product stewardship schemes help all stakeholders within businesses, companies, organisations and multinational corporations to mitigate the environmental impacts associated with their products throughout the entire life cycle of the product from 'cradle to cradle' by taking responsibility to address such impacts.
This is a visioning paper for the UK precast concrete industry on how to improve sustainability through product stewardship. The paper introduces the concept of product stewardship, highlights the significance of developing a product stewardship scheme for the sector, explores its business value and explains why product stewardship will serve as the next step forward for the industry to take voluntarily.
Keywords: sustainable development; sustainability; sustainable construction; concrete and precast concrete
industry; product stewardship
(Click here to view full paper) (back to top)
(2)
The strategic relevance of sustainability concepts: implications for corporate sustainability management
(Baumgartner, Rupert J.)
Abstract
Sustainability science (Kates et al., 2001) nowadays includes several theoretical and conceptual positions.
Progress in sustainable development public policy and business management, however, seems amazingly slow (Hueseman, 2001). Authors have suggested that the problems are due to the lack of strategic relevance and strategic planning in policy and management approaches derived from sustainability science (Robèrt et al., 2002). For example, instead of continuing to invent new concepts, approaches and tools, authors argue for the integration of the existing tools and for their use in policy and corporate management in a strategic manner (Mayer et al., 2004). The change and transition needed for the global society to become sustainable is radical and fundamental (Ehrenfeld, 2000; Welford, 1998). In such changes, the direction of change, its vision and overall goal should be defined. This awareness of purpose and overall objective is the essence of strategic planning.
This paper attempts to tackle this challenge of lacking strategic thinking and strategic approaches in sustainability science concepts and theories, and in the approaches to policy and management derived from sustainability science. Common sustainability science concepts, the capital approach, weak sustainability, eco-efficiency and sustainable value added, are analysed for their strategic potential. 'Strategic' is defined according to two criteria; 1) existence of an overall goal, objective and vision and 2) ability to identify generic guidelines and pathways toward that goal. Sustainability science concepts need to be strategic in order to contribute to public sustainability policy or corporate sustainability management. There are severe limitations in the sustainability science concepts in terms of their strategic potential. It is important to be aware of these limitations in promoting corporate sustainability management and CSR.
Keywords: Sustainable development; Sustainability; Strategic Sustainable Development; The capital approach; Weak sustainability; Eco-efficiency; Sustainable value added; Technology Management
(back to top)
(3)
Integrated Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management Systems
(Douglas, Calbert H.)
Abstract
Corporate sustainability demands that companies be environmentally proactive and socially responsible, operating in an ethical and environmentally friendly manner. Thus corporate management systems should cover environmental, social and economic aspects together. This research integrates corporate social responsibility and environmental management to provide a joint sustainability management framework.
This paper considers the applications and orientations of corporate social responsibility and environmental management in organisations drawn from organisations in the Greater Manchester metropolitan area of the UK. The results of interviews and questionnaire surveys used to investigate and identify the issues, concerns and challenges that organisations experience in developing their environmental management and corporate responsibility systems will be explored.
The paper develops an integrated framework by which organisations can link separate environmental management and corporate responsibility operations under one management administration. Principal component analysis will be used to extract the principal factors underlying CSR and environmental management issues and responses in the sample. Conclusions will be draw concerning the complexities in operating separate and integrated CSR and environmental management systems.
Keywords: Corporate social responsibility, environmental management, corporate sustainability, integrated management
(back to top)
(4)
ICRISAT – from a sustainable point of view
(Ehrs, Mikael)
Abstract
ICRISAT, or The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, is a non-profit, non-political, international organization for science-based agricultural development. ICRISAT works to improve soil health and crop productivity in the poorest regions of Africa and India; their projects ranging from the de-salinization of arable land to developing bio-pesticides, from organizing seed fairs to researching genetically disease-resistant crop-strains. This work aims to study the activities of the ICRISAT from the sustainability point of view environmentally, socially and economically.
The results are ambiguous. While ICRISAT's activities in land improvement, education and crop productivity get high marks in the environmental and social perspectives, the controversy surrounding GMO serves to add some caution to the evaluation. Are the semi-arid tropics a testing ground for new strains? From the economical perspective, ICRISAT is of course not self-sustainable, dependent on outside donorship as they are. This has lead to closer ties between ICRISAT and the corporate seed sector, and a stronger focus on the genetic modification aspects of their activities.
Finally, this work serves to highlight the difficulties in evaluating an NGO on the same sustainability criteria as for a classical enterprise. Especially in the economic perspective there is a need for other key performance indicators than those relating to profit and financial return on investment.
(Click here to view the full paper) (back to top)
(5)
Responsible Management - Opportunity for Sustainable Growth in Slovenian Business Practice
(Štefka Gorenak)
Abstract
Businesses today are experiencing profound pressures to reform and improve stakeholder-related practices and their impacts on stakeholders and the natural environment. This paper researches the relationship and potential synergies between the quality management and corporate social responsibility (CSR) where emerging systems from the total quality management systems (TQM) to the total responsibility management (TRM) have been compared. The evolution of TRM in companies includes three main components – approaches – inspiration (vision), integration and improvement/innovation. TRM indicators focus on stakeholders together with triple bottom lines of economic, social and environmental issues. Gorenje Group represents a successful case of implementation of TRM, especially of environmental management, into corporate values, culture, strategies and measurement of sustainable indicators to employees, responsibility to closer and wider social environment, effects of CSR on consumer behaviour, responsibility to the product users and services, responsibility to the natural environment, environmental and occupational health and safety policy. CSR offers the connection between sustainability and long-term competitiveness.
Keywords: total responsibility management, total quality management, corporate social responsibility, sustainable development, sustainable indicators, environmental management, Gorenje Group.
(Click here to view the full paper) (back to top)
(6)
Self Interests and Core Competencies as Criteria for Strong CSR Impact Case: International Clothing Retail
(Laudal, Thomas)
ABSTRACT
Most empirical CSR studies focuses on CSR attributes and processes without analyzing the actual impact of CSR. In this paper I focus on determinants of CSR impact within international clothing retail. CSR is defined as corporate externality recognition. (Crouch 2006) I propose a model where CSR is related to sustainable development (SD). Corporations' impact on SD may be identified at three levels:
They exchange resources through business transactions.
Transactions generate first order externalities which impact the social and natural environment of corporations
First order externalities affect the conditions for sustainable development.
This may be understood as a second order externality.
Modelling the relationship between SD and CSR in this way is helpful when we consider alternative CSR approaches (Marrewijk 2003): 1) The shareholder approach. 2) The stakeholder approach. 3) The societal approach. 4) The sustainability approach. I suggest it is easier to reconcile “1” and “4” than any other pair. They, more than the others, address the immediate self-interest of the firm and the core competencies of the firm. This leads us to the claim which is to be explored: Everything else equal, the impact of CSR is strongest when:
Those in charge of CSR related activities view them as en effort to increase their profitability and SD CSR related activities are directly linked to the corporation's core competencies refer to the draft ISO 26000 when I compare CSR impact within clothing retail. I operationalize attitudes towards profitability and SD by analyzing public statements and by conducting a management survey. The link between CSR related activities and core competencies are determined by mapping core competencies of individual corporations and considering how CSR activities relate to these competencies.
(Click here to view the full paper) (back to top)
(7)
Environmental and Financial Performance in European Companies: A Partial Least Squares Approach
(Moneva, José M. & Ortas, Eduardo)
Abstract
Recent years have witnessed an increase in the number of organizations that are concerned about sustainable development and their activities' impacts on the environment. This new style of management has been acquiring ever greater backing from investors, government regulators, customers, employees and society. Thus, there has been much academic work aimed at understanding the relation between the environmental and financial performance reached by different organizations. So far, the responses to this proposition have achieved a high degree of heterogeneity as regards both the sign (whether negative or positive) and the significance of the relation. The aim of the present research is to add more debate on the relation between the environmental and financial performance obtained by a sample of European companies. A second-order partial least squares (PLS) model has been applied to model both the environmental and financial performances' underlying constructs. Our findings indicate a positive and significant link between the levels of environmental and financial performance reached by European firms.
Keywords: Corporate social responsibility, Instrumental stakeholder theory, Partial least squares, Environmental performance, Value relevance.
(back to top)
(8)
A New Sustainability Management System Model for Global Business Organizations
(Sealy, I. & Wehrmeyer, W. & Leach, M.)
Abstract
A new sustainability management system (SMS) has been developed for implementation in global business organizations (GBOs). Our recent research work on the sustainability management requirements of GBOs, and on the limitations of existing management system models has identified a requirement for a new model. The SMS is based on plan-do-check-act (PDCA) principles, and incorporates self-assessing and self-improving features, together with best practice that has been identified in a number of established public-domain SMSs.
In addition, the model includes features that facilitate engagement of stakeholders and processes throughout the entire business value chain (a ‘cylinder of influence’ approach). The SMS has been expanded from the established ‘triple-bottom-line’ to address a broader six-aspect scope that includes: ethics (governance, compliance, and values); ecology (environment and ecology); perspective (reputation and achievement); social (community relations, occupational health & safety); quality (customer, product, and service quality); and economic (stakeholder or shareholder value creation). This model, which has an integral benchmarking and maturity testing tool, has been developed and is now being assessed.
The paper presents a detailed description and analysis of the model, together with initial benchmarking and maturity testing data.
(Click here to view the full paper) (back to top)
(9)
Successful Empowerment at work: The Role of Responsible Leadership as a facilitator
(Sharma, Manoj K. & Kaur, Gurvinder)
Abstract
One of the main issues confronting successful empowerment practices is the resistance by the superiors and their desire to persist in autocratic behaviour because loss of control (influence) is feared. However, leader empowering behaviour has been accepted as a primary antecedent for any effective empowerment programme. This paper seeks to emphasise upon the need to instill qualities of transformational leadership across management levels in the organizations to reap the desired benefits of empowered employees. The concept of Transformational leadership has been used as given by Burns, which is reflected in four dimensions. Empowerment has been analysed using Thomas and Velthouse model as the base from a psychological perspective as from socio structural perspective. Suggestions for further research have been given while citing empirical studies related to leadership and empowerment in general.
Key words: Transformational leadership, Psychological Empowerment, Socio structural empowerment, facilitator
(back to top)
(C) 2014 - All rights reserved