IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/bstrat/v16y2007i3p171-189.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ten years later: where is our common future now?

Author

Listed:
  • Tarja Ketola

Abstract

In 1996 a paper entitled ‘Where is our common future?’ in Sustainable Development maintained that the world's largest oil companies, the Seven Sisters, were two giant steps away from sustainable development in their 1993 environmental values, visions and policies. These factors matched the level of their business environment; hence, the Sisters had positioned themselves to meet the needs of their business environment, but not the needs of the ecological environment. This is a 10‐year follow‐up study of these findings. The analysis of the 2003 environmental values, visions, business environment, general strategic management and environmental policies of the current Four Sisters – BP(Amoco), ChevronTexaco, ExxonMobil and Shell – indicates that these companies have moved one step towards sustainable development. However, their business environment has moved two steps, firmly rooting itself in ecocentric sustainable development – and now runs ahead of the Sisters in principle but not yet in practice. In the long run, the Four Sisters need to exchange their technocentric values, traditional visions and conventional policies for ecocentric values, progressive visions and entrepreneurial policies to be able to participate in Our Common Future. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Suggested Citation

  • Tarja Ketola, 2007. "Ten years later: where is our common future now?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(3), pages 171-189, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:bstrat:v:16:y:2007:i:3:p:171-189
    DOI: 10.1002/bse.477
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.477
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/bse.477?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Seung‐Kyu Rhee & Su‐Yol Lee, 2003. "Dynamic change of corporate environmental strategy: rhetoric and reality," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(3), pages 175-190, May.
    2. World Commission on Environment and Development,, 1987. "Our Common Future," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780192820808.
    3. Colby, M.E., 1990. "Environmental Management In Development: The Evolution Of Paradigms," World Bank - Discussion Papers 80, World Bank.
    4. Sanjay Sharma & Audun Ruud, 2003. "On the path to sustainability: integrating social dimensions into the research and practice of environmental management," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(4), pages 205-214, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lise Backer, 2009. "When oil and wind turbine companies make green sense together," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(1), pages 43-52, January.
    2. M. Ormazabal & J. M. Sarriegi & R. Barkemeyer & E. Viles & F. McAnulla, 2015. "Evolutionary Pathways of Environmental Management in UK Companies," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 22(3), pages 169-181, May.
    3. John Dinwoodie & Sarah Tuck & Harriet Knowles & James Benhin & Mark Sansom, 2012. "Sustainable Development of Maritime Operations in Ports," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(2), pages 111-126, February.
    4. Jenny Ählström & Monica Macquet & Ulf Richter, 2009. "The lack of a critical perspective in environmental management research: distortion in the scientific discourse," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(5), pages 334-346, July.
    5. Dayna Simpson & Danny Samson, 2010. "Environmental strategy and low waste operations: exploring complementarities," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(2), pages 104-118, February.
    6. Viktoria Harzl & Matthias Pickl, 2012. "The Future of Offshore Oil Drilling — An Evaluation of the Economic, Environmental and Political Consequences of the Deepwater Horizon Incident," Energy & Environment, , vol. 23(5), pages 757-770, July.
    7. Hall, Jeremy K. & Daneke, Gregory A. & Lenox, Michael J., 2010. "Sustainable development and entrepreneurship: Past contributions and future directions," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 439-448, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tiago Francisco Camargo & Antonio Zanin & Sady Mazzioni & Geovanne Dias Moura & Paulo Sérgio Lima Pereira Afonso, 2018. "Sustainability indicators in the swine industry of the Brazilian State of Santa Catarina," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 65-81, December.
    2. Simona-Roxana ULMAN, 2018. "Study on general awareness regarding the problem of environmental degradation," CES Working Papers, Centre for European Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, vol. 10(1), pages 1-26, April.
    3. Taylor, Donald C., 1992. "Underlying Values and Beliefs "Modern Science" Versus "Sustainable Development"," Economics Staff Papers 232225, South Dakota State University, Department of Economics.
    4. Anja Schaefer, 2004. "Corporate sustainability – integrating environmental and social concerns?," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 11(4), pages 179-187, December.
    5. Markus Beckmann & Stefan Hielscher & Ingo Pies, 2014. "Commitment Strategies for Sustainability: How Business Firms Can Transform Trade‐Offs Into Win–Win Outcomes," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(1), pages 18-37, January.
    6. Soderbaum, P, 1990. "Neoclassical and Institutional Approaches to Agriculture, Environment and Development," 1990 Symposium, Agricultural Restructuring in Southern Africa, July 24-27, 1990, Swakopmund, Namibia 183532, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    7. Tarja Ketola, 2014. "Rationale, Morals, and Needs Pyramid for Corporate Responsibility Development," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 21(4), pages 228-239, July.
    8. Castilla Polo, Francisca & Gallardo Vázquez, Dolores, 2008. "Social information within the intellectual capital report," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 353-363, December.
    9. Massoud Karshenas, 1994. "Environment, Technology and Employment: Towards a New Definition of Sustainable Development," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 25(4), pages 723-756, October.
    10. Norgaard, Richard B., 1992. "Sustainability and the economics of assuring assets for future generations," Policy Research Working Paper Series 832, The World Bank.
    11. Mariana Toussaint & Pablo Cabanelas & Pilar Muñoz-Dueñas, 2022. "Social sustainability in the food value chain: what is and how to adopt an integrative approach?," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 56(4), pages 2477-2500, August.
    12. Engelseth, Per & Sandvik, Marius, 2017. "On Complexity, Ecosystems, and Sustainability in Local Food Supply: A Case Study on Fresh Seafood Supply," International Journal on Food System Dynamics, International Center for Management, Communication, and Research, vol. 8(3), August.
    13. Øyvind Ihlen, 2009. "The oxymoron of ‘sustainable oil production’: the case of the Norwegian oil industry," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(1), pages 53-63, January.
    14. Graham Hubbard, 2009. "Measuring organizational performance: beyond the triple bottom line," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(3), pages 177-191, March.
    15. Friederike Neugebauer & Frank Figge & Tobias Hahn, 2016. "Planned or Emergent Strategy Making? Exploring the Formation of Corporate Sustainability Strategies," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(5), pages 323-336, July.
    16. Wing Chow & Yang Chen, 2012. "Corporate Sustainable Development: Testing a New Scale Based on the Mainland Chinese Context," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 105(4), pages 519-533, February.
    17. Joanne Meehan & David Bryde, 2011. "Sustainable procurement practice," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(2), pages 94-106, February.
    18. Mechthild Donner & Anne Verniquet & Jan Broeze & Katrin Kayser & Hugo de Vries, 2021. "Critical success and risk factors for circular business models valorising agricultural waste and by-products," Post-Print hal-03004851, HAL.
    19. Cornelis Leeuwen & Jos Frijns & Annemarie Wezel & Frans Ven, 2012. "City Blueprints: 24 Indicators to Assess the Sustainability of the Urban Water Cycle," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 26(8), pages 2177-2197, June.
    20. CHEN, Helen S.Y., 2020. "Designing Sustainable Humanitarian Supply Chains," OSF Preprints m82ar, Center for Open Science.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:bstrat:v:16:y:2007:i:3:p:171-189. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1099-0836 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.