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Beyond eco-efficiency: Towards socially sustainable business

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas N. Gladwin
  • Tara-Shelomith Krause
  • James J. Kennelly

Abstract

An earlier version of this paper was presented by Dr Gladwin at the First Annual Senior Executives' Seminar on 'Sustainability and Profitability: Conflict or Convergence' sponsored by the HRH the Prince of Wales's Business & the Environment Programme and developed by the University of Cambridge Programme for Industry, Cambridge, UK, September 1994. The authors express their appreciation to AT&T, the Energy Foundation, the Management Institute for Environment and Business and the Merck Family Fund for their support of 'The Global Environment Program' at New York University, which partially financed preparation of this paper. The viewpoints herein should be attributed only to the authors. Sustainability, in most corporate gatherings and initiatives, has been conceptualized as something mainly having to do with eco-efficiency, involving pollution prevention and resource conservation in the Northern Hemisphere. It is asserted here that eco-efficiency is a necessary, but not sufficient, prerequisite for full sustainable development. Socio-economic sustainability - involving poverty alleviation, population stabilization, female empowerment, employment creation, human rights observance and opportunity redistribution on a massive scale - is equally important, although perhaps infinitely more intractable. Although calls for corporate engagement in progressive social change have often been resisted in the past, we argue that the somber social state of the world, diminished governmental capacities and enlightened corporate self-interest demand that private enterprise must now assume greater responsibility for human development on a global scale. After reviewing a broad array of indicators and origins of social unsustainability a set of working principles of socially sustainable business is proposed. A concluding section pinpoints the tasks of transformational leadership needed for redirecting corporations to the cause of ensuring a sustainable future.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas N. Gladwin & Tara-Shelomith Krause & James J. Kennelly, 1995. "Beyond eco-efficiency: Towards socially sustainable business," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 3(1), pages 35-43.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:3:y:1995:i:1:p:35-43
    DOI: 10.1002/sd.3460030105
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    Cited by:

    1. James J. Kennelly & Finbarr Bradley, 2005. "Ireland in the new century: an opportunity to foster an ethic of sustainable enterprise," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(2), pages 91-101.
    2. Rossella Canestrino & Pierpaolo Magliocca & Antonio Guarino, 2016. "Environmental sustainability and organic wine production: evidences from italian industry," MERCATI & COMPETITIVIT?, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2016(2), pages 83-111.
    3. Tobias Hahn & Frank Figge, 2011. "Beyond the Bounded Instrumentality in Current Corporate Sustainability Research: Toward an Inclusive Notion of Profitability," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 104(3), pages 325-345, December.
    4. Matthew Egan, 2019. "Sense-Making Resource Efficiency Through “Sustainability” Reports," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 154(3), pages 797-812, February.
    5. Aymen Sajjad & Wahab Shahbaz, 2020. "Mindfulness and Social Sustainability: An Integrative Review," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 150(1), pages 73-94, July.
    6. Figge, Frank & Hahn, Tobias, 2004. "Sustainable Value Added--measuring corporate contributions to sustainability beyond eco-efficiency," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 173-187, February.
    7. Laura Bini & Marco Bellucci & Francesco Giunta, 2016. "Put Your Money where Your Mouth is: The Difference between Real Commitment to Sustainability and Mere Rhetoric," FINANCIAL REPORTING, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2016(2), pages 5-31.
    8. Peggy Brønn & Deborah Vidaver-Cohen, 2009. "Corporate Motives for Social Initiative: Legitimacy, Sustainability, or the Bottom Line?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 87(1), pages 91-109, April.
    9. Robert G. Chambers & Teresa Serra, 2018. "The social dimension of firm performance: a data envelopment approach," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 54(1), pages 189-206, February.
    10. Kozica, Arjan & Kaiser, Stephan, 2012. "A Sustainability Perspective on Flexible HRM: How to Cope with Paradoxes of Contingent Work," management revue - Socio-Economic Studies, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 23(3), pages 239-261.
    11. Gray, Rob, 2010. "Is accounting for sustainability actually accounting for sustainability...and how would we know? An exploration of narratives of organisations and the planet," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 47-62, January.
    12. Zuoxiang Zhao & Hongjun Sun & Ding Han & Qiuyun Zhao, 2023. "Development strategy, technological progress, and regional environmental performance: empirical evidence from China," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 56(5), pages 3701-3732, October.
    13. Linnenluecke, Martina K. & Griffiths, Andrew, 2010. "Corporate sustainability and organizational culture," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 45(4), pages 357-366, October.
    14. Jason West, 2015. "Capital valuation and sustainability: a data programming approach," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 45(3), pages 591-608, October.

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