and holistic perspectives on corporate sustainability*

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

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articles Abstract. This paper provides a critical exploration of the journey metaphor promoted in much business discourse on sustainability—in corporate reports and advertisements, and in commentaries by business and professional associations. The portrayal of ‘sustainability as a journey’ evokes images of organizational adaptation, learning, progress, and a movement away from business-as-usual practices. The journey metaphor, however, masks the issue of towards what it is that businesses are actually, or even supposedly, moving. It is argued that in constructing ‘sustainability as a journey’, business commentators and other purveyors of corporate rhetoric can avoid becoming embroiled in debates about future desirable and sustainable states of affairs—states of affairs, perhaps, which would question the very raison d’être for some organizations and their outputs. ‘Sustainability as a journey ’ invokes a subtle and powerful use of language that appears to seriously engage with elements

T Dunlop RAPID AND RADICAL CHANGE in almost every facet of society has brought in its wake community anxiety, suspicion and The hostility. Medical Current Journal examples of Australia in ISSN: Australia 0025-729X include 4 March the 2002 176 5 impact pagelinks of globalisation, the introduction of the goods and services ©The tax, Medical and the Journal actions of Australia of the banks 2002 www.mja.com.au in phasing out local branches. THE PROFESSION Even the health industry faces increased levels of public scrutiny and criticism. A recent example has been the agedcare institutions, charged with providing suboptimal facilities and services. 1 Hospitals, too, both in the private and public sector, have received embarrassing media attention — the organ-harvesting scandal in the United

The Triple Bottom Line (TBL) is a concept that has received official imprimatur as a

This paper considers the debate on the role of corporate social responsibility in decision making and challenges the view that corporate social responsibility and profits are mutually exclusive objectives. Voluntary and mandatory approaches to reporting on performance in relation to a broader set of stakeholders are compared. Respective corporate and public sector environmental disclosure requirements provide contrasting sources of development in mandated and voluntary disclosure. While there is evident gap and pressing need for development of a more comprehensive level of stakeholder disclosure, substantial progress has been made in the development of reporting models and frameworks such as that contained in the GRI which has emerged as the preferred framework amongst many adopters both in Australia and overseas. This paper outlines the GRI framework and illustrates its application by public sector entities in Australia and New Zealand. * Janice Loftus is a senior lecturer in accounting in the Faculty of Economics and Business, The University of Sydney.

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This paper is concerned with the issues surrounding technology diffusion, specifically that of More Sustainable Technologies (MST’s), the barriers which they face, and how new business models might be able to overcome these challenges. The distinctive features of MST’s are described and their associated challenges outlined. Entrepreneurs are identified as being essential to their successful commercialisation and share many features with these technological pioneers themselves. Knowledge brokering is suggested as a possible activity with which to acerlerate the commercialisation of technologies within this emerging and highly fragmented field. The work is being carried out as part of a collaborative research project between Cranfield University and the Centre for Sustainable Engineering and is therefore of a practical and applied nature. A multi-diciplinary approach is used and a brief overview of the research methodology described. The potential impact of knowledge brokering is significant, and is particularly suitable for overcoming many of the challenges faced by MST Entrpreneurs. Applied research within this emerging field is scarce, therefore this paper describes the current state of knowledge within this area and how it might be used and developed in the future. Robert Ellis 1.

Abstract—The objective of this paper is to establish a possible relationship between sustainable business practice and firm performance. Using a field survey methodology, a sample of sixty manufacturing companies in Nigeria was studied. The firms were categorised into two groups, environmentally ‘responsible ’ and ‘irresponsible ’ firms. An investigation was undertaken into the possible relationship between firm performance and three selected indicators of sustainable business practice: employee health and safety (EHS), waste management (WM), and community development (CD), common within the 30 ‘responsible ’ firms. Findings from empirical results reveal that the sustainable practices of the ‘responsible ’ firms are significantly related with firm performance. In addition, sustainable practices are inversely related with fines and penalties. The paper concludes that, within the Nigerian setting at least, sustainability affects corporate performance and sustainability may be a possible tool for corporate conflict resolution as evidenced in the reduction of fines, penalties and compensations. The paper therefore recommends research into the relationship between sustainability and conflict management. Keywords—Environmental responsibility, environmental investment, social responsibility, sustainable business, social ethics, environmental ethics. I.