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While sustainability has attracted the attention of managers and academicians for over two decades, the macro-level indicators of sustainability are not moving in the right direction. Climate change continues to be an existential threat for humanity and other indicators of sustainability do not fare much better. The logic of the business case and the associated framing of tension between financial outcomes and sustainability have generated a limited and inadequate response to the existential challenges before humanity today. In this essay, we analyze the evolution of sustainability in the business context and call for a recognition that social and environmental outcomes must supersede economic ones in corporate sustainability thinking. We call for a widening of the spatial, temporal, and moral lenses in the formulation and execution of business strategy to ensure that it is in alignment with the needs of current and future generations of humanity and proportionate to planetary conditions.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to discuss the dilemma of global sustainable economic development and poverty alleviation in the context of the environmental concerns.Design/methodology/approachA range of recently published literature focusing on the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) is reviewed. The arguments that are in favor and against the notion of poor being a “market” are examined. The implications of increased consumption by the poor even while the developed countries maintain their levels of consumption are discussed.FindingsThis paper argues that current levels of consumption by the developed world is not sustainable even as the world's poor begin to consume more to maintain a reasonable standard of living. New business models and models for sustainable development are called for.Research limitations/implicationsSustainable development is an extremely complex issue and it is impossible to address this complexity in a single article.Practical implicationsThe paper challenges businesses to develop new business models that have more stringent constraints imposed on them.Originality/valueThis paper challenges the current norm of unbridled growth. The paper calls for academicians and practitioners to develop new models.

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