On the path to sustainability: integrating social dimensions into the research and practice of environmental management

Abstract

The theme of the Tenth International Conference of the Greening of Industry Network in Göteborg, Sweden, was focused on exploring the social dimensions of sustainability. This focus is timely because extant research and practice in sustainability has emphasized the environmental dimension. The UNWCED definition of sustainable development as ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ is clear about the integration of the economic, ecological and social impacts of development (UNWCED, 1987, p. 43). As underlined by UNWCED, sustainable development refers to the concept of ‘needs’, but limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organizations on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs are also a central concern. Lafferty and Langhelle (1999) suggest that sustainable development must be treated as an ethical code for human survival and progress, and it is on a par with other high‐minded ideas such as democracy, freedom and human rights. The ‘openness of meaning’ of such concepts can never be closed and the fruitfulness of the concept of sustainable development is linked to continued political discourse on the concept's content and future goals and to the continuing debate about the instrumental implications of its normative aspirations (Lafferty and Langhelle, 1999, p. 26). The tenth GIN conference with its explicit focus on the social dimensions of sustainability facilitated the continuation of this discourse.Just as scholars and practitioners concerned with sustainable development have focused mainly on environmental management, those concerned with corporate social responsibility (CSR) have focused on social and ethical issues such as human rights, working conditions and philanthropy. The social principles of justice and inclusiveness embedded in the concept of sustainable development have entered the corporate or research agenda to a very limited extent, even among firms making promising environmental efforts at a global scale (Ruud, 2002a). Promoting sustainable development requires that governments incorporate these principles into designing holistic policies that motivate and enable firms to develop more sustainable strategies (Roome and Cahill, 2001). This was also underlined by the chief executive officer of the Volvo group during the first plenary session of the GIN conference in Gothenburg.We begin by examining to what extent the social aspects of sustainability have been integrated into public policy and government regulations and then into organizational research and practice. We then examine the extent to which the best representative papers in this volume from the tenth GIN conference have been able to achieve the integration of social and environmental dimensions. We conclude with some thoughts on future directions for sustainability research. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Social sustainability in the supply chain: Construct development and measurement validation

“…Scholars (Lafferty and Langhelle, 1999;Sharma and Ruud, 2003) define social sustainability as an "ethical code of conduct for human survival and outgrowth that needs to be accomplished in a mutually inclusive and prudent way".…”

Corporate sustainability – integrating environmental and social concerns?

“…Thus Shrivastava (1995) proposes a business charter for sustainable development, containing 16 points, only two of which have a noticeable social component. Sharma and Ruud (2003) point out that most researchers in the area have so far concentrated on the ecological dimension of corporate sustainability, sometimes combining this with concern for the economic dimension, in trying to establish whether better environmental performance of a firm would lead to better financial performance, but have only very recently begun to concern themselves with the social dimension.…”

An integrated Approach for Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Sustainability

“…For example, Ebner and Baumgartner (2006) reviewed academic articles of eight years in the area of CSR and CS; they recommended that SD is at macro level, while at the micro level, in the organisation, is CS, which encompasses economic, ecological and social pillars, where CSR was modelled as the social pillar of CS. Similar to this thought, Sharma and Rudd (2003) also pointed out that academics studying CS tend to focus on environmental issues, while those studying CSR tend to focus on social and ethical issues. However, they argued that CS is a broad concept and the social aspect is incorporated into CS, meaning that CS encompasses CSR as a social dimension of the sustainability framework.…”

“…In the first perspective, CS is considered as a broader concept balancing economic, ecological and social issues and CSR has been viewed as social pillar of this CS model (Ebner & Baumgartner, 2006;Sharma & Rudd, 2003). It looks very straight forward; however, it is actually an incomplete recommendation.…”