Dear ONEers,
Firstly I agree with much of what has been said, on this exchange so this
is just a set of random mutterings but....
You might find some interest in views of sustainable development from a
business (as part of society viewpoint) in 'Sustainability Strategies for
Industry: The Future of Corporate Practice. Island Press: Washington,
DC., 1998'
Although this book was formulated as an idea in the early 1990 its
forward-looking perspective (beyond the corporate environmental management
ideas then current) I think it still has value.
The points I would add are:
1. sustainable development is a process with sustainability is its goal.
2. when that goal is reached changes in natural systems, shifts in social
expectations and the hidden consequences of human activities will require
continuous adjustments to be made by humans
3. Sustainable development implies development activities that operate
within the ecological carrying capacity of the planet at each level of
analysis that means what is sustainable often depends of local, national,
regional and global contexts implying no single blueprint for
sustainability
4. Development implies the advancement of social well-being and the
provision of its benefits for all securing minimum standards and
opportunities needed to ensure cohesive societies and a cohesive global
society. If it is not cohesive then it probably cannot be secured in the
long term.
5. There is no such thing or need for sustainable organisations (such as
business) as organisations are simply vehicles through which human
ingenuity, control or influence are exercised. In a business sense
responsible corporate practices are the basis for the business
contribution to sustainable development as societal process and goal
6. In Europe there is an acknowledgement that at best we are in a
transition pathway to sustainability because of our limited knowledge
about carrying capacity (at each level of analysis), the limited capacity
of organisations and institutions to reform to hold sustainable
development as the supreme goal that frames their activities and the loose
talk about sustainability used to describe things that are not necessarily
informed by the principles outlined above (which confuses and deludes most
of us). As sustainability implies something about a joint social and
business project it also implies the development of joint action and joint
governance and that requires skills in cooperation and collaboration that
have not well developed in our societies. In other words we are
constrained by our 'human' competencies too.
Nevertheless sustainable development is a lot of fun but within the
concept and practice there is much delusion, deception and hubris and we
should all remain vigilant (for example by refraining from calling
corporate environmental management - sustainable business - or to refrain
from labelling a technology as sustainable when like hydrogen technologies
they are simply part of a potentially less unsustainable system of energy
supply and demand that is part of a transition).
Nigel Roome
Daniel Janssen Chair of Corporate Responsibility, Solvay Business School,
Free University Brussels and Chair of Sustainable Enterprise (the verb
enterprise not the noun enterprise) and Transformation, Erasmus University
Rotterdam
> Dear ONE colleagues I have just selected a tad from the much longer
> email exchange to read about what is going on in our academy of management
> division on how to define sustainability. It's not so much the question
> that is interesting to me but what is interesting is the number of faculty
> members around the world whose entire management school, or larger groups
> of faculty are revealed in these emails ars actively having a conversation
> about how to support a sustainability agenda! Most seem to be outside the
> US, (of course) These email exchanges come to me after a week of
> teaching executives in my course called "systemic action research for
> sustainability." I noticed it was almost easy to introduce the topic of
> sustainability to this years class (all with at least 10 years managerial
> experience) This is in contrast to varying degrees of "start up battle"
> that I have grown used to that essentially start with "but what about
> fiduciary responsibility to maximize stockprice.."). One of the big
> reasons I heard for the greater interest and openness is that WalMart is
> now experienced as breathing down everyone's neck (to make sure their
> supply network gets on board with their sustainability endeavors).
> Because the WalMart supply chain is so big, that its a lot of necks. And
> I find this so, well, encouraging and thought you might too, even as
> global warming continues to threathen to envelop us and the average bear
> (cf John Setrman's work with System dyanmics) just doesn't get the level
> of crisis we are facing...let's keep up our collective good work! All
> best, Hilary Bradbury, Ph.D.
> USC| Center for Sustainable Cities
> cell phone: 626 372 1516
>
>
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: Defining Sustainability
> From: EVA COLLINS
> Date: Thu, May 04, 2006 4:32 pm
> To:
ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
>
> Our School went through a very similar exercise. After the Management
> School declared its focus on sustainability, the head of research invited
> all researchers across departments to meet, with the intention of trying
> to define sustainability.
>
> It was an interesting meeting, think of herding cats and you'll have the
> idea.
>
> End result - we decided we did not need to define it. It's a good
> question to ask - what is the purpose of your definition? Our approach
> instead is to let people self-select. For example, every year we publish
> a brochure highlighting the School's research projects related to
> sustainability. Faculty self-select whether they want to be included.
>
> Instead of diluting the term, I believe it has sharpened our exchange. I
> definitely look at some of the work of my colleagues and wonder what it
> has to do with sustainability, but I consider that exercise a good thing,
> not a bad thing.
>
> Regards,
>
> Eva
>
> Dr. Eva Collins
> Strategy & Human Resource Management
> Private Bag 3105
> University of Waikato
> Hamilton New Zealand
> 07-838-4083
>>>>
mbarnett@coba.usf.edu 05/05/06 06:31 AM >>>
> I have a simple question, but it carries a lot of baggage. How do you
> define "sustainability"? I know there have been many discussions on this
> topic, and surely published work as well, and I could try to dig it up
> were I more enterprising, but I thought I'd seek the easy way out here.
> Let me frame this a bit. We're having a discussion across departments at
> my college as to the merits and demerits of declaring any sort of
> college-wide emphasis on sustainability, vs. just letting people do their
> own independent research, or at most, having some sort of department or
> center-level emphasis (short of college level). An immediate reaction by
> folks outside of Management is to declare that sustainability is
> exclusionary as a focus, and would lead their work to be undervalued. So
> what's a good, broad, inclusive definition of sustainability that makes it
> apparent that the research, teaching, and service of a college full of
> diverse folks could potentially fall under that umbrella -- and would
> focus not just on the natural, but also the social environment? Or is
> defining sustainability in this way just a goofy thing to do?
>
> Thanks,
> Mike
>
> *********************************************
> Michael L. Barnett, PhD
> Department of Management, BSN 3527
> College of Business Administration
> University of South Florida
> 4202 E. Fowler Avenue
> Tampa, FL 33620
> Phone: (813) 974-1727
> Fax: (813) 974-1734
> Website:
http://coba.usf.edu/barnett
> View my research on my SSRN Author page:
>