Download or read book Business Transitions A Path to Sustainability written by Annik Magerholm Fet and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-02-21 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book represents a journey documenting the development of tools and methodologies over 3 decades and asks where the future lies. It further develops seminal work carried out under the auspices of the Capacity building in Sustainability and Environmental Management (CapSEM) project co-funded by the EU Erasmus programme from 2016-2019 as well as research projects such as IGLO-MP2020, SUSPRO, and SISVI. It gathers existing paradigms of environmental management within the relevant frameworks which have driven the way in which this discipline has developed. It seeks to both challenge and support the way in which business sectors have approached this previously, with a more holistic and overarching model being provided, moving through four very distinct levels. It therefore provides not only a different approach, but a different way of thinking. Systems thinking is characterized by four levels: Process, Product Value Chain, Organisational and Systemic which combines Material Flow Analysis (MFA), Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Industrial Ecology (IE) principles. In its practical application, Corporate Social Responsibility, for example, thus becomes an integral part of a much wider business strategy and impacts on all business activity, not added value for its own sake, but a valuable component in a wider toolbox as a fundamental part of any business strategy and plan, changing, flexing and developing over the years. The book is divided into 4 parts: moving from context and background, to the theoretical model or toolbox, onto its practical application in case studies and culminates in looking at the future and potential developments. It represents the multi-disciplined collaboration at NTNU and beyond, exemplifying its use in a wealth of business sectors and a range of stakeholders from construction to textiles to wind power as outlined in the European Circular Action Plan.

Download or read book Business Models for Sustainability Transitions written by Annabeth Aagaard and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-11-11 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can innovations in business change society? Can innovations in society change business? These two questions have become critically urgent in recent years, but are rarely considered together. ‘Business Models for Sustainability Transitions’ therefore asks, can contemplating both concepts together result in a flourishing, sustainable future? Technology alone cannot save us. We cannot consciously consume our way out of trouble. This book represents a start at bridging the dynamic world of business model innovation with the constant and unprecedented transitions underway in the world around us. For researchers, practitioners, and policy makers, the coupling of the two questions has the potential to unlock answers to our grand global challenges with responses that are at the same time rapid and enduring. This work offers unique and considered glimpses into what it may take to harness wide-ranging innovations for the collective good.

Download or read book Leading Sustainably written by Trista Bridges and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-07-30 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The business world is at an important crossroads. The age of the stakeholder is rapidly superseding that of the shareholder as climate change and political and societal shifts upend years of seeming prosperity. To move past this agitated age, business and society must learn to lead sustainably by putting purpose on equal footing with profit. The first step is understanding what’s meant by sustainability and how it offers an opportunity for both business and society. Inspired by the launch of the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the book captures the ideas of more than 100 change makers from around the world about how business is putting sustainability at the core of strategy to survive, thrive, and realign its interests with society’s. Leading Sustainably looks at how sustainability has evolved in a business context, offering powerful insights, key facts, and guidance on building sustainability capability within companies, measuring and managing impact, sustainable finance’s transformation, and other topics critical to aligning businesses’ central activities with sustainable principles. The book introduces five vignettes profiling best-in-class companies that were sustainable from the start and international case studies on business sustainability efforts, spanning industries from hospitality to waste management, fashion, finance, and more. Finally, Bridges and Eubank provide frameworks and in-depth direction firms can leverage when accelerating their transition to more sustainable business models. The book is a perfect guide for mid-level to senior managers seeking to understand this fast-changing business environment, how to factor sustainability into their decision-making, and why the SDGs changed everything.

Download or read book A Simple Path to Sustainability written by Fred M. Andreas and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2011-03-03 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With unequaled insight, business experts profile 12 outstanding, sustainable, small- to medium-sized enterprises and explain how their green strategies and methods have helped them succeed. A Simple Path to Sustainability: Green Business Strategies for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses is designed specifically to help smaller enterprises share in the benefits that flow from sustainability. Built around case histories showcasing 12 small to medium-size enterprises (SMEs) that have outstanding records of sustainability, this unique, hands-on guide will help readers choose and develop sustainability strategies and undertake the marketing and management initiatives necessary for success. The studies collected here detail each company's journey from initial idea through building a new culture, engaging stakeholders, gaining competitive advantage, and planning for the future. Each study also covers the challenges encountered, successes and failures, and lessons learned. Cases are centered around distinct themes, including a marketing/public relations perspective, a risk management perspective, an organizational culture perspective, and a new product development perspective. Taken as a whole, these stories do more than inform. They will inspire managers to become green entrepreneurs, undertaking sustainable strategies that can reap surprising benefits.

Download or read book Sustainability Transitions in South Africa written by Najma Mohamed and published by Routledge Studies in Sustainability. This book was released on 2018 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: South Africa's transition to sustainability : an overview / Najma Mohamed -- Reaping the socio-economic benefits of an inclusive transition to sustainability / Brent Cloete, Samantha Munro and Nolwazi Sokhulu -- Climate change and vulnerability in South Africa : sustainability transitions in a changing climate? / Coleen Vogel and Mark Swilling -- Sustainability transitions and employment in South Africa : a multi-dimensional approach / Gaylor Montmasson-Clair -- Policies for sustainability transformations in South Africa : a critical review / Najma Mohamed and Gaylor Montmasson-Clair -- Transitioning South Africa's finance system towards sustainability / Chantal Naidoo -- The role of national systems of innovation in South Africa's sustainability transition / Shanna Nienaber -- Green skills : transformative niches for greening work / Presha Ramsarup, Eureta Rosenberg, Heila Lotz-Sisitka and Nicola Jenkin -- Creating partnerships to sustain value / Chantal Ramcharan-Kotze and Johan Olivier -- Inclusive sustainability transitions / Najma Mohamed

Download or read book Business Models for Sustainability Transitions written by Annabeth Aagaard and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'It is in exploring the complementarities of business model innovation and sustainability transitions where this book makes a major contribution. Bridging related but so far separate areas of research and generating new insights for strategy and policy making is key to destabilising unsustainable business practices, and to accelerate processes of transformative and sustainable change. This book is an important stepping-stone in a much larger journey toward more sustainable modes of production and consumption.' - Jochen Markard, Senior researcher and Lecturer at the Group for Sustainability and Technology within the Department of Management, Technology, and Economics of ETH Zurich. Can innovations in business change society? Can innovations in society change business? These two questions have become critically urgent in recent years, but are rarely considered together. 'Business Models for Sustainability Transitions' therefore asks, can contemplating both concepts together result in a flourishing, sustainable future? Technology alone cannot save us. We cannot consciously consume our way out of trouble. This book represents a start at bridging the dynamic world of business model innovation with the constant and unprecedented transitions underway in the world around us. For researchers, practitioners, and policy makers, the coupling of the two questions has the potential to unlock answers to our grand global challenges with responses that are at the same time rapid and enduring. This work offers unique and considered glimpses into what it may take to harness wide-ranging innovations for the collective good. Annabeth Aagaard is an Associate Professor and the founding Director of Interdisciplinary Centre for Digital Business Development at Aarhus University, Denmark. Her research is focused on digital and sustainable business development, ecosystems and innovation, from which she has (co)-authored 14 textbooks, e.g. "Sustainable Business Models - Innovation, Implementation and Success", Palgrave. Florian Lüdeke-Freund is Professor for Corporate Sustainability at ESCP Business School, Berlin. He serves on the editorial boards of different journals, and has authored or edited four books, including "Sustainable Business Model Design". He founded www.sustainablebusinessmodel.org. Peter Wells is a Professor of Business and Sustainability, and Director of the Centre for Automotive Industry Research, at Cardiff Business School, UK. He is author or editor of 11 books and is frequently quoted in the New York Times, Forbes, Bloomberg, the BBC and other international news sources.

Download or read book Transitions to Sustainability written by François Mancebo and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-11-17 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book calls for the conditions of transition to sustainability: How to take into consideration new global phenomena such as and of the dimension of climate change, the depletion of natural resources, financial crises, demographic dynamics, global urbanization, migrations and mobility, while bearing in mind short-term or local place-based issues, such as social justice or quality of life? Meeting this challenge requires an inclusive approach of sustainability. It is a matter of designing a new social contract: Sustainability requires more than developing the right markets, institutions and metrics, it requires social momentum. To do so, many issues need a clear and complete answer: How to link social justice with sustainability policies? What governance tools to do so? What linkage between one decision-making level and the other? These are major issues to design sound transitions to sustainability.

Download or read book Business Transformation for a Sustainable Future written by Samuel Petros Sebhatu and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-09-05 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interconnecting the concepts of sustainability, innovation and transformation, this book explains how organizations have successfully transformed themselves and wider society to foster a more sustainable future, and identifies the difficulties and challenges along the way. Part of the Principle of Responsible Management Education (PRME) series, the book promotes a strong voice for meeting sustainability challenges for transformative change in a globalized world through business education and practice. A transition to a more sustainable way of doing business can only be attained by combining technology with profound system innovations and lifestyle changes. The chapters in the book, each written by a strong and well-recognized team of researchers in the field, open up the discussion about a new partnership between sustainability, innovation, and transformation that includes the global society (big world), the biosphere (small planet), and also requires a deep mind shift. The book presents cases from business (including Ikea and Eataly) and other service networks including the Base of the Pyramid (BoP), and illustrates how these organizations have transformed themselves for a sustainable future. The research perspectives are macro (policies and legislation), meso (institutional practices) and micro (business practices and individual behavior). This book is where research meets real-world business and societal practice. The chapters are grounded in business research, specifically the interdependencies between sustainability, innovation, and transformation, which makes for a robust basis for describing, explaining, and understanding the complex challenges faced by business and society in the 21st century. The book is intended for graduate- and postgraduate-level students and executive education with implications for practitioners. Furthermore, it contributes to multidisciplinary research in the field of interaction between business and society with a view to extending the firm-centric view to encompass a broader, systemic, and dynamic understanding of business and societal transformation.

Download or read book Strategy for Sustainability Transitions written by Kristof Van Assche and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2024-04-12 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this innovative work, Kristof Van Assche, Raoul Beunen and Monica Gruezmacher analyse the challenges and possibilities of sustainability transitions, presenting the dilemmas facing the path to sustainable communities and societies, as well as proposing creative solutions. The authors deploy evolutionary governance theory as a conceptual framing for transition strategy, highlighting the importance of understanding governance and community strategy in any potential response to environmental crises.

Download or read book A Simple Path to Sustainability written by and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With unequaled insight, business experts profile 12 outstanding, sustainable, small to medium-sized enterprises and explain how their green strategies and methods have helped them succeed.

Download or read book The Necessary Transition written by Malcolm McIntosh and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-08 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Life on Earth for humanity and our ecosystems is at a point of great change. There is much to be learnt about previous great disruptions. The key words are *adaptation* and *transformation*. Most international companies operate across multiple social and environmental geographies, so they know this intellectual and practical landscape. And for many governments the challenges of social and environmental justice are also paramount – not least because equitable societies are best for business, and best for human well-being.The Necessary Transition addresses the many transitions taking place around the world: from high- to low-carbon economies, from gross inequality to egalitarianism, from massive human rights abuses to socially just societies, and from high corruption to societies with high social cohesion and integrity.The book brings together leading international researchers and practitioners to share their knowledge and expertise, and offers answers to many of the pressing questions that must be addressed in the journey towards a sustainable enterprise economy – an absolutely necessary transition for humanity.Contributors include: Sara Parkin, Founder-Director and Trustee of the UK's Forum for the Future; Bill Champion, Managing Director, Rio Tinto Coal Australia; and Mark Swilling, co-author of "Just Transitions" and Academic Director of the Sustainability Institute, South Africa.The key question is: "Is a transition to a sustainable future possible within the logic of conventional capitalism and 20th-century models of development?" This book provides radical perspectives from varying entry points and is essential reading for academics and practitioners interested in how we plan, speed and scale such necessary transitions.

Download or read book Managing the Transition to a Sustainable Enterprise written by Rob van Tulder and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-23 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In combining practice and theory, this textbook provides a management perspective on the ‘business case’ for sustainability. Drawing on examples from 20 frontrunner companies located in the Netherlands, it builds upon a unique research project in which CEOs and middle-managers gave access not only to their decision-making process, but also revealed how their perceptions shaped the transition process. This book identifies four different archetypes of business cases and related business models that business students and managers can use to identify phases and related attitudes towards sustainability. The book provides in-depth analysis and insight into: • theoretical concepts and an overview of the relevant literature • the different business cases for sustainability • behavioural characteristics of each phase and the typical barriers between them • more than 70 tipping points • approaches to shaping stakeholder dialogue • effective engagement of stakeholders in each phase of transition • how companies move through the phases towards higher levels of sustainability • insights of employees of the 20 companies whether the business case was really achieved • summary of the interventions which have proved successful in these companies. This book offers students as well as managers of vocational and academic institutions at undergraduate and postgraduate level insight into real-life transition processes towards sustainability.

Download or read book Business Model Innovation for Energy Transition written by Milton M. Herrera and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-07-07 with total page 123 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a dynamics model-based perspective for attaining the energy transitions by business model innovation. It examines how dynamic business modelling and innovation studies can assist in the sustainability transitions field, highlighting the role of technological innovation system (TIS) and dynamic performance management (DPM). In the last decade, renewables have operated in the context of emerging societal transitions. Indeed, one of the current challenges for the energy sector is to transform business models in tune with shifting societal and market conditions. This work shows how dynamic business modelling captures the feedback loops and the behaviour of performance measures to contribute the energy transitions. Besides, this book offers an in-depth discussion on innovation measurement to designing index of green technology, which it will prove useful to those studying management sciences, energy, innovation, and sustainability.

Download or read book Transformation of Business Organization Towards Sustainability written by Jurgis Kazimieras Staniškis and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-01-12 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We have entered a new era where business, technologies, communities, and even pandemic deceases cross borders with unprecedented speed and intensity. 2030 Agenda and 17 SDGs reflect the global community's high expectations of finally reversing the destruction of our natural and social habits, and achieving a more balanced and equitable pathways toward well-being of all. However, despite the initial efforts, the world is not on track to achieving the most of the 169 targets that comprise the goals. It is evident that we have a system problem, so we need a system solution. Authors presented a hierarchical system consisting of two-level management systems: first level—unsustainability reduction systems and second level—control system for transformations toward sustainability. The book clearly shows that implementation of systems for unsustainability reduction and for transformations toward sustainability is possible, and that sufficient knowledge is available to get started. It is designed for researchers, practitioners, and politicians.

Download or read book Beyond the Triple Bottom Line written by Francisco Szekely and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2017-04-28 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A pragmatic new business model for sustainability that outlines eight steps that range from exploring a mission to promoting innovation; with case studies. Many recent books make the case for businesses to become more sustainable, but few explain the specifics. In this book, Francisco Szekely and Zahir Dossa offer a pragmatic new business model for sustainability that extends beyond the traditional framework of the triple bottom line, describing eight steps that range from exploring a vision and establishing a strategy to implementing the strategy and promoting innovation. Szekely and Dossa argue that businesses and organizations need to move away from the business case for sustainability toward a sustainable business model. That is, businesses should go beyond the usual short-term focus on minimizing harm while maximizing profits. Instead, businesses on the path to sustainability should, from the start, focus on addressing a societal need and view profitability not as an end but as a means to support the sustainable organization. Szekely and Dossa explore key problems organizations face when pursuing a sustainability agenda. Each chapter presents one of the eight steps, describes a business dilemma for sustainability, provides a theoretically grounded strategic framework, offers case studies that illustrate the dilemma, and summarizes key findings; the case studies draw on the experiences of such companies as Tesla Motors, Patagonia, TOMs, and Panera. The book emphasizes leadership, arguing that leaders who question the status quo, inspire others, and take risks are essential for achieving sustainable business practices.

Download or read book Just Sustainabilities written by Robert Doyle Bullard and published by Earthscan. This book was released on 2012 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Environmental activists and academics alike are realizing that a sustainable society must be a just one. Environmental degradation is almost always linked to questions of human equality and quality of life. Throughout the world, those segments of the population that have the least political power and are the most marginalized are selectively victimized by environmental crises. This book argues that social and environmental justice within and between nations should be an integral part of the policies and agreements that promote sustainable development. The book addresses the links between environmental quality and human equality and between sustainability and environmental justice.

Download or read book The Quest for Sustainable Business written by Wayne Visser and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-08 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In January 2010, author, academic and social entrepreneur Dr Wayne Visser set off on a nine-month, 20-country "quest" to talk to entrepreneurs, business leaders and innovators and learn about how companies in all parts of the world can and are helping to tackle the world's most pressing social and environmental problems. His aim was to explore the many varieties of global approaches to sustainable business practices first-hand and to share some of the most innovative global examples.The result is this treasure trove of a book, full of stories, ideas, links to more than 100 video interviews, best practices and tools for making sustainable business work in a myriad of different contexts, cultures and settings. Besides sharing insights from his 2010 "CSR Quest World Tour", the author captures his professional experiences and the evolution of sustainable business over the past 20 years.The path begins in Africa and winds its way through Asia, North America, Europe, Australasia and Latin America. The author shares what he has learned in encounters with mega-corporations and small farmers, and conversations with CEOs and social entrepreneurs. There are facts and figures about world trends, and interviews with thought leaders and activists. This is a tale that consciously weaves the personal and the professional, mixing anecdotes and case studies. It looks outwards and reflects inwards, and is both autobiography and the life story of a global movement.