Consideration and debate regarding sustainability in the 21st century has involved integrating long-standing concerns about economic growth and social equity with concern for the carrying capacity of natural systems.[1] Interest in corporate sustainability surged in the late 1980s and during the 1990s academics and practitioners...
Sustainable management is ethical management, and businesses seeking to act in a sustainable manner need to take ethics seriously and establish and enforce ethical standards for current and future workers. However, defining “ethics” and identifying “ethical behavior” are not easy tasks. It is has been...
The main member of the executive team, and the person with the most responsibility for, and control over, the organizational design of the company, is the chief executive officer, or “CEO.” While the CEO “reports” to the board of directors and the board of directors...
Effective sustainability governance and management requires a structure through which the objectives of the company are set, the means of attaining those objectives and monitoring performance are determined, and the company and its people are held accountable.[1] In order for their governance procedures to be...
The traditional profit-centered approach to management originated during the Industrial Age with the presumption that capital formation was the only legitimate role of business and that managers were obligated above all other things to pursue profits to enhance the wealth of their shareholders; however, the...
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate sustainability initiatives are most effective when CSR principles have been integrated into the company’s governance and management processes and organizational culture. CSR governance begins at the top of the organization with the board of directors, which has been charged...
Surveys confirm that Americans believe that companies can and should advance racial equality by doing a better job in designing thinking around the black experience in their products and customer satisfaction and commit to offering products and services that effectively meet the distinctive needs of...
While many of the steps that companies should and can take relating to diversity and inclusion are largely internal, they can also take actions to address systematic racism in the external business and social contexts in which they operate. Companies should commit to advocating for...
Larger companies have the resources to support all of the activities of a chief responsibility officer or chief sustainability officer including the creation and maintenance of a dedicated group or department to focus solely on developing and executing a sustainability-related strategy. Sustainable startups do not...
America’s largest companies have done poorly with respect to bringing black women and men into meaningful leadership roles and companies need to commit to diversity in the boardroom through purposeful inclusion of women and people of color as members of the board of directors and...