Sustainability and Management: An International Perspective

2016 | Business & Finance

In the wake of the 1987 Brundtland Report, sustainable development has become a key factor to the management systems in businesses and a means by which companies can increase their long-term value. Being a 'sustainable company' increasingly means 'staying alive in business' and has become a necessity for all kinds of enterprises, from the micro-sized to global corporations. In more recent years many companies, and indeed governments, have looked at sustainability as means to combat the multiple challenges of environmental accidents, global warming, resource depletion, energy, poverty and pollution. However, being sustainable or maintaining sustainability for a company's management is not an easy task. It needs continuous support and engagement from the board, executive management, staff and other stakeholders alike. Additionally, it brings additional costs to the company in terms of hiring trained staff, organising continuous training in the company, publishing sustainability reports and subscribing to a rating system. Sustainability must be nourished by a company's board as well as by all of its departments, such as accounting, marketing and human resources.

By the same token, it is not enough for a company simply to declare itself a 'sustainable business' or rely on past measures and reputation; sustainability is an ongoing and active area of a company and one which has to be proved by periodically disclosing sustainability reports according to well-known international rating systems. In Sustainability and Management: An International Perspective, Kiymet Caliyurt and Ulku Yuksel bring together international authors from a variety of specialisations to discuss the development, aspects, problems, roadmap, trends and disclosure systems for sustainability in management. The result is a lively, insightful exposition of the field.

Kiymet Caliyurt (Author)

Ulku Yuksel (Author)