Page 34 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

2.3 Business sustainability 29
concept, with the Brundtland report in 1987, and several industrial accidents, gave birth to a
third phase. Suspicion concerning business behavior and reporting legislation or voluntary
disclosure support by governments drove business toward a more competitive behavior
based on being “green” (Kolk, 2003; Elkington, 2004). It is in this period that the WBCSD
was created in order to bring the business voice to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio. During
the Conference, the organization, together with the International Chamber of Commerce,
acted to shift the public attention from the transnational companies’ impact on the environ-
ment and the need for new forms of business social accountability. On the contrary, a role for
business as part of a sustainable solution is supported, arguing the coincidence between busi-
ness sustainability and good business practices (Gray and Bebbington, 2000; Gray and Milne,
2002). Therefore, business shows now a pro-active approach driven by the rising idea of the
existence of a business case for sustainability (Azapagic and Perdan, 2000) and thus distanc-
ing itself from old corporate social responsibility (CSR), mainly focused on reputation (KPMG
International, 2014).
A last phase took place at the end of the 20th century. Civil society raised its voice against
international organizations, to which a responsibility for sustainable development is ascribed
(Kolk, 2003; Elkington, 2004). It is acknowledged that sustainable development cannot be
achieved through disconnected initiatives but through a new form of governance and strat-
egy at the global level and within business. Sustainability is embedded in business strategy
and it is communicated to external stakeholders via reporting (Azapagic and Perdan, 2000).
The described phases show an initial business diffidence toward business sustainability;
however, according to Little (n.d. as cited in Giddings et al., 2002), the relevance of
Sustainable Development is now recognized by 95% of the largest firms in Europe and the
United States.

2.3.2 Many approaches to business sustainability

Having discussed its relevance and its origins and evolution, the discourse is now ripe to
define business sustainability in its most common form, as well as to put the emphasis on
the vast amount of different interpretations related to the concept.
The most widely used definition of business sustainability is basically an adaptation of
the sustainable development definition to business. The International Institute for Sustainable
Development (IISD, 1992 as cited in Labuschagne et al., 2005, p. 1) defines business sustain-
ability as the adoption of business strategies and activities that meet the needs of the
enterprise and its stakeholders today while protecting, sustaining, and enhancing the human
and natural resources that will be needed in the future. Dyllick and Hockerts (2002) specify
that the needs to be met are of direct and indirect stakeholders and express the futurity
principle in terms of future stakeholder need rather than of solely natural resources.
A slightly different, more business-focused definition is given by Nit¸a ˘ and Ştefea (2014,
p. 2), who describe Business Sustainability as a business strategy that drives long-term cor-
porate growth and profitability by mandating the inclusion of environmental and social is-
sues in the business model. These different statements, though with some commonalities,
give in advance an idea of the varied meanings Business Sustainability can stand for. Some
of these different interpretations will be revised here below. However, some authors warn