Suchergebnisse

Sustainability is a crucial dimension of our life at the beginning of the third millennium. Our society transforms and changes even faster and more continuously than at any time earlier. Our work aims to define a new concept: the cognitive sustainability domain. Several fields of science were explored to recognize how the interdisciplinary approach of cognitive sustainability is valid. The former joint use of cognitivity and sustainability was reviewed in the literature as well. Results showed that digital development lets us extend our experiential cognition in most fields of our lives. Limits of the available resources and the development of cognitive functionalities are the enablers to connecting and addressing sustainability. Main dimensions and parameters of cognitive sustainability were identified, and several key research areas were defined. The structured handling of cognitive tools within sustainability results in a broader interpretation framework for analyzing, understanding and developing processes in sustainability.

[Gutterman, A. S. (2020). Managing Sustainability. New York and Lon­don: Routledge, 192 pp. ISBN 9780367518547 (Paperback).]

Purpose
Studies have shown that higher education institutions (HEIs) need to achieve deep organizational learning to develop and implement long-term strategies for responding to the climate crisis. This study aims to analyze the sustainability efforts of HEIs, in particular those who use the sustainability tracking, assessment and rating system (STARS), to ascertain what type of organizational learning is being achieved.


Design/methodology/approach
This paper does this by analyzing perceptions of learning amongst this group of HEIs. More specifically, it analyzes survey data regarding perceptions of types and system levels of organizational learning achieved by 116 HEIs in the USA that currently use or have used STARS in the past. The approach also aims to develop a macro view of the relationships between practicing campus sustainability, using sustainability reporting tools and learning as an organization.


Findings
An examination of the practice of campus sustainability and its relationship to organizational learning reveals that the use of sustainability reporting promotes broad learning, but deep learning at the level of the organization is seldom achieved.


Practical implications
Given the success of using sustainability reporting tools to diffuse knowledge and foster broad learning, this paper argues that such tools should incorporate more metrics relative to soft organizational characteristics of HEIs to shift organizational cultures and foster deeper organizational learning.


Originality/value
This work constitutes one of the few studies analyzing empirical data on campus sustainability, sustainability reporting and organizational learning for a large number of HEIs.

AbstractThis paper describes a dynamic multistage game in which sustainability is a value that is shared between companies and stakeholders in a competitive market. The game solution could move from a Nash equilibrium to a higher equilibrium, the MES equilibrium, because of the presence of stakeholders who influence the choice and the set of sustainable strategies. Stakeholders provide feedback to companies (by way of awards, ratings, rankings, rebukes, etc.) at every stage of the game. Positive feedback gives a company the chance to expand its business opportunities, leveraging on good reputation, customer loyalty, operational risk mitigation, resilience, employees' cohesion, etc. The interaction between companies and stakeholders also allows companies to seize market opportunities (e.g., supplying sustainable products for responsible customers, sustainable investments for investors, etc.). The sustainability game demonstrates how sustainability can engage the economic system in a market shift.

AbstractThis empirical study explores the financialization of social sustainability driven by sustainability accounting and reporting initiatives (SARIs). Since no globally accepted definition of what social sustainability encompasses exists, the paper asks how social sustainability is translated into the financial market language by SARIs as they provide standards for disclosing corporate non-financial performance and promote their concepts of social sustainability. The paper uses a two-step qualitative content analysis. First, it operationalizes social sustainability based on the empirical data of six sustainability rating agencies. Second, this operationalization is compared with the concepts created by three SARIs. The paper shows significant differences between the concepts of the SARIs and the rating agencies. While the rating agencies altogether interpret social sustainability with 83 distinct aspects, the SARIs, although differently created, use significant reduced concepts where 20% of these aspects are absent. The result of this financialization process could be a simplified and financially determined concept of social sustainability within die socially discourse. The research is limited to social sustainability and its financialization by SARIs. Individual indicators and their way or intensity to capture aspects of social sustainability were not part of the research interest. Further research should investigate the economic and the ecological pillars of sustainability as well as the usage of such financialized concepts within the society and especially by corporations. The paper unfolds the arbitrariness of operationalizing a qualitative phenomenon like social sustainability through the financial system. It discloses the need for looking at the mechanisms behind such processes and at the interests of the actors behind the frameworks. The paper reveals the financialization process driven by SARIs and demonstrates its simplifying effects on the concept of social sustainability. Furthermore, the paper shows that SARIs as metrics for non-financial aspects are troubled with a lack of transparency and a lack of convergence.