Integrating corporate sustainability and strategy for business performance
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/20425961211221598 |
| Published date | 01 January 2012 |
| Pages | 5-17 |
| Date | 01 January 2012 |
| Author | Vikram P. Murthy |
| Subject Matter | Public policy & environmental management |
Integrating corporate
sustainability and strategy for
business performance
Vikram P. Murthy
Academy for Collaborative Futures, Sydney, Australia
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to make business the centrepiece of its inquiry into responses
to the sustainable development challenge.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses the individual firm as its lens for viewing the
sustainability challenge. It explores and synthesises the new strategic capabilities that business will
require to meet this challenge and how these can contribute to sustainable competitive advantage.
It argues that to focus management attention and understanding, these capabilities must be rooted in
existing strategy paradigms. It cites India, a developing economy exemplar, to posit the comp elling
rationale for making corporate sustainability an integral part of business strategy for the developing
world as well. It sounds an important cautionary note that – notwithstanding corporate acceptance of
the urgent need – building sustainability,as a strategic business capability will still require significant
management attention and efforts.
Findings – The prevailing social and environmental challenge that are an intractable negative
outcome of development underscore the equal and vital significance of integrating corporate
sustainability into business strategy in both developing and developed countries.
Originality/value – Inducting the conclusion that society needs to be a key consideration in
a business’s strategy, this paper underscores the essential business logic that can make it so – a
causative flow from key sustainability-related resources to strategic capabilities and thence to
potential sustainable competitive advantages for the firm.
Keywords India, Sustainable development, Competitive advantage, Developing countries,
Business performance, Corporate sustainability, Business strategy, Natural capitalism
Paper type Conce ptual paper
The firm as the unit of inquiry into sustainable development
This paper uses the individual firm or business as its lens to view the sustainability
challenge. It is from this vantage point that the “driving forces” (Wilkinson, 2009) in
the mega-environment, of “rapid technological diffusion”, “extensive environmental
threats”, and “vast current inequalities of income and power” (Sachs, 2008, p. 8) are
viewed. The dystopian scenarios of undermined global governance , social unrest, and
ineffective safeguards that may arise from these critical uncertainties (World Economic
Forum (WEF), 2012, pp. 16-27) are also contemplated from this firm-centric mindset.
There is a temporal identifier for this prevailing era of relentless and dynamic
uncertainty that the above description foregrounds. It is conceptually useful because it
highlights the decade and more since the start of the millennium as the vanguard of
over two centuries of Anthropocene, an epoc h where humanity has seriously disturbed
many critical earth systems (Crutzen, 2009). Among st the more impactful and
potentially deleterious markers of business’s macro-environment landscape in this era
are chronic fiscal imbalances, greenhouse gas emissions, global governance failure,
unsustainable population growth, critical systems failure, overexploitation of species,
and mismanaged natural cycles (WEF, 2012, p. 11; Sachs, 2010, pp. 7-9). This is the
overarching sustainability challenge.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/2042-5961.htm
World Journal of Entrepreneurship,
Management and Sustainable
Development
Vol. 8 No.1, 2012
pp. 5-17
rEmeraldGroup Publishing Limited
2042-5961
DOI 10.1108/20425961211221598
5
Corporate
sustainability
and strategy
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