Practical Sustainability Strategies How to Gain a Competitive Advantage

by Avlonas, Nikos; Nassos, George P.

• ISBN13: 9781118250440
• ISBN10: 1118250443
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-12-23
• Publisher: Wiley

Summary

Strategies that enable organizations to succeed as businesses and as responsible corporate citizens

Based on the authors' many years of research and hands-on experience, this book provides tested and proven practical strategies that make it possible for organizations to develop, maintain, or extend their competitive advantage without causing harm to the environment and society. Moreover, it explains how to set goals and objectives and then monitor, measure, and report on progress towards achieving corporate social responsibility and environmental sustainability. Most importantly, readers will discover that this can all be accomplished while, at the same time, improving bottom-line profitability.

Practical Sustainability Strategies: How to Gain a Competitive Advantage is divided into four parts:

• Part 1, Introduction to Sustainability, underscores the urgency for organizations to adopt and develop sustainable practices
• Part 2, Sustainable Strategies, details numerous strategies that have been proven to work, including environmental innovation through biomimicry, green buildings, and green chemistry
• Part 3, Tools and Metrics, offers practical information on implementing strategies and measuring sustainability and reporting, including global standards and guidelines for managing sustainability, life-cycle analysis, carbon and water footprints such as GRI, GHG Protocol, UN Global Compact
• Part 4, Conclusion, provides an expert forecast of the future of sustainability

Case studies based on the authors' research and fieldwork illustrate how leading companies have implemented each of the sustainability strategies discussed in the book. There's also an appendix with additional case studies exploring various aspects of business practices and sustainability.

Practical Sustainability Strategies is ideal as a graduate textbook as well as a reference for business managers. All readers will not only gain a greater appreciation for sustainable development, but also the skills needed to integrate sustainability into all aspects of their organization's business practices.

Author Biography

NIKOS AVLONAS is founder and President of the Centre for Sustainability and Excellence (CSE), a global advisory and training organization active in more than twenty-five countries. He has been distinguished as one of the "Top 100 Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior" by Trust Across America. He is a well-known international educator and sustainability advisor in Fortune 500 companies in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

GEORGE P. NASSOS, PhD, is Principal of George P. Nassos & Associates, a consulting company dedicated to renewable energy and environmental sustainability and also leads Sustainable Energy Systems, which markets a new waste-to-energy technology. After thirty-two years as a corporate executive in the chemical and environmental industries, Dr. Nassos entered academia for the next fourteen years as the Director of the Master of Science in Environmental Management and Sustainability program at the Stuart School of Business of the Illinois Institute of Technology, where it gained recognition as one of the best such programs in the world.

Table of Contents

PART 1 – INTRODUCTION TO SUSTAINABILITY

1 Urgency to Adopt Sustainability

2 Development of Sustainability Concept and CSR

PART 2 – SUSTAINABLE STRATEGIES

3 The C.E.R.E.S. and Other Principles

4 The Natural Step

5 Eco-Effective vs. Eco-Efficient: Sustainability vs. Being “Less Bad”

6 Extended Product Responsibility and “Servicizing”

7 Systems Thinking Leads to “Tunneling Through the Cost Barrier”

8 Environmental Innovation Through Biomimicry

9 Base of the Pyramid

10 Sustaining Fisheries

11 Green Buildings

12 Green Chemistry, Nanotechnology and Big Hairy Audacious Goal

13 Sustainability and Beyond

PART 3 – TOOLS AND METRICS

14 Standards and Guidelines for managing Sustainability

15 The Corporation and Its Stakeholders

16 Sustainability Reporting

17 Metrics  for Sustainability

18 Life Cycle Analysis and Carbon Footprint

19 Water Footprint

20 Green Marketing, Communication and Green Washing

PART 4 – CONCLUSION

21 Epilogue – Where Do We Go Now?

Appendix – Additional Case Studies for Practical Understanding of Sustainability