Dear Mr. Peter,

You can visit next page and get more information about environmental sustainability:

www. http://www.ec.gc.ca/soerree/  (Guidelines for the development of

sustainability indicators, Michael Ditor) and http://portal.unesco.org  (Sustainable Development).

Regards,

Zijad

I am certainly grateful, Zijad. The UNESCO link opens fine but the Canadian link is not oepning. But I have seen lots of good information on the UNESCO page. Thanks!

Hello Peter, 

Some thoughts on this include:

Socio-ecological systems, which focuses on the human/environment interaction;

The framework for strategic sustainable development (FSSD) built on the natural step process 

And you can find an article I did on this link: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sd.1640/epdf

Hope this helps, 

John 

Hi Peter, 

I suggest you use the distinction between 'weak CSR' and 'strong CSR'. The first means that companies still have as their main mission to make a private profit ('Prosperity'), but do their best to limit or repair somewhat the damage this causes to the prosperity of planet and people (this is the 'triple P' approach as proposed initially by Elkington). In this model, people and planet are ultimately still means that are used, exploited or employed for making a private profit, even though via CSR the excesses are somewhat curbed.

'Strong CSR' means that companies consider it their first mission  to contribute to the common good, the benefit or prosperity of planet and people. Here the company really remains a 'means' for the common good, and not an end in itself. They think of the economy not as a 'sector', but as a social function viz. "the allocation of (renewable) planetary resources to the prosperity of all people (global justice and cooperation)." 

There are plenty of practices and networks that explore this functional  and 'strong CSR' economic model; such as:

• Real sharing economy (Janelle Orsi)
• Economy of Communion (Chiara Lubich/Luigino Bruni)
• Economie de la fonctionnalité et de la coopération (Christian du Tertre)
• European Assembly of the Commons (European Parliament Nov 2016)
• P2P production  (Michel Bauwens)
• The Organisation of the Future
• Social cooperations
• Governing the commons (Elinor Ostrom)
• Benefit corporations
• etc....

Strong CSR companies necessarily develop new tools for running their business, both technically (using as little resources as possible for creating as much access to them as possible) as financially (transactions with no positive financial interest required, such as ethical investments, interest free loans and local currencies, most often a combination of these). Productivity is required just to keep the business thriving, but never becomes its main goal. 

Strong CSR (supported by Responsible R&I) allows to develop an economic infrastructure that can really be circular (not just making a profit e.g. from reusing waste, requiring a growing influx of waste). The aim is to restore the economic functionality (i.e. allocating only renewable resources to the wellbeing of all life on earth). The current infrastructure is dysfunctional as it uses 150% of resources (overshoot day in August) for say 20% of life on earth (cf. poverty, sixth extinction...). Regrowth means increasing the capacity to fulfill the economic function again (using maximum 100% resources for the wellbeing of minimum 100% of life on earth). See attached article. 

Dear Peter

The Institutional Analysis and Design (IAD) framework created by Elinor Ostrom is one of the most powerful theoretical frameworks about community impacts. It looks at the outcomes of human interactions between different actors involved in the use of a resource and the cultural and biophysical context in which these interactions happen.  IAD highlights governance systems that need to satisfy certain governance function ( I,e exclusion of unauthorised users, monitoring, distribution of costs and benefits) in order to be stable an guarantee fair and sustainable use of the resources. Ostrom famously used IAD to analyse common pool resources ( resources where it is difficult  to exclude exclude users, but the more users you have , the less resource is left for each user). It has however been applied to other types of resources and context,( i.e Di Gregoria, Paavola)  Ostrom emphasised how collective action could lead to community co-management of resources as alternative to centralized, state-led governance.

Governmentality ( following Foucalt) can also be good for your problem. In management literature, theories normally used to look at corporate sustainability and communities are stakeholders theory, institutional theory, resource dependence theory, the natural resource based of the firm  ( Hart), green dynamic capabilities ( Aragon-Correa and Sharma), agency theory, socio-emotional wealth.

Best

Diego

Dear Peter, 

 You can also look into circular economy, green innovation and sustainability reporting as corporate sustainable strategies. Each strategy have significant relationship with environmental sustainability.

Can look into: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313681725_The_link_among_innovation_drivers_green_innovation_and_business_performance_Empirical_evidence_from_a_developing_economy

Article The link among innovation drivers, green innovation and busi...

Thank you so much everyone! I really appreciate the valuable responses! It is a wonderful forum.

Very interesting topic / question and highly relevant to present day environmental concerns. I have to admit that I am no expert on the topic, but I have noticed certain problems with respect to water issues (quantity & quality) between Industry and the public. Hence, I wonder how both corporate sustainability practices and environmental sustainability are possible and achievable, as many ligations and conflicts are taking place between the Corporates & Public with respect to environmental degradation due to industrialization.

Thank you Narasimha! It is exactly so as you point out- the conflucts  between corporates and public interests that make the goal of environmental sustainability now even more far slipping off our reach as global community.