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The subjectivity, complexity, and often competing interests of sustainable development have limited the effectiveness of integrating these important ideas into mainstream business strategy. With the adoption of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in January 2016, there are now global sustainability benchmarks that apply across diverse sectors and national contexts, allowing public and private organizations to orient and evaluate their activities, strategies, and business outcomes. However, it is not directly apparent where the advantage for business lies in pursuit of these actions within the prevailing economic paradigm, highlighting the need for new analytical frameworks and tools. Industrial ecology (IE) has been successfully used in engineering practice for decades and has been suggested as a method that can provide the concepts and methods necessary to bridge the gap between traditional business practice and sustainable development. To test this, literature bridging the fields of industrial ecology, business strategy, and sustainable development was collected and analyzed using the textual analysis software Leximancer™. The analysis showed that while the SDGs are primarily aimed at the national level, they also hold relevance for business through innovation, partnerships, and strategic positioning, inter alia. The analysis found that the integration of IE and business strategy is highly relevant for three of the SDGs, but captures elements of all 17 to varying degrees. IE has a strong focus on innovation and its potential in new markets, products, and business models. IE is also consciously aimed at the efficient use of energy and resources, ideas that are relevant to mitigating, adapting, and building resilience in a changing future, but are also relevant to traditional concepts of business strategy and competitive advantage. This paper shows that through the combination of IE and strategic management theory, commercial organizations can positively contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals while building competitive advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Companies are called by institutional organizations to assess their impacts on biodiversity and to take actions to achieve collectively conservation objectives. This paper presents a method to assess whether the pressures exerted by a business and its value chain on biodiversity are compatible with biodiversity conservation. The absolute environmental sustainability assessment framework is used to compare relevant life cycle assessment midpoint and endpoint indicators to the ecological budgets assigned to the company. This approach is illustrated based on the case study of a mass-market retailer with a focus on the pressures exerted by its food portfolio at the agricultural production step. The results indicate that several pressures driving biodiversity loss are not sustainable. The study also highlights the prominent weight of a few product categories in the ecological burden. These findings have implications for mass-market retailers as well as their food value chains and open research perspectives to make such an approach fully operational. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a systems thinking approach to analyze the elements that influence biowaste composting implementation. The review of local, national, and international experiences as well as the knowledge gained by the monitoring of the operation of five biowaste composting facilities in Valle del Cauca (Colombia) over an 8-year period has enabled to identify the elements that interact in an integrated composting system. Twenty-five key elements were identified and divided into four subsystems relevant to composting performance: quality and commercialization of the product, technological component, substrate characteristics, and business and financial management. Several causal diagrams were produced illustrating the interactions and integrating those elements. The systemic analysis helped to elucidate key strategies to improve biowaste composting sustainability: promoting administration within a business perspective, promoting marketing and commercialization initiatives, and implementing local technological development. In addition, some strategies more distant along the causal chain were proposed such as: developing standards and public policies to promote source separation, recognizing the economic and environmental benefits of composting, encouraging the use of products, such as compost, setting product quality standards in accordance with the potential uses of products and supporting technological development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: To discuss measures to promote reuse in society, a holistic understanding of reuse businesses and markets is indispensable. This paper presents a simulation model for reuse businesses. To formulate the model, first, prerequisites for reuse businesses are outlined. The simulation model includes these prerequisites as its parameters, and its outcomes yield patterns of reuse markets. The paper presents the formulation of the model and simulation outcomes under four parameter settings. The correspondences between the simulation outcomes and case studies of reuse businesses in Japan are discussed to verify the propriety of the model. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper takes the recent degrowth business framework as a starting point and looks deeper into one particular part of it, the change in values. It has been claimed that the agential level (i.e., that of individuals) and associated with it change in values is what underpins the remaining elements of the degrowth business framework, i.e., that change in values gives rise to degrowth compatible practices, principles, and operations. This is because, according to critical realism, individual humans are where agency resides. Considering that an immense hope is placed into the agents, the change in values needs to receive substantially more attention. As it stands, currently this category is underexplored and remains obscure on its own and in relation to degrowth business specifically. This paper attempts to address this obscurity and shed light on change in values of agents, while adopting the same philosophy of critical realism which underlaboured the construction of the degrowth business framework itself and supplementing it with the insights from the philosophy of existentialism which allows us to structure human existence and change in values specifically around three defined aspects of our being in the world. • Change in values in relation to degrowth business needs to receive more attention. • Change in values is disambiguated via utilising critical realism and existentialism. • Further disambiguation requires adventurous interdisciplinarity. • Important areas for further disambiguation are human agency and human nature. • One possible way to view human nature is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coal gasification is a technology that has been around for 200 yr. With the recent technology advances in the past 20 yr, it has become an option for the clean production of power and other energy forms. China will continue to be the largest user of coal in the world. Coal is the source of energy in almost every area of everyday life in China. This paper is an overview of the prospects of coal gasification in China. It discusses the opening of Chinese markets to more private sector participation. In particular the paper focuses on the energy sector and coal as the both an economic development variable and a factor in climate change. Clean coal technologies can be apart of the production cycle in China and hence can impact the Chinese economy in a positive manner as well as lower the current high levels of atmospheric pollution. Proven integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) technologies in new production methods and applications can provide China with its rising energy needs and reduce the SOX, NOX and particulates in the atmosphere. The results of IGCC can support the Chinese economy as it moves into the future. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper approaches the production facilities in the supply chain primarily from an Original Equipment Manufacturer’s perspective as the requesting party in the scope of environmental quality and secondarily from a production facility’s perspective. From the perspective of the customer as well as the supplier, aspects such as price, delivery, technology etc. play an ongoing role, while environmental quality is a new aspect. With respect to environmental quality, the paper discusses the existing situation in the facilities, like the use of environmental management systems, the notions of environmental performance, green procurement and environmental quality in relation to cost structures of facilities. The paper also introduces a new method of benchmarking environmental performances of facilities. Environmental performance expresses the total production behaviour of the production facility. A link into a business perspective is shown on the basis of the environmental performance. In this scope the result of a worldwide assessment of 25 printed board production facilities is discussed and a conclusion is drawn. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Sustainability is a system property; therefore, products/services/technologies/organisations cannot be sustainable on their own but they may be elements of sustainable systems. In addition, to achieve sustainability, there is a requirement for transformation of socio-technical systems which fulfil certain social functions such as energy, mobility and food. The theoretical and practical approaches proposed so far in the broad field of design and innovation for sustainability have not satisfactorily addressed system level changes. This paper provides a critical review of approaches targeting different phases of design and innovation processes. The strengths/shortcomings of these approaches are analysed based on the criteria developed by integrating insights from sustainability science and system innovation/transition management theories. Based on the critical review, a future research agenda is suggested in following areas: exploration of synergies between existing approaches/tools/methods, development of a theoretical framework for design and innovation for sustainability with references to system innovation and transition management theories, and, development of new approaches/tools/methods for the use of design and innovation teams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Water management in mining is a significant issue for sustainability due to the strong dependence on this resource, especially for those operations with beneficiation plants. This is particularly relevant for mining operations located in the Southeast region of Brazil, which concentrates most part of the country's population as well as most part of the mining facilities, but a small portion of the water available in the territory. This paper presents a case study of selection of sustainable water management strategies for a mining complex located in this region. A stepwise process for incorporating environmental risks into the decision-making using a multi-criteria approach and the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was developed and applied in this case study, with corporate image, representing part of the social dimension, environmental and economic as the main decision criteria. This stepwise process proved to be a robust tool for supporting the evaluation and selection of alternatives in the case study, with potential to be used in other corporate decision contexts where environmental risks are relevant. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper explores the co-evolution between societal sustainability transitions and fundamental shifts within individuals businesses. We argue that there is an emergent trend of businesses and industries that move beyond optimizing the organization''s individual performance by mitigating negative environmental and social impacts, to fundamentally restructuring and rethinking existing businesses in light of broader societal changes. Arguably, the frontrunner businesses that orient themselves towards sustainable market transitions develop a competitive advantage by co-creating these sustainable markets and on the short term develop renewed ambition and enthusiasm. By means of the transition framework, we argue that the fundamental societal changes emerging lead to a new phase in corporate responsibility, implying fundamental transitions within businesses. Based on this perspective and the transition management approach we explore how businesses might proactively engage with sustainability transitions in their direct context and link these to internal business transitions. We illustrate this framework of business transition management in a number of interlinked activities based on an experimental participatory case study of the transition in the Dutch roof sector. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This study attempts to contribute to the scarce knowledge on how eco-design, and to broad extent sustainability, is connected to innovation driven companies. In particular, this cross sectional research verifies i) perception and knowledge of eco-design of the professionals from innovation driven companies in Spain, ii) specific eco-design strategies towards sustainability that innovation driven companies are integrating in their strategic plans and their application in the supply chain and iii) the companies’ future predictions on innovation and eco-design linkage. The methodology of this paper is based on a survey, developed defining measurable proxies for both eco-design and innovation approaches and conducted on 10,000 multidisciplinary professionals from Spanish innovation driven companies. The study shows that sustainability is a cardinal driver for innovation and that responses have specificities regarding company size, activity or respondent position. Innovation and eco-design strategies for the future aim to use materials with a lower environmental impact and to develop new concepts. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper explores the role of the business community in promoting sustainable consumption. While businesses play an important role in shaping social trends, including the growth of material consumption, allegations that individual corporations wield excessive power may have been overstated. Most of the time corporations are simply playing by the rules and culture of the market.Businesses have mostly assumed that their contribution to sustainability lies in improving eco-efficiency—staying within the current business framework. But sustainable consumption will require wider change, including shifts in the incentives that shape the actions of businesses and others, and a change in the culture that underlies market expectations. Firms, governments, the media and civil society may need to enter a dialogue together to develop a new story about the nature of prosperity and the role of the business community in promoting it. The initiative is most likely to come from civil society. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Chemical use reduction is strongly desirable for environmental and public welfare reasons, and is a critical element of moving towards more sustainable consumption in the business-to-business economy. However, the fundamental economic relationship between chemical supplier and chemical customer creates supply side incentives for increased chemical use. Chemical management services (CMS) is a business model that aligns economic incentives in the chemical supplier–customer relationship towards reduced chemical use by making chemical services rather than chemical volume the basis of supplier compensation. CMS thus ‘servicizes’ the chemical supply chain and is a Product Service System with significant potential environmental benefits. CMS enjoys high penetration in the US auto and semiconductor sectors, and is emergent in other sectors. The paper synthesizes lessons learned from hands-on work with 15 chemical-using firms over 5 years in all aspects of CMS program implementation. Key points are that poor cost accounting and chemical information management form significant barriers to making, understanding and evaluating the CMS business case. The details of contractual compensation mechanisms are critical to achieving in practice the potential environmental benefits of the CMS model. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]