This book presents an in-depth study of how the drive to optimize organizational performance can be significantly improved by investigating the causal relationships between profitability, productivity, and sustainability (PPS). This is presented through an assessment of a triple combined therapy that studies the interplay between Organizational DNA, Strategic Alignments for Value, and their implications for Sustainability. Through this approach, this volume seeks to answer critical mind-searching questions and provide useful guides as to how some firms are able to sustainably create higher value or wealth, especially through corporate entrepreneurship, or via the creation of new business models than others. In tackling the three elements of profitability, productivity, and sustainability, this book also provides greater insight through an in-depth study of the pervasively unresolved and disturbing issues surrounding the prospects of increasing the chances of success for entrepreneurial start-off ventures, making it of value to researchers, academics, and students in the fields of organizational studies, strategy, and sustainability.

Sustainable Food and Agriculture: An Integrated Approach is the first book to look at the imminent threats to sustainable food security through a cross-sectoral lens. As the world faces food supply challenges posed by the declining growth rate of agricultural productivity, accelerated deterioration of quantity and quality of natural resources that underpin agricultural production, climate change, and hunger, poverty and malnutrition, a multi-faced understanding is key to identifying practical solutions. This book gives stakeholders a common vision, concept and methods that are based on proven and widely agreed strategies for continuous improvement in sustainability at different scales. While information on policies and technologies that would enhance productivity and sustainability of individual agricultural sectors is available to some extent, literature is practically devoid of information and experiences for countries and communities considering a comprehensive approach (cross-sectoral policies, strategies and technologies) to SFA. This book is the first effort to fill this gap, providing information on proven options for enhancing productivity, profitability, equity and environmental sustainability of individual sectors and, in addition, how to identify opportunities and actions for exploiting cross-sectoral synergies. - Provides proven options of integrated technologies and policies, helping new programs identify appropriate existing programs - Presents mechanisms/tools for balancing trade-offs and proposes indicators to facilitate decision-making and progress measurement - Positions a comprehensive and informed review of issues in one place for effective education, comparison and evaluation

The Egyptian desert can be a hostile place. Yet in 1977, Dr Ibrahim Abouleish founded a new agricultural and social settlement on seventy hectares of desert land in Belbes, 60 km north east of Cairo. The Sekem initiative was born.Dr Abouleish's goals were to build a new type of community. His vision was for a farm which grew biodynamic crops and plants out of the harsh desert sand. Where the workers and residents were given holistic primary health care. Where their children were well-educated in the sciences. A place which could sell its wares and be self-sufficient and self-sustaining. A place where Islamic religion and Western technology could come together in harmony.Nearly thirty years later and Sekem has gone from strength to strength. In 1981 it shipped its first medicinal herbs to the USA; by 2004, it oversaw a network of over 800 farms across Egypt and the Sudan, producing high quality organic crops, herbs, fruits and vegetables. Its mobile health units work with local rural populations and it has brought about real social change.This is the story of Sekem -- the original vision, the challenges and hard work, and the eventual successes -- in Ibrahim Abouleish's own words.Stunningly illustrated with colour photographs throughout.

The ultimate "how-to-do-it" guide for corporate leaders, strategists, academics, sustainability consultants, and anyone else with an interest in actually making sustainability work for organizations. An updated edition of a landmark book at a time when a growing number of corporate leaders are asking for urgent help in "getting this done".

"Presenting topics in the form of questions and answers, this popular supplemental text offers a brief introduction on multiple regression on a conceptual level. Author Paul D. Allison answers the most essential questions (such as how to read and interpret multiple regression tables and how to critique multiple regression results) in the early chapters, and then tackles the less important ones (for instance, those arising from multicollinearity) in the later chapters."--Pub. desc.

This dissertation approaches the question of sustainability and its influence on company performance, with special focus on the manufacturing industry. In the contemporary production environment, manufacturing operations must take into account not only profit, but also environmental and social performance, in order to ensure the long-term development of the company. Companies have to decide whether they should allocate resources to environmental and social practices in order to improve their competitive advantage. Consequently, in decision-making processes concerning operations, it is important for companies to understand how to coordinate profit, people, and planet. The objective of this dissertation was to investigate the current situation regarding manufacturers’ sustainable initiatives, and to explore the relationship between these sustainable practices and companies’ performance, including financial performance, operational performance, innovation performance, environmental performance, and social performance. First of all, a structured literature review was conducted to identify sustainable factors considered to be important in the decision making of manufacturing operations. The findings were synthesized into a conceptual model, which was then adopted as the basis for designing the survey instrument used in this dissertation. Drawing on Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) reports, empirical research was performed to explore the relationship between environmental management practices and company performance. Interestingly, the findings showed that many environmental management practices had a strong positive impact on innovation performance. Sustainability disclosures and financial performance were further analyzed using extended data from the GRI reports. The results also showed that several sustainability performance indicators, such as product responsibility, human rights, and society, displayed a significant and positive correlation with return on equity in the sample companies. In order to further explore the research area and to verify these findings, a triangulation approach was adopted and new data were collected via a survey conducted among middle and large sample companies in the Swedish manufacturing industry. The results indicated that the sustainable improvement practices had a positive impact on company performance. Some environmental and social improvement practices had a direct and positive correlation with product and process innovation. Furthermore, findings suggested that better cooperation with suppliers on environmental work could help to strengthen the organizational green capabilities of the focal companies. When considering the company’s general approach to implementing sustainable practices, some interesting findings emerged. There were limited significant differences in sustainable practices when comparing different manufacturing sectors, and different countries and regions. However, the results showed that Swedish manufacturing companies often place higher priority on implementing economic and environmental sustainability practices than on social ones. This dissertation contributes to the literature on manufacturing sustainability. The study expands the understanding of how environmental, social, or economic perspectives as a triple bottom line can influence company performance and to a certain extent the supply chain. Identifying and understanding such relationships gives companies the opportunity to integrate sustainability into their manufacturing operations strategy in order to sustain their manufacturing operations over the long term.

Should companies be run for profit or purpose? This book shows how they can deliver both-based on rigorous evidence and an actionable framework. This edition, updated to include the pandemic and latest research, explains how managers, investors and citizens can put purpose into practice-and overcome the difficult trade-offs that hold them back.

This book (i) identifies a range of market and social forces driving the private sector toward more responsible environmental stewardship; (ii) shows the need for governments, the private sector, and communities to adjust their relations; (iii) and argues for enhanced enforcement of environmental regulations by governments even as they reach out to the private sector for stronger collaboration in environmental protection.

Sustainable Agriculture and the Environment describes the relationship of agriculture, society, nature and the environment, sustainable agriculture and sustainable development goals, management of biophysical resources for sustainable food and environment, traditional knowledge and innovative options, and social and policy aspects of sustainable agriculture. The book presents both environmental and economic principles, helping readers in the development and application of robust policy and good institutional systems that execute on sustainable agriculture practices for a healthy environment and to combat climate resilience. - Includes case studies that provide real-world insights - Relates traditional knowledge and innovation, maximizing the potential from both - Reinforces our understanding of the role of sustainable agriculture in developing environmentally sustainable and profitable food systems

This SpringerBrief describes the development and use of a synthetic indicator to assess different degrees of sustainability adoption by economic sector and businesses size. To make this analysis a theoretical framework which involves variables common to alternative frameworks (specifically ESG, GRI and Istat) is proposed. The empirical analysis focuses on the environmental, social and economic variables of the Italian businesses. In this analysis, all three pillars of sustainability – economic, environmental, and social – are considered. The work begins with a review of business sustainability literature and a look into institutional frameworks for the development and measurement of the phenomena. Connections between businesses and the SDGs are examined and comparison of the classifications of sustainable activities defined by GRI and ESG international standards is used to define a framework to be adopted to analyse ISTAT Business Census. Selected indicator variables are aggregated with a synthetic indicator and the results are presented (this is a new proposal of a synthetic indicator useful for the type of data used and published by ISTAT – Italian National Statistical Institute), discussing pros and cons of using it. This study provides two important innovative contributions. The first one is about how to approach the theoretical framework of businesses sustainability at firms aggregated level. The basic idea to work on a set of variables common to different approaches is interesting from the interpretative point of view. The second one, is about the specific empirical analysis, i.e. the Italian businesses sustainability situation. The investigation based on this new theoretical classification/framework and the new proposed indicator provides some interesting substantive results.