A Guideline to corporate volunary efforts to contribute to sustainable development

A Guideline to corporate volunary efforts to contribute to sustainable development

Lozano, R.

2010-10-27

This article explores the contribution from different corporate voluntary efforts to sustainable development (SD). It aims to provide a brief overview of the most widely used tools, initiatives, and approaches that have been developed by and for corporations to address environmental and social concerns, within and outside the company. The paper also aims to provide, to a certain extent, a mapping of the efforts to show how they contribute to SD. Some of the efforts in the discussion include life cycle assessment, eco-design, ecoefficiency, cleaner production, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability reporting. This article aims to provide a guideline on some of the most common voluntary efforts by corporations to contribute to sustainability. The article shows that each effort has its advantages in regards to scope and focus, however it also has disadvantages when it comes to dealing with the complexity and broadness of SD. The paper shows that relying solely in one effort results in a narrow contribution to SD. It is proposed that in order to better address the concerns of SD and better contribute to making societies more sustainable, corporations should consider engaging with a combination of efforts.

Corporate sustainability
voluntary tools
management
assessment

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Conference proceedings

conference paper

(c) 2010 Delft University of Technology
The Hague University of Applied Sciences
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