Recommending Books for Purchase (Bulletin 70 - May 2020): Sustainability Management

This innovative and engaging book discusses the contribution of business to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations in 2015. It critically analyses selected impact measurement and management tools to highlight their respective benefits and limitations, and also provides guidance on critical management decisions to support high-quality impact measurement and management. The analyses underlying this book are the result of a three year research project conducted by an international consortium in the EU-funded research project GLOBAL VALUE - Managing Business Impact on Development. The research is complemented by examples from corporate practice and expert interviews to demonstrate and measure the contribution of business to sustainable development in the context of the SDGs.

Over the past 30 years sustainability has become increasingly important to scholarly research and business in practice. This book explores a variety of challenges faced by businesses when becoming sustainable and how this links to economic development and its corruption, ethical and taxation implications. Showcasing an interdisciplinary approach, the chapters explore topics such as business ethics, corporate responsibility, tax governance and sustainability practice.

This original book explores how the principles of circularity, considered a law of nature but neglected within the materialistic orientation of the industrial age, are becoming attractive again in business and society. Investigation reveals enterprises small and large delivering a stimulating message, from changes in entrepreneurial mindsets to the inclusive use of new technologies and a push for innovation. Zucchella and Urban explore the novel concept of circular enterprise, showing how, with their capacity to innovate, these firms are becoming the most powerful actors of a new, sustainable social order. They examine two fundamental questions: why is this revolution occurring now, and how is it being implemented? Focusing on the most innovative practices, they demonstrate the potential of circular enterprise for industry and wider society, making clear that a new world is emerging.

This book focuses on the crucial sustainability challenge of reducing food waste at the level of consumer-society. Providing an in-depth, research-based overview of the multifaceted problem, it considers environmental, economic, social and ethical factors. Perspectives included in the book address households, consumers, and organizations, and their role in reducing food waste. Rather than focusing upon the reasons for food waste itself, the chapters develop research-based solutions for the problem, providing a much-needed solution-orientated approach that takes multiple perspectives into account. Chapters 1, 2, 12 and 16 of this book are available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com

Responding to the pressing need of business schools to incorporate sustainability thinking into their curricula, this new book offers fresh thinking on how to achieve this in practical terms. Structured on a typical MBA programme, each chapter explores how sustainability thinking can be integrated into existing subject areas. Rather than being prescriptive, the chapters provide opportunities to reflect on successes as well as challenges associated with embedding sustainability into MBA courses. Contributors explore the employability implications of sustainability and how these are reflected in course designs, pedagogy and assessments. Filling an important gap in current literature, Incorporating Sustainability in Management Education provides important support to Higher Education Institutes who must quickly adapt to this desired change in business school curricula. 

The aim of this edited book is to provide a comprehensive overview of the opportunities and challenges related to innovation for sustainability. Combining work from both emerging and established scholars in different academic fields, this book provides an integrated understanding of the topic from four perspectives. First, the big picture: frameworks, types, and drivers; second, strategy and leadership; third, measurement and assessment and fourth, tools, methods and technologies. Chapter 11 of this book is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com. The editors donate their remuneration for this book to conservation organisation the WWF.

This book proposes an integrated approach to sustainability reporting, the goal being to overcome certain limitations of the well-established additive approach, where the reporting of environmental, social and economic issues is sequential, but separate. It argues that, in order to successfully communicate its commitment to sustainability, a company should report on how environmental and social issues impact its way of doing business, namely its business model, contributing to value creation. Thus, a reporting framework for business models that encompasses sustainability is presented. In turn, a number of illustrative examples are examined to show how business model reporting could be optimally used to provide effective and integrated sustainability reporting.  The book also offers a broad analysis of corporate sustainability reporting, which includes a discussion of the theoretical background, an explanation of why companies provide sustainability reporting, a description of the current regulatory framework for sustainability disclosure, and a review of sustainability reporting literature that shows the main characteristics of sustainability disclosure practices.  Given its scope, the book will be of interest to all researchers and practitioners working for companies or organizations that aim to support, implement and improve their sustainability reporting, by adopting a more integrated approach that interconnects environmental and social aspects with the economic and financial results via the business model. The book also offers a valuable reference guide for social science researchers, including PhD students, interested in a discussion of the latest literature on sustainability, corporate social responsibility, and the communication of business models.   

This book discusses various aspects of future intelligent power grids, covering key topics including the operation of smart grids and microgrids, resource optimization, and energy management. Over the last few decades, the use of solar photovoltaics (PVs) and wind turbine generators has increased significantly in an effort to make future power systems sustainable. However, the intensive integration of renewables in existing electrical networks has raised several control and operational issues due to their limited dispatch capability and intermittent generation. In addition, integrating new electrical loads, such as those produced by electric vehicles, heat pumps, and electric water heaters, in existing distribution networks negatively impacts the power-balance scenario. As such, these developments present both challenges and opportunities for the research community. Against this backdrop, the book not only discusses the challenges and their potential solutions, but also outlines future research directions that could help make future power grids intelligent, adaptive, and resilient. It presents insights from academia, industry, and research institutions on understanding, modeling, and analyzing the control and operation of intelligent power grids of the future.

This book provides a rich collection of essays discussing and showcasing the transformation of businesses around the world towards sustainability and responsibility. Based on a framework of global theoretical approaches, it presents practical examples and cases from a variety of industries, regions and corporate functions. It also highlights the latest insights on how corporations consider sustainability in the governance of their respective organization. Furthermore, the book features a section dedicated to responsible finance, and outlines business and management-driven approaches that contradict the traditionally held belief that a trade-off exists between sustainability, social responsibility and profit.

This edited book discusses lean production as a suitable platform for global development by developing systems and products in a quicker, costless and sustainable way and educate people for a lean consumption. Lean thinking principles are totally and synergistically aligned with a lot of disciplines and current issues such as logistic, supply chain, construction, healthcare, ergonomics, education, project management, leadership, coaching, startup, product development, farming and sustainable development. Lean-Green is particularly related to this last issue, sustainable development, the first global challenge for humanity that are totally connected to all remaining 14 global challenges because they are interdependent. Attaining these challenges could bring solutions for the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Lean Production and Consumption have an important role in providing these solutions, by systematically reducing wastes in all activities performed, and at the same time, instruct people in having a lean consumption. The target audience primarily comprises research experts in lean management, but the book may also be beneficial for practitioners alike. 

This book utilizes big data to undertake a cluster analysis of medical accidents. Highlighting shared worldwide accident patterns, it represents a first step toward reducing the incidence of accidents through kaizen innovation driven by information and communications technology. This initiative comes against a background where medical accidents are currently the third largest cause of death after heart attack and cancer, making accident prevention an urgent concern. With the objective of preventing these accidents, which negatively impact numerous different stakeholders, and based on interdisciplinary research, the book examines (1) the application of data mining to identify shared accident patterns; (2) proposals for system improvement and organizational innovation aimed at risk and resilience in crisis management; and (3) the use of a global platform to achieve sustainability in the Internet of Medicine (IoM).

In this edited volume, academics and practitioners from various disciplines investigate the challenges, opportunities and frameworks in the implementation of Smart Cities in the Gulf. The volume presents insightful analyses and identifies key lessons learned through case studies covering four main themes including smart city frameworks and governance, resources and infrastructure, information and communication technologies, and the social perspective. In doing so, the book provides policy recommendations related to smart governance, as well as overall frameworks that cities can adopt in their process of transition, and knowledge that is integral to bridge the gap between various stakeholders in the Smart City milieu.  This edited volume comprises extended versions of papers presented at a workshop held at the University of Cambridge, UK titled "Smart Cities in the GCC: Current State, Opportunities and Challenges."

This book provides a comprehensive exploration into the identification and development of sustainable business models as well as their implementation, management and evaluation. With ever-increasing pressure on organisations to respond to societal change and improve competition through sustainable business model innovation (SBMI), this book aims to contribute to the knowledge of their design and management. The chapters explore the role of partnerships, the Internet of Things and the circular economy, among other factors, in developing SBM and how SBMI is facilitated through ideation and in entrepreneurial settings. Providing new typologies, patterns and a framework to evaluate the level of sustainability of business models, this book critically reviews existing literature on the topic to examine the potential of SBMI in research and in practice. The contributing authors employ a number of case studies and case examples to illustrate the integration of sustainable business models throughout the value chain, and their influence on wider social, environmental and business activities.

The book includes empirical research papers and case studies embracing human capital, relational capital and structural capital in context to services and manufacturing sectors. It will highlight on the sustainable business practices manifested in the work culture, values and beliefs in context to rural regions. From a learning and managerial perspective, the book will identify effective business practices in varied service and manufacturing sectors significant for sustaining business performance and competitive advantage.

This book presents five critical dimensions on relationships, institutions, produc- tion, organisation, and governance from design and systems perspectives for the systematic transition of unstable and vulnerable communities across the world to sustainable community systems. * The first section discusses features of relationships and processes to deepen cooperation and trust within a community. * The second section examines institutions within and outside a district to foster synergy across institutions within a district and to minimise negative externalities on local communities within a district. * The third section deals with food production systems that are nature- friendly, resilient, efficient and sustainable. * The fourth section discusses the design of producer organisations that can graduate to become sustainable community enterprise systems. * The fifth section focuses on community governance that can facilitate decentralised, participatory, transparent and democratic local governance systems. This book * offers a fresh perspective on design thinking for optimising internal design consistencies. * provides a systems perspective on building sustainable community systems at the lowest governance unit in different countries, such as Ward/Gram Panchayat/Panchayat Council/Gewong/Union Council/GN. * gives insights into design & systems perspectives towards building sustainable community systems within a district of any country across the world.