12 Management Principles

Within a historical perspective, the definition of sustainable management has been evolving since the sixties, with a particular event triggering global awareness of management community, as mentioned previously, the Brundtland Report in 1987 (Hoffman and  Ehrenfeld 3). The academic scholars studying the concept evolution agree that it has been experiencing some sort of phases, such as  Industrial Environmentalism in the beginning of the sixties, a phase in which industries succeeded to discredit environmental organizations. Early in the seventies, just after the creation of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a new phase, defined as Regulatory Environmentalism, started and companies simply focused on being compliant with law. The growth of influence of major NGO during mid eighties opened room for a new phase, designated Social Responsible Environmentalism, producing more cooperation between companies and environment activists. Proactive management of environment...

The world was facing numerous challenges to sustainable development, when the resolution   Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development  was signed by leaders of all countries participating in the General Assembly of UN dated 25 September 2015. Among those most important challenges, poverty, inequalities, disparities of opportunity, wealth and power, global health threats, natural resource depletion and climate change stood out in the final resolution document, underlining the fact that in many parts of the world societies and biological support systems are at risk (2030 Agenda 6). The announced Agenda included 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) with 169 associated targets, integrated and indivisible, set to benefit all signing States for today’s generation and for future generation, and to be implemented in a manner consistent with international law. Out of 15 years timeframe for targets achievement, more than 20% has already elapsed, without t...

As Hartmut Bossel mentions, there are some words that cannot be clearly defined because they carry several meanings, and that would be the case of "Sustainability" (Bossel 7). Moreover, he states that: “Sustainability” therefore has physical, material, ecological, social, cultural, psychological and ethical dimensions. Human society can be sustainable only if it is sustainable on all of these counts. A tall order, but there is one more important requirement: sustainability must remain a dynamic concept. Societies and their environments change, technologies and cultures change, values and aspirations change, and a sustainable society must allow and sustain such change. ( Ibidem ) Embarking in a sustainable path requires conscious decisions from all stakeholders, who will have to accept development without tangible growth of, for instance, levels of non-renewable energy and non-recyclable materials consumption (Bossel 8). Sustainability is a never-ending journey, requi...