Promoting corporate sustainability through sustainable resource management: A hybrid decision-making approach incorporating social media data

Previous studies revealed triple bottom line cannot entirely cover the concept of corporate sustainability. This study thus uses sustainable resource management (SRM) to improve corporate sustainability (CS) performance considering the socio-environmental, socio-economical, and eco-efficiency aspects. In this study, the vague set (VS) theory and the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) method are integrated as a hybrid decision-making tool by which social media data can be transformed into entropy weights. The results indicate eco-efficiency and society should be prioritized to improve the corporate sustainability performance. Specifically, the aspects should be promoted through encouraging environmental innovation, redesigning consumers' offer, raising support of the institutions and policy measures, and organizing synergetic involvement. The contributions of this study are three-fold: (i) establishing a comprehensive framework for guiding firms make effective improvements; (ii) developing a hybrid VS-TOPSIS method to process the assessment data and social media information and address the interrelationships; (3) identifying the decisive SRM criteria to precisely guide the Chinese automobile industry towards CS under severe resource constraints.     

A Strategic Project Appraisal framework for ecologically sustainable urban infrastructure

Actors in the built environment are progressively considering environmental and social issues alongside functional and economic aspects of development projects. Infrastructure projects represent major investment and construction initiatives with attendant environmental, economic and societal impacts across multiple scales. To date, while sustainability strategies and frameworks have focused on wider national aspirations and strategic objectives, they are noticeably weak in addressing micro-level integrated decision making in the built environment, particularly for infrastructure projects. The proposed approach of this paper is based on the principal that early intervention is the most cost-effective and efficient means of mitigating the environmental effects of development projects, particularly macro infrastructure developments. A strategic overview of the various project alternatives, taking account for stakeholder and expert input, could effectively reduce project impacts/risks at low cost to the project developers but provide significant benefit to wider communities, including communities of future stakeholders. This paper is the first exploratory step in developing a more systematic framework for evaluating strategic alternatives for major metropolitan infrastructure projects, based on key sustainability principles. The developed Strategic Project Appraisal (SPA) framework, grounded in the theory of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), provides a means of practically appraising project impacts and alternatives in terms of quantified ecological limits; addresses the neglected topic of metropolitan infrastructure as a means of delivering sustainability outcomes in the urban context and more broadly, seeks to open a debate on the potential for SEA methodology to be more extensively applied to address sustainability challenges in the built environment. Practically applied and timed appropriately, the SPA framework can enable better decision-making and more efficient resource allocation ensuring low impact infrastructure development.     

Assessing corporate project impacts in changeable contexts: A human rights perspective

Project-level impact assessment was originally conceived as a snapshot taken in advance of project implementation, contrasting current conditions with a likely future scenario involving a variety of predicted impacts. Current best practice guidance has encouraged a shift towards longitudinal assessments from the pre-project stage through the implementation and operating phases. Experience and study show, however, that assessment of infrastructure-intensive projects rarely endures past the project's construction phase. Negative consequences for environmental, social and health outcomes have been documented. Such consequences clarify the pressing need for longitudinal assessment in each of these domains, with human rights impact assessment (HRIA) as an umbrella over, and critical augmentation of, environmental, social and health assessments. Project impacts on human rights are more closely linked to political, economic and other factors beyond immediate effects of a company's policy and action throughout the project lifecycle. Delineating these processes requires an adequate framework, with strategies for collecting longitudinal data, protocols that provide core information for impact assessment and guidance for adaptive mitigation strategies as project-related effects change over time. This article presents general principles for the design and implementation of sustained, longitudinal HRIA, based on experience assessing and responding to human rights impact in a uranium mining project in Malawi. The case study demonstrates the value of longitudinal assessment both for limiting corporate risk and improving human welfare.     

A research framework for studying social impacts: Application to the field of mining

Given the growing amount of attention shown to the social dimension of natural resources and mining governance, there is a need for more informed research-oriented approaches to studying social impacts. This article analyzes the features of Social Impact Assessment (SIA) studies from the academic research perspective and presents a framework for social impact research. By academic research, the article refers to studies on social impacts conducted purely for research purposes, not impact assessment processes.Research is always one aspect of the SIA process. At the same time, there is a lack of general methodological literature offering guidance on how assessing social impacts can contribute to social studies research. The guiding documents on SIA are largely intended for practical-level planning and management processes, which limits their applicability for academic purposes. The proposed framework draws both from traditional social science methods and existing scholarly and guiding literature on SIA. The research framework consists of four interlinked phases: 1) research preparations, 2) background studies (including proposed project, national and local context), 3) fieldwork, and 4) analysis. The framework is designed to direct attention to the relevant aspects of research methods, theory building, fieldwork implementation, and research choices for data analysis. Thus, the framework provides a flexible, but comprehensive, multi-level approach for examining social impacts, which can be adapted for a wide range of social-scientific mining research. The analysis and developed framework will help academic researchers better study the social impacts of mining and make better use of existing SIA studies in academic life.     

Ecosystem services inclusive strategic environmental assessment

A consistent framework to address biodiversity, ecosystem services and their societal values is now established with the MEA (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment) and the TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity). These and other studies point to the urgency in considering actions that can revert the process of degradation of biodiversity values and its supporting ecosystems. Safeguarding livelihoods is a common objective in ecosystem approaches as well as in strategic environmental assessment (SEA) effort to promote sustainability. Human activities, as direct and indirect development drivers, are crucial targets for SEA to have a strategic contribution in influencing priorities, by showing strategic reasons for change. Rather than keeping only a control and mitigation role on the assessment of effects and impacts of development on the environment, SEA has the capacity to understand the decisional and development context and to drive development opportunities into pathways that are inclusive of environmental and sustainability priorities. The development opportunities provided by ecosystem services can be explored in SEA through strategic approaches to enhance the value of the benefits and avoid the negative impact of human actions on ecosystem services. SENSU, a research team at IST-Portugal, advocates the strategic-based and collaborative oriented approach in SEA based on Partidario (2007) SEA framework of critical decision factors (CDF). A methodology to allow the consideration of ecosystem services in SEA is being developed and tested. This paper will share research advances on how ecosystem services can be incorporated into SEA as a fundamental component of strategic assessment in support of decision-making.     

Sustainability assessment framework for scenarios – SAFS

To address current challenges regarding sustainable development and support planning for this form of development, new learning about different possible futures and their potential sustainability implications is needed. One way of facilitating this learning is by combining the futures studies and sustainability assessment (SA) research fields.This paper presents the sustainability assessment framework for scenarios (SAFS), a method developed for assessing the environmental and social risks and opportunities of future scenarios, provides guidelines for its application and demonstrates how the framework can be applied. SAFS suggests assessing environmental and social aspects using a consumption perspective and a life cycle approach, and provides qualitative results. SAFS does not suggest any modelling using precise data, but instead offers guidelines on how to carry out a qualitative assessment, where both the process of assessing and the outcome of the assessment are valuable and can be used as a basis for discussion.The benefits, drawbacks and potential challenges of applying SAFS are also discussed in the paper. SAFS uses systems thinking looking at future societies as a whole, considering both environmental and social consequences. This encourages researchers and decision-makers to consider the whole picture, and not just individual elements, when considering different futures.     

An integrated method for the assessment of social sustainability in public-works procurement

Today, critical deficiencies hinder the effective inclusion of social criteria in public-works procurement. The primary reasons for this are the lack of information and objective social assessment methods in the construction industry. Hence, this paper proposes a method to assist agencies in including indicators and objective assessments of social sustainability in public-works procurement. This method applies to civil engineering projects in the infrastructure life-cycle construction stage using design-bid-build delivery. Eight social categories and 22 factors are organized into two organizational levels (project and company). Quantitative and semi-quantitative indicators are proposed to assess the social commitment of construction companies in their organizations and projects. Additionally, two aggregation formulas are established as assessment criteria in public-works procurement. The results highlight that the indicators' importance in assessing social commitment in a project can be defined depending on the local context. Moreover, the method to assess corporate social responsibility can also measure and compare a company's performance, regardless of size. The proposed method can be used in procurement procedures, helping public-works procurers develop transparent decision processes.     

Transition to Lead-Free Products in the US Electronics Industry: A Model of Environmental,Technical, and Economic Preferences

The European Union’s Restriction on the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances (Directive 2002/95/EC) targeted at electronic products took effect in 2006. In contrast, the USA has no comparable national policy on these products. To understand corporate responses to policy differences across jurisdictions, we conducted a structured-questionnaire survey of individuals in 109 companies that are representative of the US electronics industry. The results reveal that 70% of these companies have already adopted lead-free solder for electronics with 49% of the total preferring the SnAgCu formulation, despite uncertainties associated with environmental impacts of this alternative alloy. We use a modified life cycle impact assessment method based on endpoint modeling approach to derive weighting factors that represent the respondents’ value system for tradeoffs among environmental impacts. We use a modified fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution approach to evaluate technical criteria dominance in declared preferences. A statistical model of corporate behavior is also presented. The results provide the first systematic framework that accounts for environmental impact, technological challenge, and business strategy concurrently toward formulating a comprehensive national policy for materials selection in electronic products.     

A new method to assess the sustainability performance of events: Application to the 2014 World Orienteering Championship

Nowadays an increasing attention of public and private agencies to the sustainability performance of events is observed, since it is recognized as a key issue in the context of sustainable development. Assessing the sustainability performance of events involves environmental, social and economic aspects; their impacts are complex and a quantitative assessment is often difficult. This paper presents a new quali-quantitative method developed to measure the sustainability of events, taking into account all its potential impacts. The 2014 World Orienteering Championship, held in Italy, was selected to test the proposed evaluation methodology. The total carbon footprint of the event was 165.34 tCO₂eq and the avoided emissions were estimated as being 46 tCO₂eq. The adopted quali-quantitative method resulted to be efficient in assessing the sustainability impacts and can be applied for the evaluation of similar events.     

Who cares? Don't underestimate the values of SEA monitoring!

Until now, monitoring of large-scale regional funding programmes has been rare, although their large scope and abstract planning targets generally involve high levels of uncertainty. This study applies and examines a newly developed methodological approach for monitoring such programmes. It also critically reflects to what extent the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) contributes to a better consideration of environmental sustainability and to a learning effect among the stakeholders as well as within the decision-making process. The interviews conducted during the SEA monitoring revealed a very low recognition of the SEA, and its content, among project applicants of the transnational regional funding programme. They further show that more information on the SEA and its recommendations to mitigate negative environmental impacts would be beneficial in the future. Overall, the monitoring confirmed, however, that the institutions responsible for the programme were aware of the benefits of considering environmental sustainability. The long-term application of SEA in an iterative process provided positive learning effects on environmental sustainability and awareness for environmental aspects. This study also shows how SEA monitoring can serve as a tool to enhance visibility and foster communication among decision makers and applicants.     

Transitions-based strategic environmental assessment

Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is emerging as an important tool for sustainability transitions, yet there has been limited research conceptualizing transitions-based SEA. If SEA's primary goal is to facilitate strategic change and guide decision-processes toward sustainability, an assessment framework that accounts for the multi-dimensional factors and relationships influencing transition processes seems highly relevant. This paper advances the transitions-based SEA design – an approach to SEA that is focused on the institutional environment and policy context for the development of strategic initiatives including institutional commitments, supporting policies, and opportunities. We do so within the context of energy transitions, bridging strategic planning theories, decision making, and transition management. Building on existing SEA frameworks that advance strategic thinking, the paper presents the foundational principles and strategic questions to be asked in a transitions-based SEA design. The framework was developed based on a review of sustainability transitions and SEA literature supplemented by expert input. The SEA design focuses on the guiding vision for transitions, the institutional context and governance arrangements, opportunities and risks of proposed sustainability pathways, progress indicators for on-going transition management, and impacts of the exogenous landscape. The framework defines a new functionality for SEA, pushing the boundaries of what SEA can achieve, and should accomplish, as a strategic assessment tool while also challenging conventional thinking and practice beyond its application to policies, plans and programs.     

A framework for guiding sustainability assessment and on-farm strategic decision making

Responding to future challenges and societal needs, various actions are taken in agriculture to evolve towards more sustainable farming practices. These actions imply strategic choices and suppose adequate sustainability assessments to identify, measure, evaluate and communicate sustainable development. However, literature is scarce on the link between strategic decision making and sustainability assessment. As questions emerge on how, what and when to measure, the objective of this paper is to construct a framework for guiding sustainability assessment and on-farm strategic decision making. Qualitative research on own experiences from the past and a recent project revealed four categories of actual needs farmers, advisors and experts have regarding sustainability assessment: context, flexibility, focus on farm and farmer and communication. These stakeholders' needs are then incorporated into a two-dimensional framework that marries the intrinsic complexity of sustainability assessment tools and the time frame of strategic decision making. The framework allows a farm-specific and flexible approach leading to harmonized actions towards sustainable farming. As this framework is mainly a procedural instrument to guide the use of sustainability assessment tools within strategic decision making, it fits to incorporate, even guide, future research on sustainability assessment tools themselves and on their adoption on farms.     

An integrated modelling framework to assess long-term impacts of water management strategies steering soil subsidence in peatlands

Around the world many peatlands are managed unsustainably. Drainage of the peat causes soil subsidence and a range of negative societal impacts. Integrated strategies are required to ensure more sustainable long-term settings, based on impact assessment models that simulate the interrelated dynamics of water management and soil subsidence, and determine the spatial and temporal range of societal impacts. This paper presents an integrated modelling framework that meets these requirements. We used the framework to assess the impacts of a range of water management strategies in Dutch peatlands. Average soil subsidence rates were shown to range from 0.6 to 4.5 mm·y^− 1, resulting in marked differences in societal impacts that affect stakeholders unequally. Moreover, the impacts on real estate damage and water system maintenance revealed inverse trends that result in increasingly unbalanced cost-benefit ratios. The generated insights led the regional water authority to change their current water management strategy, preventing unsustainable future developments. We find the results relevant for improving stakeholders' awareness of long-term impacts of management strategies, and making negotiation processes on goals, means, and possible future pathways more transparent.     

The Sustainability Dynamics Framework – A holistic approach to define and evaluate sustainability and unsustainability in the Anthropocene

The significant role and impact of humans in fostering environmental change, at all spatial-temporal scales, has been formally recognised by the development and inclusion of the Anthropocene epoch into the standardised geological time scale. Due to the role and impacts that humans are having, it is necessary to develop an understanding of the co-evolutionary relationship between humans and the environment in the Anthropocene – Specifically, in relation to the fundamental dynamics of sustainability and unsustainability. This requires the development of approaches which are capable of developing new holistic knowledge concerning the fundamental dynamics of sustainability/unsustainability operating at any specified spatial-temporal scale(s) in the Anthropocene. Henceforth, this paper proposes a holistic quantitative framework - the Sustainability Dynamics Framework. The framework integrates and extends four fundamental theories concerning the environment-human relationship into a single framework. The framework is then demonstratively applied for the first time to determine and analyse the fundamental dynamic relationships between indicated levels of sustainability (S-values) and various influencing factors, significantly expanding upon previously obtained results and analysis in Phillips (2015). The demonstrative application indicates that the SDF has a potential contribution towards advancing knowledge concerning the dynamics of sustainability/unsustainability in the Anthropocene. This will be demonstrated through the future applications of the SDF to newly developed case studies of a multi spatial-temporal nature.     

The institutional dynamics behind limited human health considerations in environmental assessments of coal mining projects in New South Wales,Australia

Coal extraction remains supported in many countries despite a global context challenging the industry. A large evidence base links coal with negative consequences for human health. Environmental assessments (EAs) are regulated in nearly every country to assess and set conditions for large industry projects, including coal mines, but tend to exclude health impacts. This study investigated the institutional dynamics surrounding the inclusion of health in coal mining EAs in New South Wales, Australia. Semi-structured interviews with varied stakeholders were supported by a review of legislation, relevant case law and media analysis. Using insights from theories on power and institutions the findings show how EA practice is influenced by the politicization of coal mining that excludes potentially negative narratives surrounding the known human health impacts of coal. Poor EA practice is compounded by legislative ambiguity and lack of conceptual understanding about assessing health. EA's legislative purpose of approving projects undermines confidence that a balanced assessment of impacts has been made. EA is seen as a pro-industry process that disempowers those with dissenting voices. The research explains how the institutional dynamics of a policy process like EA challenge its potential to meaningfully engage with the impact of coal mining on human health.     

Social Impact Management Plans: Innovation in corporate and public policy

Social Impact Assessment (SIA) has traditionally been practiced as a predictive study for the regulatory approval of major projects, however, in recent years the drivers and domain of focus for SIA have shifted. This paper details the emergence of Social Impact Management Plans (SIMPs) and undertakes an analysis of innovations in corporate and public policy that have put in place ongoing processes – assessment, management and monitoring – to better identify the nature and scope of the social impacts that might occur during implementation and to proactively respond to change across the lifecycle of developments. Four leading practice examples are analyzed. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) Performance Standards require the preparation of Environmental and Social Management Plans for all projects financed by the IFC identified as having significant environmental and social risks. Anglo American, a major resources company, has introduced a Socio-Economic Assessment Toolbox, which requires mine sites to undertake regular assessments and link these assessments with their internal management systems, monitoring activities and a Social Management Plan. In South Africa, Social and Labour Plans are submitted with an application for a mining or production right. In Queensland, Australia, Social Impact Management Plans were developed as part of an Environmental Impact Statement, which included assessment of social impacts. Collectively these initiatives, and others, are a practical realization of theoretical conceptions of SIA that include management and monitoring as core components of SIA. The paper concludes with an analysis of the implications for the practice of impact assessment including a summary of key criteria for the design and implementation of effective SIMPs.     

An Optimization Model for Integrated Coastal Management: Development and a Case Study Using Italy’s Comacchio Municipality

In this paper, I develop an optimization model for integrated coastal management in which decisions arise from an area-based algorithm that minimizes predicted damage caused by beach erosion and inshore flooding, while accounting for economic, social, and environmental losses. The model favors the involvement of stakeholders in coastal management, but does not use complicated assessment procedures for non-economic indicators or relative weights to combine economic, social, and environmental indicators. Instead, the integration between economic activities or properties and the environmental status and landscape is represented objectively and non-linearly by referring to initial and sustainability conditions, combined with budgetary and environmental constraints. The model successfully accounted for both human and environmental dynamics by depicting delayed effects, neighborhood externalities, and feedback effects. It calculated a single optimal value for each integrated coastal management strategy, which permitted the support of future decisions and the evaluation of past decisions. The model’s insights were based on reliable estimates, with reliability determined by calculating the confidence level. The model was successfully applied to Italy’s Comacchio coastal municipality, where it revealed the priorities for optimal beach nourishment, dune fixation, and residential and holiday housing development based on budget constraints, beach losses, flood damage, pollution impacts, and land-use constraints.     

Adapting social impact assessment to address a project's human rights impacts and risks

We address the weaknesses inherent in the social risk assessments undertaken for business, especially in the extractive industries. In contrast to the conventional approach that considers consequence to the company rather than to impacted communities, conformance with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights requires that consequence to affected communities has precedence. In order for social risks to be properly assessed, we consider that: companies need to know and understand the human rights impacts of their activities; contemporary approaches to project impact and risk assessment need to be adapted to consider human rights; and environmental impact assessment (EIA) and social impact assessment (SIA) methods need to be adapted to give greater attention to impacts on human rights. Using an example from the mining, oil and gas sector, we provide a method that differentiates social risks from business risks, and we position impact assessment as an instrument that actively facilitates the improved identification, analysis and management of social risks. Practical adaptations to SIA activities and risk assessment processes are provided. Taking human rights impacts into account and using the dimensions of gravity, extent, vulnerability and remediability, we nominate criteria to assess the significance of negative social impacts.     

Environmental sustainability assessment in supply chain: An emerging economy context

Environmental sustainability is not being practiced in the supply chains of many industries. Previous studies on environmental sustainability have not outlined clear strategies to achieve sustainability across supply chains, particularly in the context of emerging economies, and have been of limited relevance in settings beyond the geographical region of their focus. To address these gaps, we have proposed a best worst method (BWM) as a framework to assess the environmental criteria for sustainability in select industries in Bangladesh. Different industrial activities or criteria affecting the environment in various ways were assessed and weighted using the BWM. To ensure the efficiency and accuracy of this framework, we sought the opinions of 34 experts to specify the most suitable indicators from our initial literature review. Findings from this study revealed that “waste management” was the most important indicator for establishing environmental sustainability in industries in Bangladesh, which was substantiated by a sensitivity analysis. This research will assist industry managers and entrepreneurs to work toward environmental sustainability across supply chains.     

Strategic Environmental Assessment for development programs and sustainability transition in the Colombian post-conflict context

This article offers a critical analysis of the applicability and relevance of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) in the post-conflict period in Colombia as a means to support societal sustainability transition and avoid the depletion of natural resources and the emergence of new conflicts. Colombia, emerging from decades of war between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), is experiencing an urgent need to allocate financial resources to large-scale projects with the aim of supporting post-conflict development activities, potentially resulting in rapid and hyper-development conditions and causing severe environmental impacts. Theoretically, SEA can be seen as one way to assist the Colombian government in their strategic decision-making and planning. However, the use of SEA will be bound by the post-conflict conditions and the more general institutional setting in Colombia. This article is focused on identifying the opportunities and challenges arising from the post-conflict context and the SEA action arena in Colombia. By doing this, the article provides a better understanding of institutional processes and resources in Colombia and contributes to the limited scholarly literature that is available on the application of SEA in post-conflict contexts, including research on the institutional capacity involved.