Document Type

Conference Paper

Publication Date

2012

Publication Title

Proceedings of the 2012 International Annual Conference of the American Society for Engineering Management

Pages

879-889

Conference Name

Annual International Conference of the American Society for Engineering Management 2012 (ASEM 2012) - Agile Management: Embracing Change and Uncertainty in Engineering Management, Virginia Beach, Virginia, 17-20 October 2012

Abstract

Much like the Quality Revolution did in the 1980's, corporate sustainability has the potential to drive significant changes in the processes and structure of various organizations in the coming decade. With a rapidly growing global population and an ever increasing global demand for resources (Population-Resource-Center, 2012). Sustainability has emerged as one of the primary challenges that organizations will have to deal with in the 21st century. An increasing realization among business executives that profitability by itself is not enough as a measure of success is also driving the increased adoption of sustainable practices in the corporate world (Lowitt and Grimsley, 2009). Many of the non-financial concerns associated with sustainability are being rapidly recognized as ways to provide shareholder value in the long run. Although sustainability in the corporate world should emphasize economic, environmental and social sustainability, in this paper we will concentrate on the environmental issue and present a new model of best-of-breed practices for implementing environmental sustainability into an organization. To help develop this model we will examine the current literature, including a review of various case studies of corporations engaging in environmentally sustainable practices. We aim to identify practices that have been successful in various organizations and can be generalized and applied to other corporations. We believe that such a model can contribute to the understanding of, and the successful implementation of, environmentally sustainable practices throughout the corporate world.

Comments

© 2012 American Society for Engineering Management. Reprinted with permission of the American Society for Engineering Management. International Annual Conference. all rights reserved.

Original Publication Citation

Gandhi, S. J., Perez, S., Rushton, D., Cloutier, R., Bozkurt, I., & Pinto, C. A. (2012). Identification and implementation of patterns towards a model of environmental sustainability. Annual International Conference of the American Society for Engineering Management 2012, ASEM 2012 - Agile Management: Embracing Change and Uncertainty in Engineering Management (pp. 879-889). American Society for Engineering Management.

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