Week 3

Concerning the history of corporate sustainability, which of the following claims regarding the three waves of corporate environmentalism is NOT true?

• Knowing that we have exceeded planetary boundaries and thanks to SDGs, Company have realized that incremental changes are not sufficient and that climate should be the only focus

• Around 1960s Governments started setting up departments for environmental issues and issuing regulations that involved the impact of the firms on the environment

• High level corporate disasters made company realize that just being complaint with Governments regulation was not sufficient

• Around 2000s social issues begun integrating with the environmental ones and companies started thinking at sustainability more strategically

Which of the following claims regarding the Sustainability Spectrum is true?

• On the left hand-side of the spectrum there are the regenerative businesses

• Companies who are running their business as usual are positioned in the restorative area

• In the regenerative stage companies don’t have to restore their damages since they are operating in a way such that they are entirely coevolving with nature

• A net positive company is a firm that is restoring natural resources at the same rate they are consumed due to its operations

DESK is a company that is specialized in producing furniture. Their main operations can be summarized in the following stages:

1.     Trees are cut down to acquire the necessary raw materials

2.     The timber is transported to the processing factories using mostly boat and trucks shipping which are not offset

3.     Processing transforms raw materials into finished products

4.     The finished products are transported to the warehouses of the logistics network

We also know that, since the company cares about sustainability:

I.      Every tree cut down for the acquisition of raw materials is replanted by the company

II.     The factory works with totally renewable energy thanks to a park of solar panels installed on site

III.    Processing is not responsible for GHG emissions into the atmosphere

Where would you position the company on the Sustainability Spectrum?

• A

• B

• C

• D

Corporate Sustainability is “the attempt by firms to balance social, economic, and environmental goals.” (Elkington, 1997). This definition of Corporate Sustainability is based on:

• Environmental aspects

• Stakeholders

• The embedded view

• The triple bottom line

According to Benn et al., which of the claims regarding the sustainability phase model that outlines the journey a company takes to become sustainable is NOT true?

• The phase model is designed as a tool for making meaningful comparisons between organizations to assess their current commitment to and practice of behaviors relevant to two kinds of sustainability: human and ecological

• The framework assumes that a firm progresses through the phases step by step in a linear fashion on an ‘improving’ trajectory

• The phases outline a set of nonlinear steps organizations take in progressing to sustainability

• We can use the phases to categorize an organization’s way of treating the human and natural resources it employs

IKEA's regenerative agriculture project is letting the firm achieving which wave of sustainability?

• First wave: rejection and non-responsiveness

• Second wave: compliance, efficiency and strategic pro-activity

• Third wave: the sustaining corporation

• Fourth wave: the embedded corporation

According to which view of Business-Society-Nature, economics treated the environment as an externality and has only a focus on maximization of shareholder wealth and economic growth? Write one word only.

According to the embedded view...

• The business and societal systems have some overlaps and are innately interrelated

• The business system is a component nested within the larger societal system

• Business, society, and nature are relatively equal domains

• Society is a subsystem fully encompassed within business