Source: Triple bottom line& sustainability: the science of good business – Sustainability Illustrated (2014)
Mankind is facing huge challenges such as the overconsumption of natural resources faster than they can be replaced, the growing population, the increase of CO2 emissions and an accelerating climate change, which can jeopardize the long term life on Earth. Thus, environmental sustainability and its preservation has become a mainstream issue. This vital subject has been given an impressive focus on media, scholar literature, organisations and governmental agenda. New terms and concepts as sustainable development, corporate sustainability, clean energy, clean technology, sustainability index, sustainable value (Hart and Milstein, 2003), sustainable food, sustainable fashion (Intelligent Life Magazine, 2010), greenwashing (Bradford, 2007; Tiwari, 2011), eco-cities (The Economist, 2014a), eco-hotels (Lima, 2015), green economy (UNEP, 2011), green marketing (Swar, 2013), green homes and so on, have become common ground and require a deeper understanding of them in order to enhance the human and corporation effectiveness towards sustainability. This implies that business leadership must understand the importance of sustainability as well as how to make an effective application of the concept. Margaret Bates, Professor of Sustainable Waste Management at The University of Northampton underlines that “environmental aspects of business behaviour are becoming absolutely key” (Bates, 2014, min.38:47). Extract of the essay “Sustainability”, by Salomé Correia, University of Northampton, April 16th 2015.