Sustainability and Sustainable Development

Abstract

Sustainability involves development that meets the needs of the present without compromising future generations' prosperity. Organizational communication research on sustainability and sustainable development can be grouped in four broad areas: examining sustainability in terms of organizational viability in the presence of ongoing internal and external tensions, the environmental aspects of corporate social responsibility initiatives, corporate communication on broader environmental impacts, and resilience by complex adaptive systems. Three key directions for future research are identified on the basis of past scholarship: communication in interdisciplinary contexts, examination of sustainability messages to provide greater conceptual clarity, and a practice based approach to implementation of sustainable organizing.