Developing Sustainability Through Collaborative Action

Abstract

Sustainability continues to be a concept which is at the forefront of popular discourse as well as of concern to businesses, governments and major international bodies. Often, it is used in ways which have different meanings and implications, so we argue that its use is based on the concepts of stewardship of all resources coupled with the traditional view of the transformational process of business. We further argue that this is problematic in the present global environment when stewardship of resources is becoming paramount. We therefore argue that sustainability is actually based on efficiency in the transformational process and equity in the distribution of effects. This requires international cooperation together with a need for standards in analysing and measuring sustainability, and we discuss the implications.