Abstract
The COVID-19 outbreak has affected societies and organisations in an unprecedented way. This has resulted in negative impacts to economic and social issues, but it is a “blessing in disguise” for environmental issues. This paper analyses how the outbreak has affected organisations’ sustainability priorities. Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, such priorities were on the economic dimension followed by the environmental and social dimensions. A survey was sent to 11,657 organisations to analyse such changes, with a 5.60% response rate. The results show that for organisations, the main priority is now on the social dimension, followed by the economic one; however, the environmental dimension has suffered a negative impact in prioritisation, regardless of organisation type, country where they are based, organisation size, or the time they have been working on sustainability. We are currently facing an environmental conundrum, where air quality has improved and pollution has decreased in societies, but organisations are starting to neglect such environmental issues. The COVID-19 outbreak is an opportunity for organisations to better contribute to sustainability by ensuring that the efforts that have been undertaken in the last three decades are not forgotten, and that societies and organisations are better coupled to face such crises and avert rebound effects.
Highlights
The COVID-19 outbreak has halted economic activities throughout the world [1,2,3], a scenario not seen since the influenza pandemic in 1918
The results show that corporations have concentrated more on economic priorities and less on social ones than the other organisation types, whereas CSOs placed the lowest priority on environmental issues during both periods of time
These analyses show that the different organisation types have had different sustainability priorities, but they all have been affected in a similar way due to COVID-19, with the exception of economic issues
Summary
The COVID-19 outbreak has halted economic activities throughout the world [1,2,3], a scenario not seen since the influenza pandemic in 1918. Several countries and territories have instituted lockdown measures for their organisations (e.g., schools, industries, and businesses), suspended travelling, and closed international and state boundaries [4]. Global oil demand declined drastically and oil prices fell sharply as industrial and transport sectors came to halt worldwide [1,8].
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