Futures at Work: Labour Unions’ Viewpoints on Employee-Level Social and Environmental Sustainability

This research work conducted a study that sought to prove the connection between the implementation of social and environmental sustainability with the profitability of enterprises and the creation of economic added value. Expressing social and environmental sustainability as numerical indicators is quite undefined, because companies in Croatia do not have a legal obligation to state them in their business reports and notes. It is just a measure to improve and raise business and market ratings. Therefore, for this research, data on social and environmental sustainability as measurable variables were obtained after a survey conducted among employees and company management on a sample of 126 Croatian companies. The obtained measurable variables for environmental and social sustainability were ultimately put into comparative analysis with the company’s profitability indicators and the created economic added value. This research obtained data that there is a connection between environmental and social sustainability with the profitability of the company and the creation of economic added value, but it is extremely small, social sustainability 0.212 and environmental sustainability 0.243.

A public–private partnership (PPP) upgrades airport services, infrastructures, space, and ground handling systems. The participation of private entities could provide significant sustainability‐related issues since they typically have a profit‐making mindset. Private entities mainly focus on maximising their profits, but public entities are more concerned about attaining social objectives. The differences in their approaches lead to sustainability issues in a PPP airport project. However, studies on the impact of PPP on sustainability are very scarce and limited to other infrastructure sectors like health, education, and so forth. To examine the impact of PPP on Mumbai and Delhi International Airport's sustainability, this study used partial least squares structural equation modelling. The direct impact of private ownership, investment distribution, risk sharing, regulatory intervention, stakeholder engagement, and reputation and credibility on environmental, economic, and social sustainability was examined. The study revealed that PPP improved Mumbai and Delhi's airports' economic sustainability but have a smaller impact on social and environmental sustainability. Existing airports lag in social and environmental sustainability. To achieve social, environmental, and economic sustainability, the government must directly formulate and implement programmes. Regulators regulate JV activities and encourage social and environmental sustainability. Policymakers are likely to benefit most from building a favourable legal framework, commercial viability, and solid economic policies for effective private participation in PPP airports. The study focuses on institutional aspects. It will also help understand the mechanism's impact and how constructions and indicators are managed in PPP airport development.

The article is concerned with studying the impact of soft components of total quality management (TQM) on the company’s environmental and social sustainability. The subject of the research is a set of theoretical, methodical and practical recommendations for implementing the concept of total quality management to ensure sustainable development of a company. The purpose of the article is to theoretically substantiate and develop practical recommendations for identifying the impact of soft TQM on the sustainable development of a company. Achievement of this goal is ensured by fulfilling the following interrelated tasks: to summarise the existing soft TQM practices in the research of scientists, to allocate the features of soft TQM functioning in Ukrainian companies and their success in achieving environmental and social sustainability, to develop recommendations for improving the level of environmental and social sustainability of companies through the implementation of soft TQM practices. The research used general scientific and special methods of cognition: structural-logical, systemic and process approaches, the method of generalisation and comparison, questionnaires, methods of correlation and regression analysis, logical method, method of tabular presentation of data, scientific generalisation. The following results have been obtained: having analysed the work of scientists on the research’s subject, the work of the European Foundation for Quality Management, the aspects of TQM that cover the company’s business activities, as well as the problems that are specific to each of them, have been identified. To identify the level of implementation of detailed issues, a questionnaire was developed and completed by the heads of 68 Ukrainian companies between November 2022 and March 2023. It included a Likert scale assessment of each of the soft TQM dimensions (business management system, HR practices, continuously evolving processes, leading procurement procedures, stakeholder identification, and product competitiveness) based on 28 statements. Five hypotheses were proposed based on the literature on the research topic and our own analytical developments. The data obtained in the course of the survey were analysed using correlation and regression analyses. The results show that two practices – business management systems and human resource management practices – are related to environmental sustainability, while only the business management system is related to social sustainability. The article provides recommendations for supporting the sustainable development of the company. Conclusions. The study demonstrates the effectiveness of TQM practices in ensuring the sustainability of a company’s activities. The business management system affects both environmental and social sustainability of the company. Human resource management practices have a positive impact on environmental sustainability, but not on social sustainability, i.e. organisational factors are key to achieving environmental sustainability. Raising awareness of sustainability is the best way to promote the implementation of procedures that contribute to sustainability. Other TQM practices, such as continuously evolving processes, leading procurement procedures, stakeholder identification, and competitive products, do not affect a company’s environmental and social sustainability. The article raises topics for future research: why human resource management practices and continuously evolving processes do not affect sustainability. It is appropriate to deepen the case studies to identify the mechanisms by which TQM practices contribute to both environmental and social sustainability.

Innovation has been a major growing driver of sustainability. The topic addressed in this study is a much-required transition to environmental and social sustainability considering the role of innovation in pacing up those changes. Digital evolution has greatly helped in dealing with climatic changes and promoting sustainability. This has helped the entrepreneurial organizations to adopt innovative approaches to tackle the inflexible challenges. Few developed and developing countries are at the forefront regarding technological innovation that encounter significant challenges in terms of innovation and adoption of new technologies and there is still a study vacuum as to whether the influence of technical innovation on achieving social and environmental sustainability differs depending on the stage of sustainability. This quantitative study has explored these effects collecting data from the SME's (small and medium enterprises). The findings of the study show that attitude toward technological innovation has a strong role to play in organizational innovation, digital entrepreneurship, environmental and social sustainability. Organizational innovation has been found a strong mediator between technological innovation and sustainability while digital entrepreneurship could not find significant results as mediator. This study will be useful for the countries and organizations involved in adopting new technologies considering their organization's role in achieving an overall eco-friendly and social sustainability.

Despite the growing interest in corporate sustainability, empirical research remains fragmented and inconclusive regarding the impact of social and environmental sustainability on SMEs' competitiveness. Drawing on stakeholder theory and institutional theory, this meta-analytic literature review synthesizes quantitative empirical findings across the extant literature to establish the extent to which corporate sustainability (i.e., social and environmental sustainability) influences SMEs´ competitiveness. The study analyzes 83 studies using psychometric meta-analysis via a random-effects model, with 172,740 observations and 112 study effects. The results of this study can be summarized into several key points. Firstly, both social and environmental sustainability have a significant but moderate effect on SMEs' competitiveness. However, environmental sustainability has a stronger significant effect on SMEs’ competitiveness than social sustainability. Secondly, the impact of social and environmental sustainability on non-financial competitiveness is larger than financial competitiveness. Lastly, contextual factors like economic development, global sustainable competitiveness index (GSCI), and culture (power distance) play a moderating role in the social and environmental sustainability—SME competitiveness relationships. Our findings suggest that implementing sustainability practices by SMEs may require significant costs and resources, albeit investing in these practices can generate a sustainable competitive advantage that outweighs implementation costs for SMEs. This implies that SMEs can strategically invest in social and environmental sustainability, such as by adopting green business models, green chemistry, green messages, circular economy, eco-friendly technologies, and socio-environmental technologies, to enhance their competitiveness in the long run. This comprehensive analysis is crucial as it constructs a more unified understanding of how sustainability practices can contribute to the competitive advantage of SMEs. Theoretically, the study offers a quantitative review of the empirical findings on the relationship between social and environmental sustainability and SMEs' competitiveness to clarify the anecdotal findings and explore the boundary-spanning factors that may explain some of the reasons for the mixed results.

Cooperative economics looks at market failures as areas for development. The cooperative development process, however, requires member engagement or cohesion in the process according to the Cooperative Management Equilibrium Theory. This cohesion requires an awareness and understanding by the cooperative members of the market failure to develop the capacity to address the failure. This article looks at the effects of government agricultural programs on economic, environmental and social sustainability. The questions we ask is how does a focus on economic development push against social and environmental sustainability within the agricultural sector in Togo? Does member cohesion within a cooperative represent a form of Polanyian double movement through social and environmental cohesion? The current development models utilize what Sen refers to as an austere mode of development which forgoes social or environmental considering them luxuries. Does the focus of economic development build capacity only for economic performance within the Togo agricultural sector at the expense of social and environmental sustainability? Utilizing Deep Participatory Indicator Approach (DPIB) approach this paper examines the economic, environmental and social indicators within two prefectures in the Plateaux Region of Togo. Indicators were separated to show the differences between individual or cooperative producers. As cooperatives it was anticipated that a greater emphasis on social and environmental sustainability would be created through cohesive social action. This study found that the emphasis on economic development included in government programs built development capacity within cooperatives emphasizing their cooperative market cohesion.

Purpose Given their ownership model and mandates, state-owned companies (SOEs) are expected to be guardians of sustainability principles encompassing environmental, social, governance and economic considerations, as sustained by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This implies that they have a responsibility to act responsibly socially and operate with transparency and accountability. Within this premise, this paper aims to explore the voluntary sustainability disclosure of SOEs in New Zealand and Australia from 2020 to 2022. Design/methodology/approach The study uses a content analysis approach to examine the voluntary sustainability disclosure of the selected SOEs in the respective nations. The analysis focused on the annual/integrated sustainability reports, as well as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) reports of the SOEs. A disclosure index developed from the 2021 revised GRI Standards indicators was used to assess the level of compliance of the sampled SOEs with the sustainability disclosure requirements outlined in the GRI Standards. The authors used Atlas.ti (Version 24), a qualitative data analysis software, for organizing data points (annual/integrated/GRI/sustainability reports) for data analysis. Findings The findings suggest that the sustainability disclosure of the selected SOEs in both nations is generally inadequate, given the uneven pattern observed across the three-year period. Overall, the results of the study appear to suggest that Australian SOEs exhibit superior sustainability disclosure compared to their New Zealand counterparts, except in environmental sustainability. Among the four sustainability practices considered using the GRI index in New Zealand, environmental sustainability had the greatest disclosure, followed by governance sustainability and then social sustainability, before economic sustainability. Australia’s disclosure on governance sustainability ranked best, followed by environmental and social sustainability, with economic sustainability trailing behind. Generally, the results further indicate that the SOEs also inadequately disclose the generic indicators that may be considered key to all organizations and their operations. The authors gave insights into the likely events of the results before further discussing the results in terms of what the focus of SOEs regarding sustainability disclosure should entail, before analyzing the research, policy and practical consequences of this work and then offering suggestions for further study. Practical implications Considering the characteristics and mandates of SOEs, part of being socially responsible is using public resources in the form of taxpayers’ money in an efficient, effective and accountable manner. The discussion in this paper indicates that paying attention to sustainability issues is part of a broader accountability mechanism expected from SOEs. In this context, the study following its findings noted that for sustainability disclosure to improve in SOEs, owning departments should endeavor to be transparent in constituting the executives of SOEs as well as the board members, as this has direct implications on the activities of the executives, including attention to sustainability practices. Social implications Most SOEs’ mission statements urge them to be socially responsible and improve their owning states’ economies. This rationale alone suggests SOEs should consider sustainability practices, whether they are mandatory or not. Accounting for and disclosing sustainability issues ensures that SOEs pay adequate attention to these issues, thereby improving the impact of SOEs on sustainability disclosure. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper appears to be the first SOE comparative analysis on this topic in Oceania, and it contributes to the developing literature on sustainability disclosure in SOEs, considering that the notable earlier contribution on this topic is in the private sector with only one similar study on sustainability reporting/disclosure in SOEs, acknowledging that there are studies that focused on environmental, social and governance and corporate social responsibility. In this regard, the authors contribute to the developing literature on social, environmental, governance and economic sustainability practices, especially regarding sustainability accounting and disclosure in SOEs, by extending the previous study on sustainability in the context of SOEs, which is about five years.

Current explanations of the business consequences of achieving sustainability goals are incomplete. This paper provides empirical evidence of the effect of environmental and social sustainability on organizational legitimacy. Using structural equation modelling, in a sample of 77 Spanish state and private universities, the results show that achieving environmental and social sustainability goals positively influences organizational legitimacy. Furthermore, there is a positive relationship between environmental sustainability and social sustainability. In the field of legitimacy, this research expands our knowledge on the antecedents of organizational legitimacy. In the field of sustainability, it sheds light on the effects of environmental and social sustainability on organizations. At the same time, we provide empirical support to the link between environmental and social sustainability. For practising professionals, the results justify the relevance of actions supporting environmental and social sustainability.

This article studies trade-offs of farms in terms of economic sustainability (proxied here by technical efficiency), environmental sustainability (proxied here by farmers’ commitment towards the environment) and social sustainability (proxied here by farmers’ contribution to on farm well-being and communities’ well-being). We use the latent class stochastic frontier model and create classes based on three separating variables, representing farms’ environmental sustainability and social sustainability. The application to a sample of Spanish crop farms shows that more environmentally sustainable farms are likely to have lower levels of technical efficiency. However, improvements in social concerns, both towards own farm and the larger community, may lead to improved technical efficiency levels. In general, our study provides evidence of trade-offs for farms between economic sustainability and environmental sustainability, but also between environmental sustainability and social sustainability.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) Safeguard Policies have been the basis for IFC's leadership and approach to environmental and social sustainability. Based largely on the World Bank's operational policies, IFC adopted its current set of Safeguard Policies in 1998 in order to manage environmental and social issues in the private sector business environment in emerging markets. IFC embarked on an ambitious two-year process in FY04 to update all of the Safeguard Policies through a single initiative to develop the next generation of a policy framework based on a clear, concise and comprehensive policy on social and environmental sustainability. Following an intensive review and analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in coverage of the current Safeguard Policies, IFC has recast the Safeguards as a Policy and Performance Standards on Social and Environmental Sustainability. The Performance Standards are often considered the defacto standards even in the absence of IFC participation in the project. They could potentially apply to all projects in developing countries. The Performance Standards contain clear and concise requirements geared toward project outcomes and promote performance improvement through monitoring, reporting and feedback. They place new emphasis on implementation through management systems, deal with social and environmental issues in a more integrated manner, and strengthen policy coverage of issues such as pollution, climate change, and biodiversity. In addition, the Performance Standards address a number of additional subjects of direct concern to the private sector such as labor and working conditions and community health and safety. IFC's social and environmental standards are the building blocks for our approach to sustainability and are embodied in IFC's Safeguard policies, Environmental Health and Safety Guidelines, and Disclosure Policy. Together these provide a framework to help our clients manage project risks and improve their performance, and help IFC improve development outcomes and maximize the development impact of our investments.

This research develops a method to transform the Oregon Benchmarks, a set of internationally recognized quantitative indicators designed to measure a broad array of state-level trends, into indices of social, economic, and environmental sustainability. Through multiple means, an original set of 90 Oregon Benchmarks has been narrowed into a smaller set of sustainability indicators in order to gain an integrated view of statewide sustainability as well as the capacity to look at social, environmental, and economic sustainability in isolation. The three-domain sustainability indices presented here are designed both to understand the current sustainability situation and to create a useful and informative tool for state-level policy makers interested in incorporating sustainability principles into their decision making.

Sustainable design concepts are design concepts that the United Nations and China have been promoting that aim to achieve environmental sustainability, social sustainability, and economic sustainability. In recent years, with the rise of intelligent drying wardrobes, more and more scholars have applied the concept of sustainable design to the theoretical research and design practices of intelligent drying wardrobes. But most of them focus on the research and practice of a certain functional module, while less focus on end users. This study examines users’ perceptions of the functional modules of intelligent drying wardrobes through a questionnaire. It focuses on environmental, social, and economic sustainability. The research also measures users’ satisfaction and the importance of these modules using IPA. From the perspective of end users, the results show that social sustainability is the best option, followed by economic sustainability and environmental sustainability. From the enterprise point of view, the high priority of social sustainability in terms of user’s needs is highlighted. However, in response to sustainable development policy, environmental sustainability is taken as the second most important guiding factor for the development of intelligent drying wardrobe functional modules. This paper fills the current research gap on the differences in users’ perceptions of intelligent drying wardrobe design modules and prioritizes users’ perception decisions on functional modules from the perspective of sustainability, so as to provide some reference for enterprise production.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and pillars of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) are closely associated. The chapter aimed to review the scope of CSR in contributing to pillars of ESG in developing nations. The authors used the Joanna Briggs Institute Methods Manual guidelines and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis for Scoping Review (PRISMA-ScR) as guidelines for this scoping review. Two databases (EBSCOhost and SCOPUS) and a reference list of the relevant systematic reviews were searched. After screening 320 titles and abstracts, followed by sixty-four full texts, thirteen unique documents that fulfilled the eligibility criteria were selected. The result highlighted CSR's role in promoting organizational sustainability through corporate governance, social sustainability. and environmental sustainability. The study gathered evidence to identify the contribution of CSR toward environmental social and governance sustainability and would contribute to the existing literature and further research on sustainable development.

The environmental, economic, and social sustainability of construction project management was researched through a literature review in this study. This paper aimed to analyze the trends in studies about issues in sustainable project management and to research the importance and components of environmental, economic, and social sustainability and their interrelationships. In the scope of the bibliometric analysis, the articles were analyzed by their publication years, authors, authors' countries, authors' organizations, and keyword occurrences. Then, the problems in ensuring the sustainability of construction project management and suggestions for overcoming these problems were reviewed. In previous studies, high energy and raw material consumption and waste became the main factors that prevented environmental sustainability. A strong relationship was found between economic sustainability and life cycle cost assessment, and effective stakeholder engagement is considered the major contributor to the social sustainability of construction management. Sustainability regulations and policies, managerial capabilities, and organizational learning also have critical significance for achieving sustainable construction. The dimensions of sustainability in construction management are closely related to one another, and each one is crucial to achieving the other aspects of sustainability in construction projects. Therefore, a comprehensive strategy that takes into account social, economic, and environmental sustainability criteria should be adopted in construction project management.

The hotel industry in Jordan plays a crucial role in stimulating economic expansion by attracting tourists and creating job prospects. The industry can benefit from the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve sustainability through the promotion of green innovation, efficient resource utilization, and reduction of environmental harm. Hence, this study designs a model to enhance the environmental, economic, and social sustainability in the Jordanian hotels Sector. The study aimed to examine the impact of the AI Capabilities (tangible, intangible and human) on social, economic, and environmental sustainability with the mediating effect of the green innovation. The population of this study is all employees in 19 eco-friendly hotels in Jordan, they were 18,850 distributed over four Jordanian regions (Amman, Aqaba, Dead Sea and Petra). A total of 377 questionnaires distributed to respondents using stratified sampling. The study used SEM with SMART-PLS 4 to analyze the data collected. The measurement model applied to analyze the reliability and reliability of the model, the path coefficient in the structural equation model used to test the study hypotheses. The results of this study supported most of the study’s hypotheses, as it supported the impact of tangible and human capabilities on the sustainability, while the study did not find any direct impact of the intangible capabilities on the sustainability in the hotel sector in Jordan. The results show significant direct impact of the three AI capabilities; tangible, intangible and human on the green innovation, also the study found significant impact of the green innovation on the sustainability. The study confirms the three mediation hypotheses of the green innovation on the impact of the AI capabilities on the sustainability in the Jordanian hotel sector. The study provides important implications to the managers in the Jordanian hotel sector to enhance their environmental, economic and social sustainability by improving AI capabilities and innovation.