Social and environmental development: Fresh concepts and soft measures towards sustainable development

Abstract

AbstractWith the incremental growth in overall world population, environmental related aftermaths of industrial development are becoming challenges for sustainability. In social perspective, poverty eradication is still the biggest global need which is an indispensable prerequisite for sustainable development (SD). As a solution, business organizations in various industries need to do the efforts with zero‐sum competition for a trailblazing initiative of SD in context of social and environmental protection. Based on triple bottom line theory, this paper introduces the terminologies of social and environmental collective protection (SECP) and social and environmental collective development (SECD) by answering the research question as how the nonprofit orientation can be promoted and sustained within the for‐profit businesses. Using textual analytical approach, this research achieves the main objective to highlight the impact of mutual corporate initiatives as a business strategy on social and environmental sustainability. This article finds that social and environmental development depends upon social and environmental protection when it is measured in terms of collective SD goals. In addition to initiating the new terminologies contributing to the literature of SD measures for society and environment, this paper has practical implications for United Nations (UN) for their 2030 vision of social development for SD. Utilization of this paper is not limited till 2030 because it is expected that a broad range of researchers will use our described concepts for scholarly discussions and future empirical studies.