Sustainability and the European Waste Management Industry

Jones Peter,Comfort Daphne

doi:10.36959/742/217

Abstract

Waste raises a range of environmental problems within Europe and sustainability has become an increasingly important challenge for the waste management industry. The aim of this paper is to offer an exploratory review of the approaches to sustainability within the European waste management industry. The paper begins with brief outlines of waste and the waste management industry in Europe and the growing interest in sustainability reporting. This is followed by a review of the sustainability reporting by some of the leading waste management companies operating within Europe and the paper concludes by offering some reflections on current approaches to sustainability within the industry. The findings reveal that the sustainability reports included details of a wide range of environmental, social and economic issues but more generally, the reports had a number of weaknesses that undermined their transparency and credibility. The authors also argue that the selected companies’ definitions of, and commitments to, sustainability are principally driven as much by business imperatives as by any fundamental concern to maintain the viability and integrity of natural and social capital.

Highlights

The generation of waste raises a range of environmental issues within Europe and presents a number of challenges for the waste management industry
The paper begins with brief outlines of the waste and the waste management industry in Europe and the growing interest in corporate sustainability and sustainability reporting. This is followed by a review of the sustainability reports and published by some of the leading waste management companies operating within Europe and the paper concludes by offering some reflections on current approaches to sustainability within the industry
The findings revealed marked variations in the extent and style of the corporate sustainability reporting process amongst the selected European waste management companies

Summary

Introduction

The generation of waste raises a range of environmental issues within Europe and presents a number of challenges for the waste management industry. The European Commission [2] argued that ‘proper waste management is a key element in ensuring resource efficiency and the sustainable growth of European economies’. A number of studies have been undertaken on approaches to various elements of waste management within Europe, e.g. Pires, et al [3] and Gentil, et al [6]. Sustainability within the waste management industry has received scant attention in the academic literature with the study by Jeswani and Azapagic [7] of the environmental sustainability of energy recovery from municipal solid waste in the UK being a notable exception

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Discussion

Conclusion