Sustainability in business: understanding meanings, triggers and enablers

Abstract

How do companies integrate sustainability into their strategy and practices, and what factors explain their approach? In this paper a typology of sustainability strategies is presented as well as a conceptual framework relating sustainability at the company level to the functional level of marketing. The central contribution of the typology is a strategic and managerial view on sustainability. Furthermore, the typology shows that sustainability in business is enacted from different areas of competences and fields in the literature (e.g. supply chain management, corporate branding, value creation, product innovation and business model innovation). The empirical basis for the typology is an exploratory study of managers' mindsets about sustainability as strategy. Ten top managers involved with integrating sustainability within their companies have been interviewed. In order to reveal managers' mindsets, a framework addressing sustainability from four organisational learning schools was designed and followed.