Towards better embedding sustainability into companies’ systems: an analysis of voluntary corporate initiatives

Corporate leaders and employees have been increasingly recognising their role in contributing to sustainability. In this context, different voluntary tools, approaches, and initiatives have been developed by and for corporations to engage with sustainability. However, there has been a lack of clarity in explaining how the initiatives address the different elements of the company system (operations and processes, management and strategy, organisational systems, procurement and marketing, and assessment and communication), how they contribute to sustainability’s dimensions (economic, environmental, social, and time), how they are linked, or combined to help leaders better embed sustainability into their company's system. The paper provides an analysis of sixteen of the most widely used initiatives (e.g. life cycle assessment, eco-design, cleaner production, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability reporting). Each initiative was analysed on how it contributes or addresses the four dimensions of sustainability, and the company system. It was found that each initiative has advantages with respect to scope and focus for the sustainability dimensions and the company system’s elements, but it has certain disadvantages when it comes to dealing with the complexity and broadness of sustainability. The paper discusses how relying on one initiative can result in a limited and narrow contribution to sustainability and curtail coverage of the company’s system. The results indicate that the least addressed elements of the company system have been organisational systems and procurement and marketing. A new framework, the Corporate Integration of Voluntary Initiatives for Sustainability (CIVIS), is proposed with two purposes: (1) to help company leaders better understand how to improve their company’s contribution to sustainability, and (2) to foster a holistic approach through the combination of company initiatives that would help to embed sustainability into a company’s system with the least effort and maximum results.