Literature Review

Abraham & Dao (2019) A Longitudinal Exploratory Investigation of Innovation Systems and Sustainability Maturity Using Case Studies in Three Industries uses six various case studies in three different industries to demonstrate that companies use information systems to reach sustainability. The article differentiates between the four different roles types investments can have (automate, informate, transform, and infrastructure) and how those change depending on the SIS framework stage on sustainability maturity. 

Dharmasasmita, et al. (2017) Chapter 4 – Integrating the Three Pillars of Sustainability: Social, Environmental, and Economic introduces the concept of the triple bottom line: people, planet, and profit. Consequently, sustainable businesses must seek economic prosperity, environmental quality, and social justice through their business activities. Businesses can reach environmental quality and social justice by following the United Nations Global Compact goals, by trying to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, or by creating corporate social responsibility reports.

Eccles & Serafeim (2013) The Performance Frontier has created a performance curve to assist businesses to improve environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance while creating profitability through innovation. To create sustainable strategies, organizations must identify their most material ESG issues, quantify the relationship between financial performance and ESG initiatives, innovate products, processes, and business models, and communicate their innovative actions to their stakeholders. The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) framework has been created to assist businesses to identify their most material ESG issues.

Exploring Materiality assists businesses to explore and compare the SASB Standards between companies in the same sector. The website offers the five most important ESG issues for each company according to their industry.

Herzig & Ghosh (2017) Chapter 6 – Sustainability Reporting introduces the concept of sustainability reporting. Two different types of reports are introduced: the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and Integrated Reporting (IR). The chapter introduces the fourth version of the GRI report called G4 and its different principles. The G4 focuses its attention on the content and quality of an organization’s report. The ten principles of the G4 are stakeholder inclusiveness, sustainability context, materiality, completeness, balance, comparability, accuracy, timeliness, clarity, and reliability.

Lepore (2015) Richer and Poorer explains the concept of social and income inequality. The article explains how the Gini index works and the different Gini indexes around the world. Furthermore, the article focuses its attention on the consequences of social inequality in the United States. 

Porter & Kramer (2011) Creating Shared Value defines how to create shared value by intersecting the creation of both economic and social value simultaneously. There are three strategies businesses can embrace to create share value: reconceiving products and markets, redefining productivity in the value chain, and enabling local cluster development. To reconceive new products and markets, organizations must identify customers’ needs, benefits, and harms, and adopt innovation to create products that can benefit those customers without harming other stakeholders. To redefine productivity in the value chain, organizations must adapt and invest in new innovative ways of doing things and operating companies. To enable local cluster development, organizations must collaborate with supporting companies and infrastructures as they can influence innovation for a company and increase a market’s productivity and competitiveness.

Nidumolu, et al. (2009) Why Sustainability Is the New Driver of Innovation states that sustainability drives innovation. Furthermore, describes the different stages companies must follow in order to become sustainable. Those stages are viewing compliance as an opportunity, making the value chain sustainable, designing sustainable products and services, developing new business models, and creating next-practices platforms. 

Oxborrow & Lund-Thomsen (2017) Chapter 13 – Sustainable Supply Chain Management introduces social and environmental sustainability in the supply chain. The chapter states that to implement social sustainability in the supply chain businesses must introduce corporate codes of conduct to improve working conditions for their supply employees. Furthermore, the chapter also states that businesses should implement green supply chain management strategies such as location choices, local-global, and build-to-order.  

The 17 Goals assist businesses, people, and non-profit organizations to follow the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by providing targets, indicators, progress, and information about each goal. The 17 goals are divided between people goals, environment goals, and spiritual goals. People's goals are number 1 no poverty, number 2 zero hunger, number 3 good health and well-being, number 4 quality education, number 5 gender equality, number 6 clean water and sanitation, number 7 affordable and clean energy, number 8 decent work and economic growth, number 9 industry, innovation, and infrastructure, and number 10 reduced inequalities. Environmental goals are number 11 sustainable cities and communities, number 12 responsible consumption and production, number 13 climate action, number 14 life below water, and number 15 life on land. Spiritual goals are number 16 peace, justice, and strong institutions, and number 17 partnership for the goals.

Van Osch & Avital (2010) From Green IT to Sustainable Innovation states that there are three primary approaches to sustainability, Green It, Green IS, and Sustainable Innovation. Green IT focuses on redesigning technology to become more environmentally friendly while Green IS uses technology to implement sustainable strategies. There is also sustainable innovation which focuses not only on the economic or environmental value but also on social concerns. Sustainable innovation focuses on redesigning practices and strategies to create value for a company’s stakeholders. 

Valero-Silva, Nestor (2017) Chapter 16 – Systems Thinking and Sustainable Management introduces holistic thinking, reductionism, boundaries, feedback loops, and diagrams to explain that the natural and social world are interconnected and systems thinking is a tool that can assist us in to better understand and solve problems as the world is interconnected.  

Zeng & Stratton (2017) Chapter 12 – Sustainable Operations Management introduces the concept of creating value through business operations. The chapter explains the five different performance objectives which are cost, quality, speed, dependability, and flexibility, and how businesses can create value through sustainable strategies such as lean and green manufacturing practices, life-cycle assessment, and sustainable product design.