Emergence of a sustainable business community*

Global population and environmental pressures are challenging multinational companies to develop new business strategies founded upon the principles of sustainability— assuring that they can meet the needs of both present and future generations of customers and stakeholders. Corporate sustainability requires understanding the “triple bottom line”, which includes economic, societal, and ecological performance. It involves designing products and processes with a full awareness of their life-cycle costs and benefits, and seeking new technologies to create more value with fewer resources. To put sustainability into practice, companies are beginning to transform their core business processes and develop environmentally and socially responsible products and services. Many are adopting the concepts of industrial ecology and green chemistry in an effort to transform their operations from a linear to a closed-loop business model. This changing climate is creating new opportunities for breakthrough research and development, ranging from nanotechnology to green chemistry. BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT The underlying principle of sustainable development (SD) was first articulated by the Bruntland Commission in 1987, which defined SD as industrial progress that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs [1]. Subsequent interpretation of this principle from a business perspective has led to the adoption of a “triple bottom line” framework, comprising the following dimensions: • economic prosperity and continuity for the business and its stakeholders • social well-being and equity for both employees and affected communities • environmental protection and resource conservation, both local and global Thus, SD has become an extremely broad concept that encompasses a variety of critical issues related to human and ecological welfare, including climate change mitigation, natural resource conservation, poverty reduction, and protection of human rights. It transcends and subsumes earlier industry practices, such as pollution prevention and design for environment, by combining environmental stewardship with social responsibility and wealth creation. Confronted by rising stakeholder concerns over SD issues, the business community has begun to recognize that long-term success depends not only on financial performance, but also on social and environmental performance. In effect, corporate sustainability is a natural consequence of a corporation’s commitment to address the needs of both customers and other stakeholders, including employees, local communities, regulators, investors, lenders, business partners, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Growing public awareness of SD has created opportunities for companies to address *Lecture presented at the IUPAC CHEMRAWN XIV Conference on Green Chemistry: Toward Environmentally Benign Processes and Products, Boulder, Colorado, USA, 9–13 June 2001. Other presentations are published in this issue,