Research on Corporate Sustainability: A Systematic Review

The Concept Of Corporate Sustainability

In the late 1970s sustainability was used for the first time in USA with financial and social policy, and it was defined in terms of a transition from growth to a steady-state. The first book “Alternative to Growth: A Search for a Sustainable Future” in this field wrote by Dennis Meadows in 1977 but sustainability as a term was used rarely in specialized literature and not at all in widely read books, magazines, and newspapers. In the 1980s, government agencies used the sustainability concept, and also governments promoted sustainability policies (Kidd, 1992).

Economic and social efficiency formed the sustainability business so economic success would increase when developing social or environmental problems. This thought was the core of business sustainability (Delai and Takahashi, 2013). The concept of sustainability proceeded to evolve and new elements such as eco and socio-effectiveness, sufficiency, and ecological equity were included within the 2000s (Dyllick and Hockerts 2002). With the 21st century, sustainability became a motto and diffusing over all disciplines, from ecology to art, and agriculture to architecture. It embodies the promise of societal evolution towards a more equitable and wealthy world in which the natural environment and our cultural achievements are preserved for generations to come (Bansal and DesJardine 2014; Dyllick and Hockerts 2002).