ABSTRACT
To achieve sustainability globally, people need to act locally. Government and business need to contribute to global and long-term sustainability objectives by local and immediate action. But most governmental and business managers are perhaps more interested in other primary organizational goals such as building a beautiful plan, making a profit, or increasing sales instead of contributing to the livability of the earth. Is it realistic to expect governments, companies, officials, and managers to contribute to international sustainability issues? Should these problems be solved through international dialogue and negotiation? Or is this not enough, and should organizations also do it themselves? And can they? In other words: Can the world expect from managers that they know what their behavior means at the global level, that they know what it costs and pays to go green, and do they have the systems, tools, and instruments? The conversion of global, international sustainability problems to local, organizational proportions is an actual issue in the literature (Banerjee, 2003; Gladwin et al., 1995; Hart, 1995; Shrivastava, 1995; Starik and Rands, 1995). This chapter explores and explains the way Dutch building deals with the various international issues in sustainability. It reviews the Dutch system, relates it to the international issues, and searches for answers to the following questions:
What are the international issues in sustainability that relate to building?
How does the management of these issues contribute to the sustainable innovativeness of an industry?
