ABSTRACT
Sustainability challenges can be addressed through cross-sector partnerships between different organizations. Local governments are partnering with various stakeholders to formulate and implement community sustainability plans, with businesses playing an active role. By engaging at the community level, actual sustainability progress can be measured and working within ecosystem boundaries can be achieved for some topics. Businesses engage in these partnerships for reasons that go beyond the desire to help the community achieve sustainability goals. They aim to learn, network, improve their reputation and legitimacy, improve relations with the community, market their products and services, and improve their financial performance. This paper provides background on community sustainability plans and cross-sector social partnerships for enabling community-wide actions; and details the roles businesses play in helping achieve the community-wide sustainability vision. The main contribution is identifying the value created by and for businesses through engaging in community sustainability strategies.
