ABSTRACT
This chapter presents, from both a researcher's and a practitioner's point of view, what a sustainable corporation is and how to cultivate sustainability within an organisation. The profitability of the company is seen as the foundation for the sustainable corporation. The overall definition of a sustainable corporation applied here is described across three dimensions: ethical, social and environmental. The companies that generate the largest profits through being sustainable, such as Whole Foods Market, seem to adhere to a sustainability code without hesitation. Despite the apparent simplicity, each of the core elements is quite extensive and is likely to require rather dramatic changes within the corporation. The cultivation model was developed after an extensive, exploratory case study from 1998 to 2000 based on participative observations of the Danish branch of a multinational corporation, here referred to as X-Corp for anonymity. The cultivation of a sustainable corporation relies heavily on basic principles from the general theory of organisational development.
