ABSTRACT
It is 20 years since the publication of the Brundtland Report ‘Our Common Future’ (WCED, 1987) brought the concept of ‘Sustainable Development’ into the mainstream of business and political debate. It put forward a convincing case that the economic growth that had characterized much of the twentieth century was not sustainable in environmental, social and ultimately economic, terms. In the wake of the Earth Summits at Rio in 1992 and Johannesburg in 2002, the World’s governments and major corporations have generally adopted the pursuit of sustainability as a strategic goal. The challenge lies in turning these good intentions into meaningful progress in the face of powerful vested interests, an entrenched and environmentally hostile dominant social (and management) paradigm and a global economy with tremendous momentum on a trajectory that pursues conventional economic growth.
