ABSTRACT
As seen in Chapter 1, this book is based on the core assumption that the universal adoption by business organizations of sustainable organizational management values, principles, processes, and practices will significantly contribute to humankind’s pursuit of a human-friendly Earthly habitat for both current and future generations. Thus, it’s important as we begin our discussion of sustainable organizational management to examine the concept of sustainability more closely. Recall from Chapter 1 that sustainability has three broad coevolutionary dimensions: the economy, society, and nature. In the next three chapters, we will discuss each of these dimensions in some depth. Please note that although each of the three chapters is designed to focus primarily on one of the three dimensions, the coevolutionary nature of these dimensions dictates that they often be discussed together. For example, population growth is a serious social problem with huge biophysical and economic implications, and climate change is directly related to economic activity and has potentially serious social consequences. Coevolutionary relationships such as these demonstrate that sustainability is by nature complex, trans-disciplinary, and multidimensional. As such, we hope to demonstrate to managers that achieving sustainable organizational management will require that they think differently as well as act differently regarding the relationships among the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of their decisions.
