Sustainability management

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sustainability management describes the integration of concepts and instruments to improve social, ecological and economic aspects in the management of the organization.

Sustainability management in companies

Companies are increasingly being measured by it and are measuring themselves by how they pursue the goals of sustainable development. Orientation towards sustainable development and corporate social responsibility have become strategically important tasks in today's corporate policy. In addition, it is necessary to manage the company in such a way that it lasts in the long term: Neither its financial capital or its investment capital nor its human and social capital or its natural capital may therefore be consumed without replacement. Consequently, it is a question of long-term successful business development as well as, associated with it, a positive contribution of the company to the sustainable development of society and social relations with nature .

It is a management task to anchor sustainability in the company and to implement it systematically in internal structures and processes. This requires advanced strategic management tools, such as the introduction of a balanced scorecard or a special sustainability controlling that includes personnel management and environmental management . This is seen as a challenging cross-sectional task. Sustainability management will usually also include aspects of internal and external sustainability communication (e.g. with the help of sustainability reports ).

Concepts and systems of sustainability management

There are various concepts and systems for implementing the goals within the framework of sustainability management, which respond to the various approaches with different effects. The concepts and systems include:

Practice of sustainability management

The operation of sustainability management can increase the competitiveness of companies in a variety of ways. This is done e.g. For example, by expanding or securing legitimacy, increased sales, cost savings, increased employee motivation, increased innovative ability or better risk management .

Repeated surveys among German companies have shown that the importance of sustainability management in corporate practice is steadily increasing. In an international comparison, however, large German companies are only in the middle.

In Baden-Württemberg, the WIN Charter is a sustainability management system initiated by the state specifically for small and medium-sized companies.

Municipal sustainability management

Here, sustainability management refers to systematic, regularly repeated and joint development planning that a municipality should align with the goal of sustainability.

  • systematic : three work steps are carried out in relation to one another, a) the formulation of clear and measurable goals, b) the development and implementation of measures aimed at this, c) the review of the success of these measures with an inventory. The purpose of these work steps is to align your own actions as closely as possible with the goals in order to achieve them better.
  • repeated regularly : these work steps are repeated at regular intervals, for example every 3 years. The aim is to better assess one's own situation and to continuously improve the effectiveness of one's own actions by "readjusting" goals, their measurability and the measures as necessary.
  • in common : the decisions are made on a broad basis, all actors who can contribute to the success (or failure) of the activities (administration, politics, companies, institutions, associations and clubs, private households) are involved in the work steps. The aim is a) greater effectiveness, since more actors orientate themselves towards the goals, because they helped formulate them, because they have become common goals; b) greater efficiency, as the actors coordinate their activities better in order to avoid duplication etc.

Sustainability management as a degree

So far, courses in sustainability management have been offered part-time in the form of an MBA at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg and the Lausanne Business School. The "Strategic Sustainability Management" course is offered at the Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development. A Masters in “International Sustainability Management” and a Masters in “Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Innovation” are offered at ESCP Europe . Since 2015, Ulm University has been offering the master's degree in "Sustainable Management". The economics master's program "Sustainability Management" at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal cooperates in research and teaching with the work of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy .

The consecutive master’s course RASUM (Risk Assessment and Sustainability Management) at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences builds on the often close interlinking of risk and sustainability management .

The interdisciplinary Master of Science "Sustainable Management" is offered at the University of Kassel.

literature

  • Annett Baumast, Jens Pape (ed.): Corporate sustainability management. Textbook of the doctoral network for sustainable business. UTB , Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-8252-3676-2 .
  • Federal Environment Ministry (BMU); econsense (ed.); S. Schaltegger, C. Herzig, O. Kleiber, T. Klinke, J. Müller (authors): Sustainability management in companies. From the idea to practice: management approaches to implement corporate social responsibility and corporate sustainability. 3. Edition. BMU, econsense, Center for Sustainability Management, Berlin / Lüneburg 2007. CSM Lüneburg (1.6 MB; PDF)
  • ICLEI (ed.); C. Garzillo, S. Kuhn (authors): Cyclical sustainability management for municipalities. Implementation of the Aalborg Commitments in 5 steps. ICLEI Europasekretariat GmbH, Freiburg 2007.
  • CSM Leuphana, Council for Sustainable Development (RNE) (ed.); S. Schaltegger, B. Haller, A. Müller, J. Klewitz, D. Harms (authors): Sustainability management in public administration. Challenges, fields of action, methods. Center for Sustainability Management, Lüneburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-935630-81-8 .
  • Iris Pufé: Sustainability Management. Hanser Verlag, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-446-43020-4 .
  • Reichert, Daniel, Claudio Cito, Ivan Barjasic: Lean & Green: Best Practice. How resource efficiency can be increased in industry. Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden 2018, ISBN 978-3-658-21685-6 .
  • Stefan Schaltegger, Roger Burritt, Holger Petersen: An Introduction to Corporate Environmental Management. Striving for Sustainability. Greenleaf, Sheffield 2003, ISBN 1-874719-65-9 .
  • Gerhard Bartl: Sustainability and Balanced Scorecard - Design and Development. Grin Verlag, 2008, ISBN 978-3-640-12408-4 .
  • Ingo Balderjahn : Sustainable Management and Consumer Behavior. UTB Lucius, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-8252-3902-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stefan Schaltegger, Florian Lüdeke Freund, Erik G. Hansen: Business cases for sustainability: the role of business model innovation for corporate sustainability. In: IJISD. 6 (2), 2012, pp. 95-119.
  2. ^ Stefan Schaltegger, Sarah Elena Windolph, Dorli Harms: Corporate Sustainability Barometer. How sustainable are companies in Germany? Ed. V. Center for Sustainability Management and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Lueneburg 2010.
  3. ^ S. Schaltegger, J. Hörisch, SE Windolph, D. Harms: Corporate Sustainability Barometer 2012. Center for Sustainability Management, Lüneburg 2012.
  4. ^ S. Schaltegger, D. Harms, J. Hörisch, Sarah E. Windolph, Roger L. Burritt, A. Carter and others. a .: International Corporate Sustainability Barometer. A Comparative Study of 11 Countries. CSM, Center for Sustainability Management, Lüneburg 2013.
  5. ↑ MBA in Sustainability Management at the University of Lüneburg: MBA Sustainability Management
  6. ↑ MBA in Sustainability Business at Lausanne Business School: MBA in Sustainability Business
  7. ↑ HNE Eberswalde: Extra-occupational advanced training course on strategic sustainability management
  8. ↑ ESCP Europe Berlin: Dr. Florian Lüdeke-Freund takes over the new Chair of Corporate Sustainability
  9. ↑ Sustainable corporate management at the University of Ulm: Master's degree in sustainable corporate management
  10. ↑ BU Wuppertal :: Faculty of Economics - Schumpeter School of Business and Economics :: Sustainability Management :: Course of study. Retrieved June 23, 2019 .
  11. ↑ Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences and Social Work: RASUM - Risk Assessment and Sustainability Management ( Memento from April 19, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on April 19, 2016.
  12. ↑ Sustainable Management (Master). In: University of Kassel. Retrieved January 5, 2020 .