Society in general has become more risk adverse and intolerant of the burden, both social and environmental, caused by industrial activities. In response to this novel perception and this changing business environment, governments and organizations are devising ways towards a more socially and ecologically responsible way of doing business that also supports the principle of sustainable development. However, sustainable development in general poses a challenge to the mindset of organizations which came about in the industrialization period of the 20th century: the performance of companies is increasingly judged by stakeholders not only by the services, products and profits they make, but also by the impacts they have on human and social well-being and on the natural environment. An ever growing body of evidence shows that companies which take a more sustainable approach enjoy substantial positive (economic) benefits (Brown, 2005). A competitive industry which is sustainable at the same time should adopt innovative business solutions that help satisfy society’s needs while optimizing the use of resources and ensuring that all steps are taken to prevent harm to human health and the environment. Moreover, it is essential to demonstrate good practice in ethical behavior, to respect the culture and rights of individuals, and to adopt the highest standards of corporate governance and accountability. In this article, we discuss the case of an imaginary company called Infinite Recycling. The company is globally active and is composed of three Business Groups. The core business of Infinite Recycling is recycling metals, metal components and materials in general. The company is committed to adopt and implement the most recent environment, safety and health standards and management systems. We investigate why and how Infinite Recycling might profit from elaborating an annual sustainability report complementary to current environment and safety reporting. The next section depicts Infinite Recycling’s business case of sustainability. Section 3 outlines the advantages for Infinite Recycling and its Business Groups in publishing a sustainability report, and section 4 describes how Infinite Recycling can improve its ecoefficiency management. Section 5 summarizes the possibility of marketing reinforcement in the recycling sector by using sustainability issues while section 6 integrates the previous ones by suggesting a framework for Sustainability Corporate Governance.Section 7 benchmarks the 2006 sustainability reports from 5 leading companies. Finally, our last section draws conclusions by offering a sustainability project fiche for our imaginary company.
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Paper provided by University of Antwerp, Faculty of Applied Economics in its series Working Papers with number
2007022.