IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ris/tecemp/2203.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Transitioning towards sustainability: The ‘what’, ‘why’ and ‘how’ of the integration of sustainable practices into business models

Author

Listed:
  • Diez-Martinez, Ines

    (Universitat Politècnica de València)

  • Peiro-Signes, Angel

    (Universitat Politècnica de València)

Abstract

In today’s business ecosystem, sustainability is increasingly becoming a vital element to firms’ long-term prosperity. Sustainable considerations have evolved to turn a key element that firms wish to integrate into their business models. This new scenario has left countless companies struggling to adapt to these new times. The integration of sustainable practices is not an easy task. The complex web of stakeholders and interactions between participating actors complicate the identification of mechanisms that foster sustainability. Consequently, this paper explores what is the state-of-the-art of the integration of sustainable practices, including an analysis of why these practices are implemented and how their integration is ultimately effective. Results show that there is a wide variety of research, predominantly focused on the creation of frameworks and brainstorming tools to help companies integrate sustainable practices. Regarding what is the trigger of these sustainable initiatives, existing research expresses that sustainable integration is mainly triggered to fit new upcoming demands of legislation and society. Finally, about how these sustainable practices are integrated, strategies are applied across the entire value chain, on both products and processes. Regarding the relationship between the integration of sustainable practices and economic results, no tendency for a direct correlation was found.

Suggested Citation

  • Diez-Martinez, Ines & Peiro-Signes, Angel, 2022. "Transitioning towards sustainability: The ‘what’, ‘why’ and ‘how’ of the integration of sustainable practices into business models," TEC Empresarial, School of Business, Costa Rica Institute of Technology (ITCR), vol. 16(1), pages 44-86.
    • Handle: RePEc:ris:tecemp:2203
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://revistas.tec.ac.cr/index.php/tec_empresarial/article/view/6013
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. World Commission on Environment and Development,, 1987. "Our Common Future," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780192820808.
    2. Luthra, Sunil & Govindan, Kannan & Mangla, Sachin Kumar, 2017. "Structural model for sustainable consumption and production adoption—A grey-DEMATEL based approach," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 198-207.
    3. Ramin Sahamie & Dennis Stindt & Christian Nuss, 2013. "Transdisciplinary Research in Sustainable Operations – An Application to Closed‐Loop Supply Chains," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(4), pages 245-268, May.
    4. Lisa Melander, 2017. "Achieving Sustainable Development by Collaborating in Green Product Innovation," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(8), pages 1095-1109, December.
    5. Sergio Barile & Bernardino Quattrociocchi & Mario Calabrese & Francesca Iandolo, 2018. "Sustainability and the Viable Systems Approach: Opportunities and Issues for the Governance of the Territory," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-17, March.
    6. Peter Oberhofer & Elmar Fürst, 2013. "Sustainable Development in the Transport Sector: Influencing Environmental Behaviour and Performance," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(6), pages 374-389, September.
    7. Anass Cherrafi & Said Elfezazi & Kannan Govindan & Jose Arturo Garza-Reyes & Khalid Benhida & Ahmed Mokhlis, 2017. "A framework for the integration of Green and Lean Six Sigma for superior sustainability performance," International Journal of Production Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(15), pages 4481-4515, August.
    8. Maria Federica Cordova & Andrea Celone, 2019. "SDGs and Innovation in the Business Context Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-14, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Luciano Barcellos-Paula & Iván De la Vega & Anna María Gil-Lafuente, 2021. "The Quintuple Helix of Innovation Model and the SDGs: Latin-American Countries’ Case and Its Forgotten Effects," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-23, February.
    2. Carolina Villamil & Sophie Hallstedt, 2021. "Sustainabilty integration in product portfolio for sustainable development: Findings from the industry," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 388-403, January.
    3. Jyh-Rong Chou, 2021. "A Scoping Review of Ontologies Relevant to Design Strategies in Response to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-27, September.
    4. Dayana Jimenez & Isabel B. Franco & Tahlia Smith, 2021. "A Review of Corporate Purpose: An Approach to Actioning the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-21, April.
    5. Siarhei Manzhynski & Frank Figge, 2020. "Coopetition for sustainability: Between organizational benefit and societal good," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 827-837, March.
    6. Cagatay Tasdemir & Rado Gazo, 2018. "A Systematic Literature Review for Better Understanding of Lean Driven Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-54, July.
    7. Annesi, Nora & Battaglia, Massimo & Gragnani, Patrizia & Iraldo, Fabio, 2021. "Integrating the 2030 Agenda at the municipal level: Multilevel pressures and institutional shift," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    8. Malte Schäfer & Manuel Löwer, 2020. "Ecodesign—A Review of Reviews," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-33, December.
    9. Avinash Kumar Singh & Devendra Kumar Pathak & Sabyasachi Patra, 2023. "An integrated systems thinking approach for achieving sustainability in project‐based organizations," Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(3), pages 501-535, May.
    10. Mechthild Donner & Anne Verniquet & Jan Broeze & Katrin Kayser & Hugo de Vries, 2021. "Critical success and risk factors for circular business models valorising agricultural waste and by-products," Post-Print hal-03004851, HAL.
    11. Cornelis Leeuwen & Jos Frijns & Annemarie Wezel & Frans Ven, 2012. "City Blueprints: 24 Indicators to Assess the Sustainability of the Urban Water Cycle," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 26(8), pages 2177-2197, June.
    12. CHEN, Helen S.Y., 2020. "Designing Sustainable Humanitarian Supply Chains," OSF Preprints m82ar, Center for Open Science.
    13. Jim Butcher, 2006. "The United Nations International Year of Ecotourism: a critical analysis of development implications," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 6(2), pages 146-156, April.
    14. Denise Ravet, 2011. "Lean production: the link between supply chain and sustainable development in an international environment," Post-Print hal-00691666, HAL.
    15. Mara Del Baldo, 2012. "Corporate social responsibility and corporate governance in Italian SMEs: the experience of some “spirited businesses”," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 16(1), pages 1-36, February.
    16. Megan Devonald & Nicola Jones & Sally Youssef, 2022. "‘We Have No Hope for Anything’: Exploring Interconnected Economic, Social and Environmental Risks to Adolescents in Lebanon," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-17, February.
    17. Rigby, Dan & Woodhouse, Phil & Young, Trevor & Burton, Michael, 2001. "Constructing a farm level indicator of sustainable agricultural practice," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 463-478, December.
    18. Michael Howes & Liana Wortley & Ruth Potts & Aysin Dedekorkut-Howes & Silvia Serrao-Neumann & Julie Davidson & Timothy Smith & Patrick Nunn, 2017. "Environmental Sustainability: A Case of Policy Implementation Failure?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-17, January.
    19. Shiferaw, Bekele & Holden, Stein, 1999. "Soil Erosion and Smallholders' Conservation Decisions in the Highlands of Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 739-752, April.
    20. Ibrahim Ari & Muammer Koc, 2018. "Sustainable Financing for Sustainable Development: Understanding the Interrelations between Public Investment and Sovereign Debt," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-25, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ris:tecemp:2203. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Esteban Lafuente (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eaitccr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.