Sustainability by design: why firms and institutions do it

This special issue of the Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science addresses the influence that sustainability efforts have on the marketing, sales, and social media facets of our society. Articles in this special issue focus on direct contributions that businesses and educational institutions employ in their sustainability efforts. Sustainability has enjoyed the accolades of becoming the driving energy toward prosperity among business professionals, government organizations and management consultants since the beginning of the millennium. The concept of sustainability has undergone a variety of renditions and held various monikers for over three decades, while politicians, corporations, and the general public debate the issues and solutions endlessly. Given the multitude of stakeholders, value is the primary question surrounding sustainability. What value will sustainability provide to the company, the government, and the individual? All principals have concerns about meeting this need for their constituents. Sustainability and the process of learning about sustainability involve applied learning. Accomplishing sustainability applied learning occurs by developing value for each of the markets and moving beyond recycle, reuse, and reduce toward re-programming, re-processing, re-thinking, and re-engineering as we offer in this special issue.