• Don’t Confuse Sustainability with CSR

    No challenge derails managers from the goal of sustainability more than trying to understand what it means for an organization to be sustainable. Some people think sustainability is all about environmental issues. Others see it in terms of the bottom line. Still others use the term synonymously with corporate social responsibility and shared value. This article explains why business sustainability is none of these things — rather, it is about time. Sustainability is about balancing resource usage and supplies over time and assuring intergenerational equity. There is no question that many CSR initiatives are effective at balancing competing demands made by shareholders and other stakeholders. To do this, however, many firms borrow resources and capital from the future, which can magnify the imbalance in the distribution of resources between the short and long term. Securing short-term success should never risk long-term survival. As this article states, business sustainability is the ability of firms to respond to their short-term needs without compromising their ability to meet future needs.
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  • The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement: A Revolutionary Partnership for Sustainable Development

    The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement (CBFA) had two primary purposes: (1) to protect Canada’s boreal forest from harmful logging practices; and (2) to improve and protect the reputation of Canada’s forest industry and companies. But the CBFA’s ambitious plans overlooked the fundamental challenges associated with the agreement’s implementation. Two years after its signing, the agreement suffers from a severe lack of funding, the withdrawal of one signatory and major hurdles at the regional working group level. The CBFA’s secretariat needs to develop a plan of action to realize the full potential of the agreement but faces numerous issues in terms of implementation: (1) the CBFA’s exclusion of First Nations communities; (2) funding issues; (3) disagreement at the local regional levels and among some signatories; (4) slow pace of implementation and (5) limited concrete signs of success thus far.
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