Navigating Sustainability Business: Environmental and Social Sustainability and Related Strategies

Dear Colleagues,

Company strategies have of late been striving to improve corporate performance through progressive efforts towards ESG, one of the emerging trends in today’s challenging market environment. The strategic significance of corporate sustainability, via environmental greening and social responsibility, refers to two significant pillars of ESG standards for a company’s strategic efforts toward a resilient future. Although there is still a growing need to explore the strategic significance of corporate sustainability for a firm’s sustainable economic performance, the strategic drives towards corporate competencies through eco-friendly environmental greening and pro-social responsibility are still intriguing subjects in today’s economic fields, mainly due to various strategic perspectives. The significance of environmental and social focuses for firm performance is still a controversial topic, especially regarding the resources and time and consumed in their undertaking. The controversy arises from issues of measuring critical strategic components and then benchmarking them across firms, industry sectors, and countries.

This Special Issue will explore the strategic significance of environmental and social benchmarking criteria, individually and jointly, to improve economic performance in competitive markets across different industries and countries. Articles submitted to this Special Issue should shed light on critical strategic factors in terms of environmental (e.g., GHG, waste, water, climate, energy use, resources, products, packaging, facilities, etc.) and social (e.g., DEI, employee health and safety, community impact, human rights, customers, and reputation) efforts that directly contribute to a firm’s economic performance and market value. Furthermore, this Special Issue will provide academics and practitioners with diverse perspectives on sustainability and its relationship with corporate performance in a competitive global market.

Topical subjects of interest for this Special Issue include, but are not limited to:

• Strategic links between corporate strategy, through environmental and social criteria,

and a firm’s economic performance (taking into account various stakeholders);

• The strategic impact of environmental and social standards/efforts on the market value of firms;
• Corporate sustainability* and corporate strategy for firm performance;
• The risk factors of environmental and social issues for accountable managers;
• Strategic evaluation of environmental and social risk in terms of managerial decision-making;
• The strategic competencies of environmental and social investing;
• Technology issues with environmental and social strategies for firm sustainability;
• The strategic significance and value of environmental and social focuses for firm performance;
• The integration of environmental and social criteria with a firm’s economic performance;
• Strategic determinants of a firm’s performance through environmental greening and corporate social responsibility across different industries and countries.

Prof. Dr. Jooh Lee
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• environmental greening
• social responsibility
• economic performance of firms