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Practicing Sustainability and Environmental Management: Actors and Actions

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Sustainability and Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (26 March 2023) | Viewed by 6557

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Technology Management and Economics, Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden
Interests: organisation theories; environmental management; professionalization; project-based organization; change processes; sustainability

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Technology Management and Economics, Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden
Interests: organisation theories; digitalization processes; change processes; knowledge and learning; projects and project-based organization; sustainability and professionalization

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Complying with current sustainability challenges requires more than instrumental initiatives provided by tools; it also requires fundamental rethinking of leadership, organizational models, operative strategies, and practices. An increased recognition of the links between sustainability practices and innovation, and a need to know how to utilize the opportunities that market-based sustainability and environmental strategies provide, points to a need to look deeper into the agency and everyday practices of actors working with environmental sustainability (e.g., sustainability and environmental managers, coordinators, auditors, consultants, engineers, entrepreneurs, and champions). Operating both inwards, outwards, and across organizational boundaries these actors represent boundary-spanning roles, where they sometimes through a proactive sustainable entrepreneurship advocate new types of business models and alternative ways of organizing that challenge and sometimes even provoke organizations, and sometimes act in a more mundane and persistent way to overcome inertia and change institutionalized practices and behaviours.

In this Special Issue, we specifically seek papers that go deeper into the understanding of the actions of these actors and unfold the sustainability and environmental practices they, as individuals or in groups/teams, perform in their every-day work. We seek studies with a microlevel perspective on sustainability and environmental practices but also studies that link micro-level practices with meso- and macro-level actions and movements. This would involve research that adopts a qualitative research approach, for example such as ethnographically informed studies, in-depth rich interview studies, field-observations, and/or narrative methods. The Special Issue welcomes both conceptual and empirical contributions on the theme of sustainability and environmental management practices.

Prof. Dr. Pernilla Gluch
Prof. Dr. Petra Bosch-Sijtsema
Guest Editors

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.

Keywords

  • environmental sustainability
  • environmental management practices
  • actors
  • agency
  • boundary-spanning roles
  • practice studies
  • qualitative methods

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 310 KiB  
Article
Transformational Ability of Energy Network Companies: The Role of Institutional Logics and Boundary Spanners
by Larissa Shnayder, Hans van Kranenburg and Sjors Witjes
Sustainability 2021, 13(24), 13582; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su132413582 - 08 Dec 2021
Viewed by 2072
Abstract
Energy network companies play a vital role in energy transitions. The transformational ability of these companies influences the process of energy transitions and the effectiveness of policies in this domain. This study shows the need for managers of network companies as well as [...] Read more.
Energy network companies play a vital role in energy transitions. The transformational ability of these companies influences the process of energy transitions and the effectiveness of policies in this domain. This study shows the need for managers of network companies as well as scholars and policy makers operating in the midst of energy transitions to acknowledge the importance and value of boundary spanners in improving the transformation ability of these companies to play their role in facilitating energy transitions. Evidence comes from an in-depth analysis of an energy network company in the Netherlands. Our findings show that the transformation ability of energy network companies depends on various instances of boundary spanning as these organizations address differing or conflicting intra- and inter-organizational institutional logics when contributing to an energy transition. In the context of energy transitions, inter-organizational boundary spanning generally demands more resources and attention than the spanning of intra-organizational boundaries. Additionally, intra-organizational boundaries affect inter-organizational relationships, particularly in the policy arena. Our findings indicate that to carry out the type of institutional change that an energy transition requires, more attention and resources should be dedicated to intra-organizational boundary spanning, even as the need to connect external stakeholders increases. Full article
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19 pages, 488 KiB  
Article
Sustainable Development of Operations: Actors’ Involvement in the Process of Energy Efficiency Improvements
by Naghmeh Taghavi
Sustainability 2021, 13(11), 6121; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13116121 - 28 May 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1648
Abstract
This study empirically investigates the involvement of actors in the process of energy-efficiency improvements in operations to align strategic sustainability goals across and within operations. The study analyzes development efforts stemming from actors’ decisions and actions that contribute to the process of energy [...] Read more.
This study empirically investigates the involvement of actors in the process of energy-efficiency improvements in operations to align strategic sustainability goals across and within operations. The study analyzes development efforts stemming from actors’ decisions and actions that contribute to the process of energy efficiency improvements using semi-structured interviews and secondary information. Data is analyzed using thematic coding. The study deepens the understanding of how firms undertake the transition towards integrating strategic goals for energy efficiency into operations by strategizing for energy efficiency improvements through actors’ involvement. By exploring actors at both strategic and operational levels, and their decisions and actions, the study includes examples of different approaches, namely, top-down vs. bottom-up and inside-out vs. outside-in, thereby conceptualizing the process of energy-efficiency improvements in terms of a framework that outlines the entities of this process. The study further provides an integrative framework for the development efforts by different actors and presents propositions for incorporating energy-efficiency improvements in daily strategic and operational decisions and actions instead of regarding it as a separate or an add-on process. Full article
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18 pages, 538 KiB  
Article
Taking Lead for Sustainability: Environmental Managers as Institutional Entrepreneurs
by Pernilla Gluch and Stina Månsson
Sustainability 2021, 13(7), 4022; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13074022 - 04 Apr 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2063
Abstract
Over the past two decades, sustainability professionals have entered the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. However, little attention has been given to the actual professionalization processes of these and the leadership conducted by them when shaping the pace and direction for sustainable [...] Read more.
Over the past two decades, sustainability professionals have entered the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. However, little attention has been given to the actual professionalization processes of these and the leadership conducted by them when shaping the pace and direction for sustainable development. With the aim to explore how the role of sustainability professionals develops, critical events affecting everyday sustainability work practices were identified. Based on a phenomenological study with focus on eight experienced environmental managers’ life stories, and by applying the theoretical lens of institutional entrepreneurship, the study displays a professionalization process in six episodes. Different critical events both enabled and disabled environmental managers’ opportunity to engage in institutional entrepreneurship. The findings indicate how agency is closely interrelated to temporary discourses in society; they either serve to support change and create new institutional practices towards enhanced sustainability or disrupt change when agency to act is temporarily “lost”. To manage a continually changing environment, environmental managers adopt different strategies depending on the situated context and time, such as finding ambassadors and interorganizational allies, mobilizing resources, creating organizational structures, and repositioning themselves. Full article
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