The many grand challenges that society faces – hunger, inequality, the cost of living, and, more recently, climate change – will require public and private organisations to act and organise themselves in new and harmonious ways to solve them.
Untangling the essence of these complex and interconnected challenges, and providing guidelines for how we can better go about addressing them, is the aim of new book Organizing for Sustainable Development: Addressing the Grand Challenges.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were created in 2015 as a "shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future". Tackling such "grand challenges" will require the concerted action of a multitude of organisations in the public, private, and non-profit sectors, due to the complex and interconnected nature of the societal and environmental issues at play.
New book Organizing for Sustainable Development: Addressing the Grand Challenges provides an overview of the successes and failures so far of organisational efforts to tackle the global societal issues laid out in the SDGs. Summarising the work of academics from a wide range of disciplines, the book also points towards how existing businesses and new hybrid organisations can achieve sustainable development to bring about an improved society.
The book challenges preconceptions about how sustainability is achieved in business, arguing that each company or organisation’s efforts towards becoming more sustainable must be viewed in the wider legal and social frameworks in which they operate, and that too much onus is put on consumers to provide the demand for sustainable products.
Federica Angeli, co-author of the book and Chair in Management at the University of York School for Business and Society, said: “Perhaps the biggest challenge for creating sustainable business lies in the very fabric of society – how can people think and act with the planet and social equity in mind when decades of industrialisation have shaped us to want to maintain many aspects of how we live and not let go of convenience gains from the past years?
“Clearly, institutional frameworks and incentive systems must change to push companies towards more sustainable practices and circular value chains in which waste is recovered, reused, or processed.”
Organisational scientist and co-author Jörg Raab adds: “Our new book responds to a compelling call to develop a better understanding of novel forms of organising that can more efficiently and effectively channel resources, whilst developing new norms and values towards a more sustainable future.”
To arrange an interview or receive further details, contact Harry O'Neill at Insight Media: harry@insightm.co.uk