Mining depletes, processes, and relocates mineral resources while profoundly changing landscapes and socio-economic patterns of affected regions and communities. For millennia these impacts have been “accepted” by society because of minerals’ many benefits, but the growing environmental crisis is pushing up demand for socially responsible and ecologically viable mining practices. In reaction to these pressures, large mining corporations have been increasingly trying to make the business case for a sustainable mining industry. To demonstrate progress towards this “case”, companies have started to publish sustainability reports based on a sustainability assessment and reporting tool called the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Framework. Many scholars have contested the effectiveness of that framework and argued that GRI-based reports can mislead decision-makers concerned with sustainability, or even camouflage unsustainable practices, particularly at the site level. Few scholars, however, have gone far beyond the realm of criticism to understand how to enhance that framework. This thesis addresses this gap. More specifically it sets out to answer the following questions: 1) what needs to be changed in mining corporations’ approaches to assessing and reporting sustainability for the purpose of promoting more meaningful and reliable disclosures? And 2) what are the key practical and conceptual barriers to implementing those changes? This research adopted a qualitative grounded theory approach underpinned by systems theories to answer the questions. Data were collected through extensive literature reviews, 41 semi-structured interviews and content analyses. The evaluation of data included software-aided techniques such as iterative coding, memo-writing, and diagramming. The four main contributions are as follows. First, the thesis presents an evaluation of the extent to which mining corporations’ approaches to sustainability reporting meet eight principles (the BellagioSTAMP) of sustainability assessment and communication. In light of the identified gaps, the thesis outlines a number of specific changes that should be promoted in mining corporations’ sustainability frameworks. Second, a critical evaluation is provided of the limitations of an industry initiative that is pushing for stronger GRI reporting. Proponents of that initiative are trying to standardize and enforce external verification of sustainability reports among large mining corporations, but, in doing so, they may reinforce a limited approach to sustainability reporting. Third, the thesis identifies and discusses the barriers that may emerge in the implementation of six additional guidance elements in the GRI framework that could promote sounder sustainability assessment and reporting processes. The many barriers are broadly categorized as motivational, structural and specific. Finally, the thesis specifies research implications for key stakeholder groups involved in sustainability reporting: standard-setters, industry associations, mining companies, external verifiers, investors, local communities, and scholars. Overall, this thesis corroborates the view that meaningful and reliable standardized disclosures of contributions to sustainability are unlikely to emerge any time soon. The geographical dispersion of mining corporations’ facilities imposes substantial barriers to the contextualization and systematization of sustainability evaluations and communications. These barriers can be overcome with additional indicator systems and partnerships, but standard-setters, industry associations, and governments do not seem motivated to take up this challenge soon. This situation opens opportunities for individual mining corporations to enhance their particular approaches. This thesis provides important information that should be considered in the development of a much needed long-term strategy for stronger sustainability reporting in the sector.

Mining depletes, processes, and relocates mineral resources while profoundly changing landscapes and socio-economic patterns of affected regions and communities. For millennia these impacts have been “accepted” by society because of minerals’ many benefits, but the growing environmental crisis is pushing up demand for socially responsible and ecologically viable mining practices. In reaction to these pressures, large mining corporations have been increasingly trying to make the business case for a sustainable mining industry. To demonstrate progress towards this “case”, companies have started to publish sustainability reports based on a sustainability assessment and reporting tool called the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Framework. Many scholars have contested the effectiveness of that framework and argued that GRI-based reports can mislead decision-makers concerned with sustainability, or even camouflage unsustainable practices, particularly at the site level. Few scholars, however, have gone far beyond the realm of criticism to understand how to enhance that framework. This thesis addresses this gap. More specifically it sets out to answer the following questions: 1) what needs to be changed in mining corporations’ approaches to assessing and reporting sustainability for the purpose of promoting more meaningful and reliable disclosures? And 2) what are the key practical and conceptual barriers to implementing those changes? This research adopted a qualitative grounded theory approach underpinned by systems theories to answer the questions. Data were collected through extensive literature reviews, 41 semi-structured interviews and content analyses. The evaluation of data included software-aided techniques such as iterative coding, memo-writing, and diagramming. The four main contributions are as follows. First, the thesis presents an evaluation of the extent to which mining corporations’ approaches to sustainability reporting meet eight principles (the BellagioSTAMP) of sustainability assessment and communication. In light of the identified gaps, the thesis outlines a number of specific changes that should be promoted in mining corporations’ sustainability frameworks. Second, a critical evaluation is provided of the limitations of an industry initiative that is pushing for stronger GRI reporting. Proponents of that initiative are trying to standardize and enforce external verification of sustainability reports among large mining corporations, but, in doing so, they may reinforce a limited approach to sustainability reporting. Third, the thesis identifies and discusses the barriers that may emerge in the implementation of six additional guidance elements in the GRI framework that could promote sounder sustainability assessment and reporting processes. The many barriers are broadly categorized as motivational, structural and specific. Finally, the thesis specifies research implications for key stakeholder groups involved in sustainability reporting: standard-setters, industry associations, mining companies, external verifiers, investors, local communities, and scholars. Overall, this thesis corroborates the view that meaningful and reliable standardized disclosures of contributions to sustainability are unlikely to emerge any time soon. The geographical dispersion of mining corporations’ facilities imposes substantial barriers to the contextualization and systematization of sustainability evaluations and communications. These barriers can be overcome with additional indicator systems and partnerships, but standard-setters, industry associations, and governments do not seem motivated to take up this challenge soon. This situation opens opportunities for individual mining corporations to enhance their particular approaches. This thesis provides important information that should be considered in the development of a much needed long-term strategy for stronger sustainability reporting in the sector.

O aumento significativo da deterioração das condições ambientais e sociais em muitas partes do mundo indicam que a sustentabilidade como um todo pode estar ameaçada. Assim a sustentabilidade empresarial tornou-se um objetivo bastante almejado e de fundamental importância não só para as empresas que sofrem constantes pressões sociais, mas também para toda a humanidade. Por esses motivos, cada vez mais empresas estão adotando relatórios de sustentabilidade para demonstrar seu engajamento com a sustentabilidade empresarial. Para tanto, é preciso utilizar indicadores adequados para a mensuração de desempenho dessas organizações em relação à sustentabilidade. Assim, esta dissertação analisou relatórios de sustentabilidade e identificou que o relatório de sustentabilidade GRI vem sendo utilizado não apenas como um relatório de transparência mas como um certificador, portanto tem como objetivo avaliar se o GRI pode ser analisada como ferramenta adequada para a caracterização de empresas brasileiras enquanto sustentáveis, por meio de revisão bibliográfica, pesquisa em modelos de indicadores de sustentabilidade e análise dos relatórios das seis empresas brasileiras atestadas como A+. Como resultado desta pesquisa verificou-se que o GRI deve ser melhorado em vários e importantes aspectos para que possa ser usado como certificador da Sustentabilidade Empresarial. / The significant increase of deteriorating environmental and social conditions in many parts of the world indicate that sustainability as a whole may be threatened. Thus corporate sustainability has become a very desired objective and of fundamental importance not only for companies that suffer constant social pressures, but also for all mankind. Thus, seek sustainability has come to represent a real need for organizations to be able to survive. For these reasons more and more companies are adopting sustainability reports to demonstrate their commitment to corporate sustainability. Thus, this dissertation examined sustainability reports and identified the GRI sustainability report has been used not only as a transparency report but as a certifier therefore aims to evaluate whether the GRI can be considered as suitable tool for characterizing companies while Brazilian sustainable, through literature review, research on models of sustainability indicators and analysis of the reports of the six Brazilian companies certified as A +. As a result of this research it was found that the GRI should be improved in several important respects so that it can be used as certifier Corporate Sustainability.

Sustainability is a universal topic that has gained in significance during the last decade due to the increased risks for society as well as the environment itself. Therefore, a lot more attention is given to how companies disclose upon their impact on environment, society and governance. This paper aims to pick up on criticism to sustainability reporting regarding the variety of different frameworks surrounding this topic and investigate upon how companies use them to create their reports and if, in their opinion, unification can be reached in the nearby future. The second objective of this thesis is to explore upon and collect knowledge regarding the developing role of the new profession of the ESG/Sustainability controller. To reach the research objectives and collect sufficient data, semi-structured, qualitative interviews have been conducted with six companies and their respective sustainability reporting responsible. Previous research points out that the ‘arena’ of sustainability reporting frameworks has become too dense. This has led to companies firstly struggling to navigate through the enormous amount of regulations and guidelines, secondly adversely affected the implementation of harmonization within sustainability reporting and thirdly using their reports as marketing tools. These theoretical findings have been mostly supported by the results of this thesis. Almost all of the interviewed companies have adopted a common index, called GRI, that builds their sustainability disclosure base. However, the findings of this thesis point out that their efforts, to go beyond this reporting guideline, can be connected to motives that are either of external, operational, transparency or recruitment nature. Even though companies would wish for a common, unified reporting framework, such as the upcoming inclusion of CSRD in the future, and see potential advantages, there are some specific, current challenges that have to be overcome first regarding sustainability reporting. Nevertheless, from the data analyzed it is evident that companies are looking forward to this new, mandatory reporting regulation and prepare themselves adequately and intensively. The results of the qualitative study regarding the development of the new controller profession further suggests that the ESG/Sustainability controller has a broad post-graduate background, however, not only in business administration. One reason is that the tasks of this new profession vary by quite some margin from traditional controlling tasks and their responsibilities also go beyond merely preparing, analyzing financial reports and supporting management, but are dedicated to the sustainability reporting process and other sustainability projects.

Sustainability has become a popular term within the official and local government. The concept of sustainability is now as visible in the work of the municipalities as it is at a national level. However, the term sustainability lacks a viable definition in city planning. The ecological and the social dimensions of sustainability are clearly more visible in planning processes and in planning documents than economic sustainability. Research shows that the economic perspective in city planning often is neglected compared to the other dimensions of sustainability. Thus the importance of economic sustainability is diminished in planning processes and is often left to be used as a framework to the ecological and the social dimensions of sustainability. Given this problem, this study wishes to unfold if the municipality of Trollhättan, Sweden plans for a economic sustainable development. A qualitative case-study is used were data is generated by an interview in addition to several literature analysis. In the literature analysis code words were identified to help find the relevant data. The empirical data is then analyzed and the results of the study were that the municipality of Trollhättan plans for an economic sustainable development, however the term is rather inserted in other aspects of sustainable development than treated as a sole aspect. Understanding the usage of the implementation of the term economic sustainability in city planning can help further research of development and economically sustainable communities.

Published Article / Sustainability has been described as the primary moral and economic imperative of the twenty-first century and one of the most important sources of both opportunities and risks for businesses. Companies are also expected to behave, and be seen to behave, as responsible corporate citizens that is, as protecting, enhancing and investing in the wellbeing of the economy, society and the natural environment in which they do business. Accordingly the need exists for accurate, reliable and credible stakeholder reporting by organisations on their economic, social and environmental performances and achievements. An effectively functioning audit committee can play an important role in this regard to assist the board in providing accurate and credible sustainability reporting and disclosures that are integrated with the company's financial reporting. The objective of the article is twofold: it aims, firstly, to provide a brief overview of the development of sustainability and sustainability reporting and the role that audit committees can fulfil in this regard; and, secondly, its intention is to provide evidence that the recommendations of the third Report on Corporate Governance for South Africa (King III) regarding sustainability reporting, assurance and the audit committee's oversight responsibility for this are justified. This is done through a literature review of current sustainability and audit committee developments and practices, and this is supported by empirical evidence obtained from assessing the annual reports and questionnaires sent to the audit committee chairs of the Top 40 listed companies in South Africa. The main findings of the study are that the majority of audit committees at the largest listed companies in South Africa are not taking oversight responsibility for sustainability reporting on their boards' behalf, although they are dealing with some ethical and social reporting aspects. It was also found that reporting by companies in their annual reports on their audit committee's corporate governance, social and sustainability oversight responsibilities was limited and does not reflect the true state of affairs. These findings are of significance, as they provide support for the recommendations of King III (effective from 1 March 2010) that companies should in future provide integrated reporting in terms of both their finances and sustainability, and that the audit committee should take oversight responsibility for this. The study is of specific relevance for Africa with its rich mineral resources, as it is of vital importance that companies that do business on the continent behave as responsible corporate citizens, respect the environment and society, and provide accurate, reliable and credible reporting on their financial and sustainability performance to all of their stakeholders.

Published Article / It is widely assumed that sustainability reporting is a mechanism that companies can use to demonstrate their trustworthiness with regard to development in a sustainable manner. This article uses the Mayer, Davis and Schoorman trust model as basis to discuss how sustainability reporting can enhance trustworthiness in a sustainable development context. The study also uses a survey-questionnaire, sent to South African sustainability reporters, to explore whether they are finding sustainability reporting useful for enhancing companies' trustworthiness among stakeholders in a sustainable development context. Respondents indicate, amongst other things, that sustainability reporting in South Africa has a role to play in enhancing trustworthiness, more so among contractual stakeholders than among community stakeholders. To entrench trust benefits in the long term will however require long term strategies. Such strategies should focus on increasing the engagement of community stakeholders, authentic use of the GRI and implementing effective control systems that prevent the misuse of sustainability reports, while not preventing the formation of real trust.

Humanity is facing highly complex challenges at a global scale. A new sort of conscious sustainability changemakers is needed to face the sustainability challenge. However the mainstream entrepreneurship education tends to focus on business as usual skills, with a significant lack of comprehensive understanding of the whole system and the inner work needed to face the mental barriers to become sustainability changemakers. While the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development was used as a structured approach to the topic, the research design was based on a dynamic research interactive model. Theory U guided the data gathering process that included participatory observation, dialogues with the organizers and participants through the seven progressive schools in Europe. The research aims to identify the common assumptions that guide the design of leading edge learning programs for sustainability changemakers. Building on the findings, the authors present a prototype of a learning tool in a form of self-reflection card game with the intention of helping the next generation of changemakers in their learning journey towards sustainability. Conclusions detail specific guidelines to design a learning program of changemakers towards sustainability.

This thesis provides a detailed exploration of the way that four large research-council-funded bioenergy projects have engaged with the politics of bioenergy sustainability. Given the contested nature of sustainable development and the nature of the science in question, this thesis takes a discourse analysis approach to critically examine the functioning of these projects in the context of the wider politics surrounding the issue of bioenergy sustainability. Drawing on in depth interviews and a wide-ranging analysis of the literature, this thesis presents a number of findings. While used in strategically ambiguous ways, under the dominant ecologically modernising discourse governing bioenergy, sustainability is primarily constructed as synonymous with least-cost decarbonisation. Policy support for bioenergy is built around a technologically optimistic storyline, underpinned by a number of assumptions, including a linear view of scientific policy making. This dominant discourse around bioenergy has been challenged in two main ways. The first of these has rejected the over emphasis on carbon balances and economics as the primary metrics against which bioenergy sustainability should be measured. Decarbonising our energy supply has become increasingly dislocated from its underlying (disputed) ethical and moral rationales. As such it has seemingly become an end in its own right. The second challenge is more subtle and involves a rejection of the framing of bioenergy sustainability as a scientific and technical problem. Although reproducing a more administrative type discourse, the science initiatives explored in this thesis appear to reinforce much of the dominant discourse. As well as reflecting certain practices associated with the governments focus on scientific policy making, a lack of reflexivity to the strategic aims of energy policy within science also reflects a strong positivism and shared reliance on the perceived linearity of scientific policy making. It is argued that if science is to be liberated to fully respond to the challenges of sustainability, scientists need to be more reflexive as to the (political) role of science in modern environmental controversies, questioning both what their impacts might be and whose interests they are serving.

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to explore a new perspective within the sustainability of project management theoretical area. The research focuses on verifying the existence of  interconnections between Agile Project Management and Social Sustainability, and on understanding how Agile Project Management impacts organisational social dynamics from a Social Sustainability point of view. Research Methodology/ Approach/ Design: Through an in-depth single-holistic case study,  the research investigates the social dynamics taking place amongst the members of an international IT company, applying an agile project management framework since more than two years. A total of six extensive semi-structured interviews have been carried out with people covering different positions within the company. By working on qualitative data from the interviews, the researchers obtained an in-vivo set of interconnected concepts. The analysis work consisted in qualitatively analysing these concepts and relations in order to build a network diagram reproducing graphically the interconnections existing between Agile Project Management elements and the Social Sustainability factors proposed by Missimer et al. (2016a, 2016b). Research Findings: The findings - obtained through the analysis of the network diagram - have been analysed with the lenses of the five factors, that have not to be degraded in order to ensure the social sustainability of a social system. It has been found that implementation of Agile Project Management, within the company’s environment, has impacted the organisation’s social dynamics in several ways. These impacts influenced in a direct or indirect way individual’s “Health”, their “Capacity to Influence”, their “Capacity to Acquire New Competences”, and their “Capacity of Meaning-Making”. By analysing the type of influence APM has on these four aforementioned factors, it has been found that it influences positively all of them. This allowed us to conclude that, according to Missimer et al. definition of Social Sustainability, Agile Project Management shows several interconnections to Social Sustainability and that it seems to benefit organisational internal social dynamics making them more socially sustainable. Research limitations: Because of the exploratory nature of the research, the empirical study has been based on a single in-depth case study. However, generalisability of the findings are limited by the inherent limitations of this inquiry strategy. Further researches will allow to verify and eventually expand or complete the proposed model. Originality/value: This research contributes to a detailed understanding of the existing relations between Agile Project Management and Social Sustainability theory. This represents a completely new point of view in the studies of Sustainability of Project Management, suggesting the validity of a new stream of research focusing on Agile Project Management as a new project management process through which promote corporate sustainability.