Sector sustainability strategies can provide industry sectors with a way of managing risks and opportunities, and contributing to sustainable development. The UK Government has encouraged their development in the construction industry. British Precast, as the trade association for the precast concrete industry in the UK, had undertaken to develop a sector sustainability strategy for that industry. However, the development of such strategies is a departure from the traditional role of the trade association and presented British Precast with a number of challenges. This EngD research programme was therefore established in order to address those challenges and facilitate progress towards a more sustainable precast industry. The research programme has followed a mixed method strategy of inquiry based on action research methodology, that is, a series of research cycles have been undertaken with the findings from each cycle being used to inform and guide subsequent cycles; archival analysis, survey and case study were the main research methods used. The requirement of the EngD programme to publish elements of the work in refereed journal and conference papers as the research progresses has allowed the research to be validated as scientifically satisfactory. The strategy development process combined best practice, current and emerging theory, original research, stakeholder engagement, and experience from other sectors and industries. The strategy was produced in the form of an action plan for British Precast. This plan differs from the sustainability strategies produced for other sectors of the construction products industry in that rather than simply promoting action on specific objectives, it provides British Precast with a means of engaging with the industry and its stakeholders, and facilitating progress towards a more sustainable precast industry. The action plan has been well received by the industry and its stakeholders, and there is clear evidence that it is helping to guide the business decisions of companies in the industry, and that progress towards a more sustainable precast industry is being achieved as a result. The research supporting the strategy development process has added to current knowledge and guidance on the development of sector sustainability strategies, but shown that there are limits to the influence trade associations can have over their members' actions. It has also been shown that the development of management systems, particularly environmental management systems to ISO 14001, and continuous performance improvement cultures can assist companies in managing for sustainability, supporting the findings of other studies. However, further work is needed to build support for the action plan within the precast industry, particularly amongst SMEs, to support the downstream supply chain in using precast products to deliver more sustainable construction, and to assist companies in achieving progress towards corporate sustainability. Recommendations are made for this work.

Companies are considered as central actors towards a more sustainable society. Implementing a sustainability strategy is seen as an effective way for corporations to take responsibility andmeet the society’s expectations. Different factors have been identified to affect the implementation of a sustainability strategy. The purpose of this thesis is therefore to add to the concept of strategy implementation and how organizational structure, organizational culture and internal communication affect the implementation process. A qualitative case study has been chosen to answer the research question where we conducted semi-structured interviews with employees at various positions in the case company. Our result revealed that a company’ssustainability strategy can be implemented even if the internal communication is weak. However, we suggest that an organizational culture that is promoting the employees to feel committed to the strategy will have a positive impact on the implementation process. Finally,we also advocate that the organizational structure has affected the case company’simplementation of their sustainability strategy positively by enabling strategies to emerge from practice.

abstract: Economic development over the last century has driven a tripling of the world's population, a twenty-fold increase in fossil fuel consumption, and a tripling of traditional biomass consumption. The associated broad income and wealth inequities are retaining over 2 billion people in poverty. Adding to this, fossil fuel combustion is impacting the environment across spatial and temporal scales and the cost of energy is outpacing all other variable costs for most industries. With 60% of world energy delivered in 2008 consumed by the commercial and industrial sector, the fragmented and disparate energy-related decision making within organizations are largely responsible for the inefficient and impacting use of energy resources. The global transition towards sustainable development will require the collective efforts of national, regional, and local governments, institutions, the private sector, and a well-informed public. The leadership role in this transition could be provided by private and public sector organizations, by way of sustainability-oriented organizations, cultures, and infrastructure. The diversity in literature exemplifies the developing nature of sustainability science, with most sustainability assessment approaches and frameworks lacking transformational characteristics, tending to focus on analytical methods. In general, some shortfalls in sustainability assessment processes include lack of: * thorough stakeholder participation in systems and stakeholder mapping, * participatory envisioning of future sustainable states, * normative aggregation of results to provide an overall measure of sustainability, and * influence within strategic decision-making processes. Specific to energy sustainability assessments, while some authors aggregate results to provide overall sustainability scores, assessments have focused solely on energy supply scenarios, while including the deficits discussed above. This paper presents a framework for supporting organizational transition processes towards sustainable energy systems, using systems and stakeholder mapping, participatory envisioning, and sustainability assessment to prepare the development of transition strategies towards realizing long-term energy sustainability. The energy system at Arizona State University's Tempe campus (ASU) in 2008 was used as a baseline to evaluate the sustainability of the current system. From interviews and participatory workshops, energy system stakeholders provided information to map the current system and measure its performance. Utilizing operationalized principles of energy sustainability, stakeholders envisioned a future sustainable state of the energy system, and then developed strategies to begin transition of the current system to its potential future sustainable state. Key findings include stakeholders recognizing that the current energy system is unsustainable as measured against principles of energy sustainability and an envisioned future sustainable state of the energy system. Also, insufficient governmental stakeholder engagement upstream within the current system could lead to added risk as regulations affect energy supply. Energy demand behavior and consumption patterns are insufficiently understood by current stakeholders, limiting participation and accountability from consumers. In conclusion, although this research study focused on the Tempe campus, ASU could apply this process to other campuses thereby improving overall ASU energy system sustainability. Expanding stakeholder engagement upstream within the energy system and better understanding energy consumption behavior can also improve long-term energy sustainability. Finally, benchmarking ASU's performance against its peer universities could expand the current climate commitment of participants to broader sustainability goals. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Sustainability 2011

abstract: A sustainability strategy is a distinctive pattern in an organization’s sustainability programs that are designed to encourage individuals and organizations to behave in more sustainable ways. Local governments worldwide have increasingly pursued sustainability strategies to improve their community health and environment by adopting sustainability programs that span a variety of environmental issues and use a diverse set of policy instruments. Despite increasing prevalence of sustainability efforts at the local level, as yet, there has been little understanding of variation in their sustainability strategies and its relationship with environmental performance outcomes. Prior research has mainly focused on the number of programs that local governments adopt and assumed that local governments with more sustainability programs are more likely to improve the environment than local governments with fewer programs. However, local governments’ sustainability strategies require more nuanced understanding about variations in their sustainability programs, in particular across their program design in that a sustainability strategy relates to both quantity and design aspects of programs. I address these research gaps in three essays that explore the research question of (1) how design features of sustainability programs vary across US local governments, (2) which factors influence variations in program design, (3) how these factors are related to environmental quality outcomes in communities. By assessing US local governments’ sustainability programs, I found that even for local governments that adopt a same number of sustainability programs, they design their programs differently, especially across the breadth of environmental issues that local governments address in their sustainability programs and the breadth of policy instrument that are used in their programs. Findings suggest that pressures from external stakeholders and variations in local governments’ organizational capacities are related to local governments’ decisions to purse different types of sustainability strategies. Finally, I find that local governments that design their programs more comprehensively are likely to have greater environmental performance outcomes in their community. My dissertation expands existing research in a significant way by focusing on the importance of program design and its link with improved environmental performance, thereby providing important implications for distinguishing among local governments’ sustainability strategies. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Public Administration 2016

Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur företag inom detalj- och partihandeln går tillväga för att implementera arbetet med hållbarhet i verksamhetens affärsstrategi. Syftet är också att belysa hur kommunikation av hållbarhet kan påverka implementeringen. Studien har utgått från en abduktiv ansats där teorier vävs samman med det empiriska underlaget för att bilda samband som sedan kan tolkas. Ett hermeneutiskt perspektiv antas med hänsyn till det empiriska underlagets vikt för studien där verkligheten ses som subjektiv. Två företag ingår i studiens undersökning; Derome AB samt Gekås Ullared AB. / The purpose of the study is to investigate how retail and wholesale businesses work to implement the work of sustainability in the business strategy. The aim is also to highlight how communication of sustainability can affect implementation. In this study, abductive approach has been used where theories are interwoven with the empirical basis for a formation of relationships that can then be interpreted. A hermeneutic perspective is assumed with regard to the importance of the empirical foundation for the study, where reality is considered subjective. A number of interviews have been conducted with two companies which also meet criteria for sustainability reporting

Background: Companies are assuming a vital role in shaping the future for the coming generations through the development of sustainable innovations. Previous studies have stressed the importance of leadership as fundamental in the innovation process and when creating more sustainable businesses. Leaders behaving responsibly are assumed to have a positive impact on the outcome of the innovation process, as the employees are likely to apply the same behaviour. Even so, exactly how leaders behave to combine innovation and sustainability has not yet been theorised, hence, the integration of leadership, sustainability, and innovation is inadequate in the realm of literature. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore how leaders behave when fostering an innovation process that leads to sustainable products, services, and/or technologies. Method: The research uses a qualitative method with an inductive approach conducted through semi- structured interviews at three Swedish business-to-business (B2B) multinational enterprises (MNEs) with three leaders working with sustainability, three innovation managers, and one environment manager. Conclusion: The findings suggest three important behavioural dimensions of leaders when promoting an innovation process that leads to sustainable outcomes. In the analysis section, these dimensions are synchronised into a framework; the first one, Reinforcing Positive Psychological State, influences both Making Future-Oriented Strategic Decisions and Modelling the Opportunities and Importance, while the two latter are interrelated. By applying the behaviours illustrated in the framework, leaders behave in a way that fosters the innovation of sustainable outcomes.

This study was designed to explore how consumers perceive voluntary emission compensation as a companies’ sustainability strategy and how to achieve common action between companies and individual consumers towards sustainability. Emission compensation as companies’ sustainability strategy has appeared to be a complex strategy from the consumers perspective, and there are multiple challenges in order to implement it effectively. The study includes 20 individual consumers which were examined through five different focus groups, with the focus on attitudes towards sustainability and emission compensation. In the study, we combine companies’ communication with signal theory to individual consumers’ consumption behaviour by applying the theory of planned behaviour. The main findings were that in general, individual consumers do not believe that voluntary emission compensation is an effective strategy towards sustainability. Instead, individual consumers indicate regulations as a requirement in order to effectuate emission compensation. Moreover, individual consumers seem to have low trust in companies’ sustainability communication in general because the information on emission compensation was specifically lacking. This study adds in-depth analysis of consumers perceptions of compensated everyday life products, such as food, to the existing body of research which has mainly focused explicitly on aviation and air travel industries. Moreover, these studies have been quantitative in nature and our study reveals the deeper foundations why consumers think as they do.

Abstract   Background: With the heightening pressure of climate change, the public as well as the corporate world calls for leaders that can drive sustainable development, hence tackling the challenges to come. Companies are facing growing pressure from both internal and external stakeholders to adopt sustainable practices. As a consequence, the question arises as to whom is the most suitable for such challenges. The presence of female leaders in corporate settings have shown to increase sustainable performance within companies. However, what actual role female leaders play in enabling such performance remains subdued. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to study what role female leaders play in sustainability strategy processes.  Method: This study is conducted through qualitative case study methods, using primary data collected from interviews with female leaders of Swedish companies.   Conclusion: The results identified that female leaders play different roles in the sustainability strategy process. The roles identified in the study are Carer, Responsibility Taker, Equality, Enabler and Motivator which are collectively conceptualized as Holistic Trustee meaning; Someone who includes all perspectives and components into their assessment, so that decisions made, enables development while preserving resources of coming generations. In such role, the female leader bridges the organizational level and individual level of her company and provides her employees with a bigger purpose in their “day-to-day” operations. The role as a Holistic Trustee broadens the understanding of leaders` importance in sustainability and draws attention to female traits that are naturally suited for a sustainable leadership.

Problemformulering: Det blir viktigare och viktigare i dagens samhälle att tänka hållbart. Bolag behöver bidra till hållbar utveckling och redovisa sina hållbarhetsarbeten i sina rapporter för att vara med och konkurrera med andra bolag. I fastighetsbranschen kan man tänka hållbart när man bygger nytt men för att skapa ett hållbart samhälle måste man även tänka hållbart i förvaltningsskedet där man tar hand om det befintliga fastighetsbeståndet. Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att erhålla en djupare förståelse för bostadsbolags hållbarhetsarbete genom att studera hur de tillämpar sin hållbarhetsstrategi i en renoveringskontext. Metod: Arbetet har genomförts genom en rapportstudie där information om bolagens hållbarhetsstrategi, mål och renoveringsåtgärder har samlats in från deras års- och hållbarhetsredovisningar. Vidare har en kvalitativ metod använts i form av intervjuer med respondenter från respektive bolag. Resultat & Slutsats: Rapporten kommer fram till att bolagen applicerar sin hållbarhetsstrategi på liknande men lite olika sätt. Vissa arbetar mer med social hållbarhet medan andra har mer fokus på energieektiviseringar och lönsamhet. Några av bolagen har ett tydligare bevarandetänk då de hellre renoverar än att installera nytt. Bolagen försöker att balansera alla hållbarhetsaspekter men ekonomin är det som styr vilka projekt som kan genomföras eftersom att investeringarna i slutändan måste vara lönsamma. Resultatet visar även att bolagen prioriterar sina renoveringar efter behov men att akuta åtgärder alltid går i första hand. Man kan man se att bolagens hållbarhetsstrategi genomsyrar deras hållbarhetsarbete i ett renoveringskontext. Det finns däremot många sätt de kan förbättra sitt hållbarhetsarbete och mer att lära kring hur man renoverar hållbart. / Problem formulation: It is becoming more and more important in today's society to think in a sustainable manner. Companies need contribute to sustainable development and report their sustainability work in their reports in order to compete with other companies. In the real estate industry, you can think sustainably when you build new properties, but to create a sustainable society, you also have to think sustainably in the management phase, where you take care of the existing property stock.  Purpose: The purpose of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of sustainability efforts of housing companies by studying how they apply their sustainability strategy in a renovation context.  Method: The work has been conducted through a report study where information about the companies' sustainability strategy, goals and renovation measures have been collected from their annual and sustainability reports. Furthermore, a qualitative method has been used in the form of interviews with respondents from each company. Results & Conclusion: The report concludes that the companies apply their sustainability strategy to similar but slightly different way. Some work more with social sustainability, while others focus more on energy effciency improvements and proftability. Some of the companies have a clearer conservation mindset as they prefer to renovate rather than install new. The companies try to balance all aspects of sustainability, but the economy is what governs which projects can be implemented because the investments must ultimately be proftable. The results also show that the companies prioritize their renovations as needed, but that urgent measures always come first. You can see that the companies' sustainability strategy permeates their sustainability work in a renovation context. However, there are many ways they can improve their sustainability work and more to learn about how to renovate sustainably.

Corporate sustainability has become a crucial aspect of business strategy, particularly for multinational corporations (MNCs) aligning their operations with global sustainability goals. The successful implementation of sustainability strategies is often influenced by organizational factors, with organizational culture playing a significant role.  This thesis investigates the influence of organizational culture on the implementation of corporate sustainability strategies within an MNC subsidiary. It seeks to understand how different aspects of organizational culture facilitate or hinder the adoption and execution of sustainability initiatives. As a result, an exploratory research approach is employed, utilizing qualitative methods such as interviews. Through in-depth analysis of data collected from a selected MNC subsidiary, the study identifies key drivers and barriers within the organizational culture influencing sustainability strategy adoption and execution. Findings highlight the significance of leadership support, employee engagement, communication channels, and individual beliefs in fostering a conducive environment for sustainability initiatives. This research provides empirical insights into how organizational culture affects the implementation of corporate sustainability strategies, offering practical guidance for organizations to facilitate the effective implementation of sustainability initiatives.