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This paper aims to explore possible internal and external challenges of foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs) from developed countries to develop sustainable environmental development programs in China.

The research is based on the author's five years' field work (2006‐2010) in China. A total of 30 Chinese executives from 20 different foreign MNEs were interviewed about their companies' corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs.

The focus of 19 companies' environmental programs (95 percent) is internal production and operation efficiency. Only one of 20 companies is committed to increasing the capacity of local Chinese suppliers to comply with the environmental code of conducts listed in their CSR programs and to enable the entire global supply chain to fulfill the international environment standards. The key challenges for foreign companies not to have “holistic and integrated” approaches in their environmental programs are many: keen price competition among Chinese suppliers that are at the low end of global supply chains, some local governments prefer to have economic growth at the expense of environmental welfare, some companies prefer to pay an environmental fee for polluting the local environment as the fee is not high enough to reflect the cost, and the message given by CSR managers to Chinese suppliers are not implemented by their companies' purchasers.

This paper is the first attempt to examine how foreign MNEs balance their CSR requirements internally while managing the performance of their Chinese suppliers to be up to the CSR standards in the global supply chain.

This article aims to discuss the contradiction between signing an agreement to work for sustainable universities and the lack of practical commitment in one case, namely at Aalborg University (AAU). Focus is placed both on the University's core processes such as education, research and outreach; on the necessary inputs and outputs related to transport, food and operation, and maintenance of buildings, and on the university's products counting published results of research and educated students and researchers.

The study is based on a desk study of official university documents from the period 1990 to 2007, and a number of student reports that have focused on the sustainability or environmental merits of the University.

Although adopting an environmental policy and signing the Copernicus Charter back in the early 1990s, AAU soon lost momentum. This was due to reasons defined as: the lack of commitment from top management, the missing acceptance from technical staff, and a narrow understanding of the university's environmental impacts. Obviously, a model of the environmental impacts should not only take into account the environmental impacts related to the impacts occurring in the present, e.g. related to the running and maintenance of buildings and laboratories, but also integrate considerations about the impacts in the processes (education, research and outreach). Thereby, the model shall provide the basis for more sustainable products, such as students considering aspects of sustainability in the solutions and approaches they apply in their future careers.

This article forms the basis for future research identifying how universities can contribute to sustainable development in a more coherent way by implementing new policies and plans. The article takes its starting point in a general model of a university's environmental impacts involving key processes at the university, the related inputs and outputs (emissions), and the transformation of intermediate products such as high school students and existing research results into products such as graduate students, PhDs, and new research results.

The processes and the related inputs, outputs, intermediate products, and end‐products are analysed and discussed in order to illustrate the relevant environmental issues that need to be addressed by universities.

The paper identifies a number of key issues of sustainability that universities need to address and offers inspiration to staff and students on how to push these agendas at their home universities.

The purpose of this paper is to trace the impact that the ecological approach has in international development programs in both the USA and Europe. It discusses the applications of sustainability by international donor agencies among bilateral and multi‐lateral organizations in developing economies. It outlines the influence of sustainability in the US Federal Government agencies to protect and maintain environmentally‐based development programs.

The paper compares industrial ecology and ecological anthropology approaches to sustainability development. It discusses their policy implications for international development assistance programs. It describes how anthropological and sociological approaches to sustainability have impacted the development policies and programs of bilateral and multilateral organizations, as well as those of multi‐national corporations.

There are common sustainability trends among the four competing donor organizations in approaching sustainability development by bilateral and multilateral international development organizations. These organizations – the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the World Bank, the United Nations and its affiliated Organizations, and the US Federal government agencies, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency – have shaped and influenced the policies and programs of sustainability development in business organizations and in developing economies.

Sustainability has been a subject of interest in international development assistance programs in both bilateral and multilateral organizations since the 1970s. Over time, the subject of sustainability received prominence in the developed world. It can be argued that sustainability has its roots in the developing economy and has been adapted/modified to meet the environmental and natural resources conservation and management policies of the developed economies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the labor market position of environmental science graduates and the core competencies of these environmental professionals related to their working practice.

The authors carried out two surveys amongst alumni of the integrated environmental science program of Utrecht University and their employers. The surveys addressed alumni's working experiences and employers' assessment of the core competencies of environmental science graduates.

The surveys indicated that environmental science graduates have a fairly strong position on the labor market. They are employed in a diverse range of functions and working sectors, including consultancy agencies, research institutions, governmental organizations and NGOs. Graduates as well as employers consider a number of generic academic skills (e.g. intellectual qualities, communication skills) as well as discipline specific professional knowledge and practical skills as important competencies for the working practice of environmental scientists.

These insights can be used for the improvement of environmental science curricula in order to increase the employability of their graduates.

This paper presents data on the labor market position of graduates of “integrated” environmental science programs and provides insights into the core competencies of these graduates.

The purpose of this paper is to use the relative power and total interdependence concepts as an intervening theoretical lens to explain why and how sustainable supply management (SSM) initiatives by manufacturing firms differ across the Kraljic matrix according to purchasing capability.

Tested hypotheses by subjecting survey data from 338 manufacturers on buyer-supplier relationships in Europe and North America to regression analysis.

Shows three situations where relative power and total interdependence determine the effectiveness of purchasing capabilities. First, sustainability programs impact supplier compliance in all Kraljic categories but bottleneck items. Second, there are significant trade-offs between lower cost and higher social and environmental supplier compliance for noncritical components. Third, strategic alignment of sustainability objectives between corporate and supply function levels only leads to improved financial performance for strategic components.

Further research could take power and dependence into account to explain when and how purchasing capabilities focussed on sustainability can be achieved.

Shows how supply strategists could devise-tailored approaches for different purchasing categories with respect to power and dependence when pursuing economic, social and environmental objectives in combination – the triple bottom line – along their supply chains.

Illustrates and provides a theoretical explanation for why SSM is a purchasing capability that must vary across purchasing categories defined by different situations of power and dependence.

This study aims to challenge the conventional view that resources determine the extent of the environmental sustainability orientation (ESO) of small firms in a developing Southeast Asian country context. First, this study attempts to develop a measurement model of ESO of small firms in the manufacturing sector in the Philippines. Second, the study explores the impact of the financial resources on the ESO of firms.

The study uses survey data from 166 small manufacturing firms in three Philippine cities. Multiple regression modelling is used to estimate the relationships between firm resources and ESO.

The results indicate that ESO is a multi‐dimensional construct with three facets – i.e. awareness of, actions for, and appreciation of environmental sustainability. The empirical evidence does not support the conventional firm resources‐ESO proposition.

A proactive ESO is not necessarily beyond the reach of resource‐constrained small firms. The generalisability of the findings, however, is limited to small manufacturing firms in The Philippines.

This study informs owner‐managers of small firms that a proactive ESO does not largely depend on financial resources. Government policies and programs to encourage small firms to become sustainable should focus not just on financial forms of assistance.

To date, this is the only Philippines‐based study and one of the scarce small firm‐focused studies that examine the proposition that small firms are unable to pursue a proactive ESO due to resource constraints.

The purpose of this research is to provide an integrated approach of organizational ecology, population ecology and selection mechanisms within the context of the resource-based view of the firm, evolutionary economics (EC) and transaction cost economics (TCE). It applies this framework to examine the interrelationships between corporate social reporting (CSR) and global reporting initiative.

The methodology for this paper is library-based archival research. It is qualitative and analytically descriptive of prior academic research and published literature on the subject.

CSR has the potential to provide functional credence to corporate social and environmental activities by legitimizing institutionalized corporate norms and behavior.

Accounting scholars have recognized the need for an integrated approach in the social sciences to examine the multifaceted aspects of sustainability development and accounting. This research highlights that sustainability is related to ecosystems, environments, natural resources, demography, population, culture, political systems and history.

This study examines the factors of sustainable technology adoption (STA) in the Bangladeshi’s apparel industry and its impact on the environmental performance and other firm performances. Mainly, this study adopts stakeholder theory and hypothesizes necessary conditions to examine different stakeholders’ roles to facilitate STA and ameliorate firm performances such as environmental, financial and competitive advantages.

It is an empirical study which collected 240 responses from Bangladeshi apparel firms. Garment factories were considered as the unit of analysis.

Customer pressure, top management, competition among firms and government support significantly and positively impact STA. Surprisingly, regulatory pressure has no significant impact on the Bangladeshi’s apparel industry, which contradicts most existing literature in the field. The findings show that sustainable technology brings increased simultaneously enhances environmental outcomes and enhances financial performances and competitive advantage.

This study fills up the voids that exist in the STA literature in the clothing industry in the clothing industry’s STA literature. Specifically, western buyers have more influence than regulatory pressure to adopt sustainable technology and sustainable manufacturing for the Bangladeshi garments industry. Moreover, it proposes that sustainable technology can enhance firms’ competitive advantage in selling their products in the West besides environmental-friendly apparel manufacturers.

The high consumption of energy by buildings may have enhanced land degradation, flooding, air pollution and many other hazardous environmental issues. However, green practices in buildings have been proved as one of the successful technologies to mitigate these issues. Past studies have shown lax green practices in Nigerian buildings. Concerning public hospital buildings, this is yet to be explored. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the barriers to green practices and proffer possible policy solutions to promote hospital green buildings.

In attaining these objectives, the view of hospital building contractors, design team, hospital management and policymakers in the relevant ministries/agencies was engaged via virtual interviews. The collated data were analysed and presented in the thematic pattern.

Findings show that green building construction is extremely low in Nigeria, but the worst hit is the health-care buildings across the states. Government/policy-related, organisational/leadership-related, financial-related, technical-related, design team-related and stakeholders’ behaviour-related barriers emerged as the main six themes of barriers affecting public hospital green buildings implementation initiatives. Findings show that proffering possible policies to addressing these barriers may improve public hospital green construction across the states.

This paper is limited to barriers to green buildings implementation in public hospitals in Nigeria, and data collection was through virtual interviews but does not affect the strength of the findings. Thus, this paper suggests that the sub-themes and variables/items that emerged from the collated data as presented in Figure 1 can be further developed quantitatively via questionnaire survey to validate and improve the reliability of results from this paper.

As part of this study’s implications, suggestions from this paper will stir up policymakers’ decisions, to be tailored towards achieving green buildings implementation initiatives in Nigerian public hospitals.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is probably the first that attempted to investigate the barriers to green buildings implementation in public hospitals in Nigeria.