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The purpose of this paper is to examine how small- and medium-sized organisations that were already participating in recognised sustainability programmes in Iowa, USA, in how they were utilising activities normally associated with human resources (HRs) to implement sustainability – activities included communication, engagement, incentives and recruitment and retention.

The authors were interested in how small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were utilising HR functions to implement sustainability. This was an exploratory, qualitative research study utilised semi-structured interviews to obtain data.

Based on the findings, some of the functions are being utilised more than others, with some activities not being implemented at all.

This research offers empirical research on how sustainability is achieved in SMEs.

This paper outlines some practical methods that any SME could utilise to help implement sustainability within an organisation.

This paper adds empirical research on how SMEs are implementing sustainable practices into their operations by using activities normally associated with the HR department.

The purpose of this study is to investigate what sustainability initiatives are being implemented by Canadian independent restaurants and to determine if the initiatives represent all 10 categories of a sustainable restaurant as established by a sustainability initiative framework.

The study uses a qualitative approach of semi-structured interviews with 15 small to medium enterprise (SME), independent restaurant owners and operators across Canada. The data was digitally transcribed and thematic analysis was performed.

Results indicated that most initiatives aligned with the categories of “sustainable food/menu” and “waste reduction and disposables” which shows that the operators were inclined to pursue initiatives in customer view. Restaurants put limited focus on water supply, chemicals and pollution reduction, furniture and construction materials. Some of the barriers to implementing, measuring and learning about initiatives were: cost, lack of access to programs, supply chain complications, not having buy-in from owners and lack of time to implement.

The study recommends that governments provide incentives to implement sustainability initiatives that are out of sight to the customer. For example, implementing composting, energy efficient equipment and water saving processes. It is also recommended that third-party restaurant organizations provide more accurate, evidence-based guidance and education on implementing a wide-range of sustainability initiatives.

This research contributes to the literature on sustainability in restaurants and applies a sustainability initiative framework in a practical context. The study provides a unique assessment of the current state of restaurant sustainability and states where restaurants need to improve their efforts.

The purpose of this paper is to present and identify the challenges toward implementing sustainability strategies both strategic and tactical (STs) and performance measures (PMs) facing industrial organizations in newly industrialized countries.

Conducting a comprehensive survey on the published papers focused on the area of sustainability and/or sustainable development (S/SD) in manufacturing enterprises to identify the most common critical challenges. Setting with industrialists to determine which challenges the industrial organizations facing while implementing the S/SD strategies in terms of strategic, tactic and PMs. Using support logic techniques such as interpretive structural modeling (ISM) and interpretive ranking process (IRP) as modeling approaches to examine the contextual relationship among the STs and PMs individually “first phase,” to clarify and identify the most and least dominant factors, and to rank STs with respect to the PMs “second phase.”

The investigation shows that some challenges are more dominant and influential. Literacy and an awareness of sustainability, globalization and international issues and competitive strategies have emerged as the most dominant and key driving factors for STs in the ISM model, while the whole PMs are driven by remanufacturing and recycling factors in the ISM model. In addition, drivers and barriers to implementing S/SD challenges received the highest rank in the IRP model.

Most of the STs and PMs were identified from academicians. Most of the manufacturing companies participated in the discussion; unfortunately, all are not familiar with the S/SD as a whole. They see to the S/SD from very narrow scope like climate change, environmental and energy issues only based on what they heard from media. Most of them are not fully interested to join with academicians to progress the work.

Most of the manufacturing companies are keen to investigate extremely sustainability challenges. Although this paper has a goal to provide a comprehensive framework to analyze, investigate and model sustainability challenges for industrial/manufacturing companies in different industrial sectors, most of the STs and PMs were identified from academicians. Most of the industrial/manufacturing companies participated in the discussion; unfortunately, all are not familiar with the S/SD as a whole. This study will help manufacturing/industrial companies to analyze and investigate the challenges toward implementing S/SD.

The originality of this paper is to identify the most common ST and PM challenges facing industrial organization toward implementing S/SD, modeling them into logical techniques and comparing between STs with respect to PMs.

This paper aims to explore how sustainability practices were implemented in a higher education institution within a local setting in the Gulf and Arab Emirates Region. This study examined the impact of social and cultural requirements on the development of the master plan for the New Kuwait University campus with regards to sustainability to illustrate how current social and cultural requirements impact the design of a future learning environment whilst highlighting the essential role of organisational actors in this implementation process.

Using an in-depth case study approach, the authors conducted 21 semi-structured interviews with educators and administrative staff who had been involved in the sustainability implementation process at Kuwait University. These participants were involved at different stages in the implementation of a major sustainability project at Kuwait University. The interviews were further supplemented by analysing supporting documents and communications.

The analysis reveals that sustainability was embedded in a narrative that was repeated at the practice level; this directed the setting of objectives for the project and its various sub-tasks. It also helped actors to develop their understandings of practice and the importance of social emotions, self-intentions and patterns of culture in the process. This study further reveals that participants mainly focused on environmental issues regarding saving paper/electricity and overlooked aspects of a wider concepts and core values of sustainability, and there is a significant amount of lack of knowledge and awareness on matters about sustainability, especially with the understanding of its definition.

This study draws on practice-organisation framework used by Schatzki (2002, 2010), suggesting that sustainability implementation is a process led by rules, practical understanding, general understanding and teleoaffective structures, to highlight the role of agency and change among various actors in implementing sustainability. A practice-theory framing is used to signpost the roles played by various actors in establishing goals and tasks for the project while taking account of local understanding and independence in the implementation of sustainability practices. Engaging with practice theory framework offers us theoretical basis that is fundamentally different from the theories of interaction-oriented approaches in sustainable design.

The circular economy (CE) approach has been acknowledged as key for manufacturing organizations wishing to overcome sustainability challenges. However, the transition has been slow. Stakeholder engagement is a driver of the transition, but there is limited knowledge on stakeholder engagement practices in a CE context. The purpose of this paper is thus to explore with whom, on what and how organizations engage with stakeholders to implement CE as part of sustainability efforts.

This study is situated at the intersection of CE, stakeholder theory and supply chain literature. A case study with three Swedish manufacturing organizations was conducted to explore stakeholder engagement practices that facilitate the implementation of CE in organizational practice and the supply chain, considering conceptual differences between stakeholder engagement for sustainability and CE.

This study provides empirical evidence on how manufacturing organizations engage stakeholders to implement CE as part of organizations' sustainability efforts. The study highlights that manufacturing organizations have to move not only from linear to circular resource flows, but also from linear to circular stakeholder engagement. Such engagement can be achieved by extending with whom, expanding on what and leveling up how stakeholders are engaged.

This study provides an enhanced conceptual understanding of stakeholder engagement in the CE context and discusses differences regarding stakeholder engagement based on linear thinking. The study emphasizes the role of circular stakeholder engagement practices for the transition toward CE in manufacturing organizations.

This study aims to analyse how and to what extent stakeholder interaction for sustainability is implemented in organisations and the linkages to the overarching interaction efforts.

This study was conducted in the context of seaports. To examine interaction activities with stakeholders for sustainability and how they are implemented, the study uses content analysis of sustainability reports.

The results show that the majority of ports recognise the importance of stakeholder interaction to create value and guide organisational sustainability; however, it is implemented to varying levels and degrees, which affects the form and extent of the overarching interaction efforts. The paper proposes four categories of implementing stakeholder interaction, showing the linkages to the number of stakeholder groups involved, sustainability dimensions covered and interaction approaches used.

This paper contributes to sustainability, stakeholder and management literature by highlighting different levels of implementation of stakeholder interaction for sustainability and its linkages to overarching efforts that may affect the sustainable development of an organisation. The results of this study provide a better understanding of stakeholder interaction within organisational sustainability approaches and implementation in sustainability-oriented business models. As organisations seek to increase their sustainability performance, these insights may be useful for both academia and practice.

Previous research on sustainability in the foodservice industry has emphasized its environmental, social and economic dimensions predominantly studied within a Western context or in developed countries. This paper aims to question this positioning by considering the MEA (Middle East and African) context. Second, this paper examines sustainability forms according to the type of restaurant and explains how these forms compare with and contribute to the broader scholarship on sustainability in the service marketing literature and practice.

The paper follows a phenomenological perspective and a grounded theory approach. The authors conducted in-depth interviews with 40 owners of different types of restaurants (traditional, modern and fast-food) in the capital city of Lebanon, Beirut.

This paper identifies four dimensions that are expressed in different ways depending on the type of restaurant. This paper also found that sustainability in the foodservice industry in the MEA region has some differences and similarities relative to the literature where current studies mainly focus on the Western context. While the most dominant form of sustainability in the MEA context is related to the social dimension implemented by restaurants through philanthropy and community support activities, the less important aspect refers to activities about ecology and environmental protection.

The research highlights that sustainable activities in the MEA context are shaped by deep-rooted traditions of philanthropic offerings and community-based activities profoundly embedded within the Arab region. Second, the study contributes to current practices and research related to the foodservice literature by emphasizing the dynamics of the change in terms of sustainability perceptions across different kinds of restaurants and how the type of restaurant can affect the adoption and implementation of sustainable activities. The limits of this study are related to its small sample size and the exclusion of psychographic factors, such as age and gender, which can deepen the knowledge of sustainable actions implemented by female and male restaurant owners and people of different age ranges.

With its focus on the foodservice industry in the MEA underpinning restaurateurs’ lack of ecological sustainability, this research shows that nongovernmental organizations could play a vital role in terms of raising awareness about ecological issues and how restaurateurs can be involved in eco-friendly initiatives.

The paper contributes to the foodservice literature and the emerging research on sustainability in restaurants by presenting an approach based on examining sustainable restaurants in a developing country context. The paper does so by adopting a restaurant owner’s perspective and analyzing three types of restaurants, namely, traditional, modern and fast-food restaurants.

With recent extreme weather change from global warming, the ever-increasing volume of waste, and the unsustainable use of natural resources, there is the need to evolve a new way by which building construction projects are constructed to reduce carbon emissions, environmental degradation and excessive resource consumption. It is based on this premise that this paper presents the level of implementation of sustainability practices during building construction projects in Nigeria.

This study adopted the mixed methods research approach that involves collecting quantitative and qualitative data through the use of questionnaire and interviews. The numeric data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics such average percentages, mean item score, Kruskal–Wallis and Mann–Whitney U tests whereas the textual data were analysed thematically.

From the questionnaire survey, the result shows that the awareness level of sustainability practices by construction professionals is high in the study area. Also, the findings indicate that “choosing the right construction method for resource conservation and consideration of the client’s satisfaction” is the major sustainability practices that construction professionals implement in the construction phase of building projects in the study area. Insights from the interviews align with the findings from the questionnaire survey.

This study concluded that the awareness level of sustainability practices is high in the study area and “choosing the right construction method for resource conservation” and “consideration of the client's satisfaction” are the major sustainability practices that construction professionals are aware of and is being implemented in the study area. Based on these findings and conclusions reached, it is recommended that construction professionals should improve their knowledge of sustainability to enhance their competence for the effective implementation of sustainability practices during building construction projects in Nigeria.

The paper aims to deliver a general review of the methods used to pursue the concept of a “sustainable university”.

The research was Internet based, and it included research papers, books, conference proceedings, technical reports and Internet Web sites. The review was divided in two main parts: sustainability implementation methods and assessment and report tools. In turn, the practices used on universities to implement included more “traditional” environmental sustainability initiatives and a more updated sustainable management systems.

Because “traditional” sustainability environmental sustainability initiatives have flaws, more recent tools were developed to help manage sustainability. Two sustainability management systems specifically oriented to universities are outlined on this paper. They both highlight the advantage of disposing a systematized management system; the need of address environmental issues and putting special attention on the use of resources, especially energy, on campus buildings; the social responsibility of the institution; and educational and research sustainability activities that must be taken on universities. Managing sustainability in a university would be facilitated if the procedure used to implement sustainability is aligned with the tool used that assesses its performance.

The paper presents an updated review of the efforts that universities have made in contributing to a sustainable development. It includes methods and tools used to manage sustainability within a university, including the ones used to implement, assess and report it. The paper also intends to highlight the need of consistency and coherence between the implementation method and the assessment and report tools.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the coherence between sustainability conceptualization (the “what”) and its implementation (the “how”) in terms of implemented actions and stakeholders’ interactions. The paper proposes a grid approach for the simultaneous evaluation of sustainability conceptualization and implementation.

This research is based on a multiple case study conducted in ten Italian Universities. In-depth interviews with general directors and administrative staff responsible for sustainable activities have been conducted together with documents and websites analysis.

The coherence between sustainability conceptualization and its implementation showed heterogeneity of practice. Results propose a grid approach, which highlights six different approaches to explain the connection between the “what” and the “how” of sustainability.

The research is focused on Italian universities and may have overlooked approaches to campus sustainability specific of other countries.

Understanding the coherence between the “what” and the “how” of sustainability can provide university managers with a practical tool of analysis when approaching and evaluating the sustainable campus.

While higher education scholars are widely exploring the conceptualization of a sustainable campus and its implementation, little is known about the coherence between these two realms, despite their importance to facilitate the transition of sustainability vision into real practice. This study contributes to this area by proposing a grid approach to evaluate the coherence between sustainability conceptualization and implementation.