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This chapter explores the gap between social expectations and actual sustainability performance in the business world and identifies the root causes of this discrepancy. The author reviews corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability, and their relationship with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This chapter also compares the connections and differences between the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the SDGs. The author analyzes possible solutions to bridge the gap, including renewing the social contract between businesses, society and institutions. This involves rethinking the role of businesses and institutions in promoting sustainability and creating new systems and structures that incentivize sustainable practices. This chapter concludes by discussing the pathway to a sustainable and inclusive world through systems innovation and change. When embracing a systems thinking approach, individuals and organizations can identify and address the root causes of unsustainability, and create more resilient and sustainable systems that benefit both people and the planet.

This paper reviews recent developments in marketing-related sustainable business practices (SBP) that macromarketing scholars have researched and debated for four decades. Such SBPs should be regarded as positive steps toward a future where business does more good than harm in society.

Using the approach of a literature review, this paper highlights the actions of entrepreneurs and firms to implement SBPs resulting from analysis of the interplay between markets, marketing and society. Such analysis is in the tradition of macromarketing scholarship.

The study identifies important developments about an important shift toward adopting SBPs among many firms, as well as among consumers − especially, in developed countries of the world.

The study suggests that taking a macromarketing view offers scholars a broad lens on current complex marketplace phenomena that will prove effective in better understanding sustainability issues.

The results of the study underline the value of macromarketing scholarship through the last four decades. By being daring enough to consider other stakeholders other than marketers and owners of firms, macromarketers have provided scholars a more holistic understanding of business’ role in society.

Today, enlightened practitioners who utilize knowledge from macromarketing scholarship can gain a competitive advantage as they navigate markets increasingly influenced by a wider set of stakeholders. Such influential stakeholders include partner firms, employees, society and local communities, NGOs, media, government, as well as the environment and future generations. Scholars can gain perspective on the phenomena they investigate with such a macromarketing lens.

Contemporary literature reveals that, to date, the poultry livestock sector has not received sufficient research attention. This particular industry suffers from unstructured supply chain practices, lack of awareness of the implications of the sustainability concept and failure to recycle poultry wastes. The current research thus attempts to develop an integrated supply chain model in the context of poultry industry in Bangladesh. The study considers both sustainability and supply chain issues in order to incorporate them in the poultry supply chain. By placing the forward and reverse supply chains in a single framework, existing problems can be resolved to gain economic, social and environmental benefits, which will be more sustainable than the present practices.

The theoretical underpinning of this research is ‘sustainability’ and the ‘supply chain processes’ in order to examine possible improvements in the poultry production process along with waste management. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and ‘design science’ methods with the support of system dynamics (SD) and the case study methods. Initially, a mental model is developed followed by the causal loop diagram based on in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and observation techniques. The causal model helps to understand the linkages between the associated variables for each issue. Finally, the causal loop diagram is transformed into a stock and flow (quantitative) model, which is a prerequisite for SD-based simulation modelling. A decision support system (DSS) is then developed to analyse the complex decision-making process along the supply chains.

The findings reveal that integration of the supply chain can bring economic, social and environmental sustainability along with a structured production process. It is also observed that the poultry industry can apply the model outcomes in the real-life practices with minor adjustments. This present research has both theoretical and practical implications. The proposed model’s unique characteristics in mitigating the existing problems are supported by the sustainability and supply chain theories. As for practical implications, the poultry industry in Bangladesh can follow the proposed supply chain structure (as par the research model) and test various policies via simulation prior to its application. Positive outcomes of the simulation study may provide enough confidence to implement the desired changes within the industry and their supply chain networks.

Writing in his seminal work Crime Control as Industry, Nils Christie (1993) outlines his vision of how western societies were facing increased unrest due to unequal wealth distribution and lack of access to properly paid work. After a sustained period of neo-liberalism and rationalisation throughout the western world, Christie's prediction of rising crime rates in relatively wealthy states has come to pass. However, the responses to this increase in crime have been varied from nation to nation. In Christie's case, the rise of the ‘crime control industry’ is a response that combines social control with a growth industry based on processing members of certain sections of society through a course of action that includes arrest, remand, trial and imprisonment at a time when the emphasis on rehabilitation appears to have diminished.

The main focus of this chapter is to explore whether ecological utopias are capable of providing a useful contribution to our quest for an ecologically responsible future and sustainable society, and in what specific ways. I shall develop a model of ecological utopias as a distant point of orientation, or as a ‘navigational compass’. In this model ecotopias may gradually influence the course of concrete decision making in the direction of a future sustainable society. In this context, a strategic issue to be confronted by the green movement is to look for an eco-friendly view on ‘the good life’ and the ‘art of living’. The basic dimensions of a sustainable lifestyle and an utopian inspired ecological ‘art of living’ are that society's focus should be shifted from ‘having’ to ‘being’, and to find a balanced configuration of the vita activa: action, work and labour. It is also vital to find forms of hedonism which are independent of mass consumerism, to relate our material consumption to our ecological footprints in systematic ways, and to cultivate ecological virtues and moral character.

The technological revolution is fundamentally changing our lifestyle, work, and communication. There is still no accurate information about the future of this great transformation, but one thing is quite clear: the speed of the transformations in terms of scale and complexity, like a storm, will go through all aspects of a society's life and change all the current paradigms. One of the expectations from the fourth industrial revolution will be the expansion of smart cities in accordance with sustainable development criteria. In order for a city to be truly smart and innovative, city officials must pay attention to elements such as renewable and clean energy such as the internet of things, smart networks, smart parking, and smart transportation. In another sense, there must be a balance between economy, environment, and society in order to build a strong, sustainable, and flexible smart city that will survive the test of time. Of course, based on the 7PS model, the dimensions of culture and education are very important and fundamental for high sustainability. Researchers and those involved in the implementation of smart cities have explained the main indicators to identify these cities, which include some of the following items: For example, smart building, environmental protection, smart garbage collection, digitization of all government affairs and administrative work, widespread use of smartphones and electronic devices, complete, convenient, and universal access to the internet, car sharing service and online taxi. Other important indicators include the intelligentization of the traffic system and urban planning, citizen participation, economic ecosystem, optimization in electricity, water and energy consumption, development of electric and electric public transportation fleet, quality control and management, and reduction of air pollution. In this chapter, the theory of i-Sustainability Plus and i-Comprehensive Strategic Urban Plan is introduced as the beating heart of the ubiquitous blue-green smart city design. In such urban areas, it is all about the combination of real life, virtual reality, and in addition the future of clean technologies. In general, it can be said that sustainable smart cities are a solution to combat the challenges of urbanization.

One of the characteristics of our age is urbanization and the increase in the population of cities and the development of small and large cities. In fact, the sustainable development of a city, which in its general sense means all-round growth and expansion without contradiction, with two main goals: (1) improving the quality of life in terms of the capacity of the environment and (2) responding to the needs of the present generation without restrictions for the future ones. But according to the fifth wave theory, entering the first edge of the future from 2020 to 2030, with the development of urbanization, we are witnessing instability in recent decades. Depletion of forests, thinning of the ozone layer, accumulation of greenhouse gases, noise pollution, threatening air pollution in cities are among these indicators in urban areas. Other important indicators also show the social and economic instability of the world community. The increase in poverty, economic growth without job creation, increase the gap between developed and developing countries, social disintegration, and the sense of citizenship of the residents of local communities and the class gap are among these indicators. Therefore, since 1970, with the advancement of technologies, today the realization of urban development depends on attention to the factors of innovation, digitalization, and intelligentization. In the concept of development, aspects, domains, and scales become important. This improvement of the current situation will be realized when it brings all-round intelligence without conflict and contradiction in meeting the tangible and intangible needs of this society. Growth in material and spiritual aspects, from local to global scales and in different economic, cultural, educational, social, technological, and even political fields. Therefore, paying attention to the quality makes the concept of development more effective. These qualities are aligned with the concept of sustainability. In this chapter, U-city, smart sustainable mobility through 5th Wave, i-Sustainability Plus, and doost cultural theory (DCT) will be probed as a new concept of urban living for blue-green smart city and mobility. In addition, challenges made some countries not to prefer to utilize smartness and ubiquitous idea as a tool for their problems, will be explored.

The United Nations action plan on sustainable development, called Agenda 21, is applied as a new framework to strategic management of libraries and information services is described in this chapter. Strategic management with Agenda 21 involves adapting the library to its social and ecological environment. It affects the entire organization including institutional and individual strategies. Key issues are ecology, social responsibility, accountability and ethics. The chapter is not about climate change, but is about goal definition and resource allocation. The message is that library management should contribute to the sustainable development of society on a local level, in addition to its particular cultural or scientific objectives. The global approach of Agenda 21 helps to evaluate library performance as a system, against criteria derived from the action plan, and to develop sustainable scenarios integrating social and ecological impact. Also, following the Agenda 21 philosophy, no performance level such as service quality, information technology, financial balance or carbon footprint should be evaluated unrelated to the other levels. In the new societal context, social, economic and ecological aspects are inter-connected. The author’s conviction is that the traditional cultural and scientific functions of libraries cannot be isolated from this environment, and that strategic library management must integrate sustainable development, not as a marginal element, but at the heart of analysis and decision-making.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 aimed at ensuring an inclusive, equitable, quality education, and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all. However, this may not be effectively realized, as this chapter demonstrates, through formal learning or education alone. Rather, an adoption of non-formal and informal learning alongside formal learning is more likely to empower the general population to contribute toward the development of a sustainable society. This chapter therefore critically examines the concepts of lifelong learning and the learning society and suggests that community learning, or study circles, can be a promising institutional medium for the promotion of adult and lifelong learning. The rationale for establishing a study circle as a medium for lifelong learning is demonstrated through case studies from Zimbabwe and Sweden. This follows by comparing and contrasting the ways in which Sweden and Zimbabwe promote lifelong learning for all.