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Globalization and its impacts on economies, societies and cultures has been a hot topic of research and discussion in the past few years. Recent times are witnessing the upsurge of another doctrine in the international arena – the practice of isolationism, a policy majorly related to political affairs but extendable to business, sustainability, green behaviour and various other spheres.

Globalization has resulted in various kinds of disordering and reordering of business objectives and practices. Modern day consumers have new needs and lifestyle orientations. The flip side is that increased global operations have precipitated newer challenges for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). But for managing globalization, isolationism is not the answer (Altman, 2007). Isolationism cannot be expected to have reciprocative effects of globalization. In fact, it may be in dispute with interests of many social stakeholders.

Responsible businesses have reoriented their CSR initiatives towards environmental and social stewardship. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the more recent strategic tools that provide a more focussed mandate to address sustainability issues emerging from increased production, consumption and disposal. In the times of vulnerabilities and disruption, there is an increasing emphasis on developing CSR as a horizontal enabler of SDGs.

Fashion & textile industry is the second most polluting industry globally. Fast fashion is having catastrophic impacts on the environment. Due to the massive size and magnitude of the global fashion & textile industry (USD 920 billion in 2018 and projected to grow to USD 1,230 billion by 2024), it becomes important to examine dimensions of CSR, in reference to SDGs in this sector. The fashion & textile industry is one of the most globally integrated. Sourcing, production, supply chain management, market development and retailing are all dependent on integration and collaboration amongst various business entities and regulatory bodies across national boundaries. Isolationism may result in disorientations in the enabling environments of this industry.

As sustainability is going to be the most important directive in coming future, the study aims to examine the cohesiveness between the current CSR initiatives of the fashion & textile sector and the prescribed SDGs. The study will further investigate if the instantaneous momentum of isolationism could cultivate multifaceted challenges for the horizontal integration of CSR in SDGs; and if yes, what will be the nature of these challenges?

With the World Economic Forum's 2019 theme based on the new era – Globalization 4.0: Shaping a New Architecture in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution – this chapter takes into consideration innovation as defined in the previous chapter and builds on the escalation of innovation required for the Fourth Industrial Revolution and to reach the sustainable development goals (SDGs) deadline by 2030. Proposed is an entire ecosystem change of how the world lives, eats, makes money, sleeps and breathes. This chapter considers these changes with an explanation of CSR 1.0 and CSR 2.0 to CSR 3.0, providing case studies of these, plus discussing the transition from Globalization 3.0 to 4.0, and the various known and unknown system changes that may be required including integrated value creation (IVC). We live in exciting times where IVC and other systems, such as the well-being economy, exponential economy, shared economy, innovation and resilience economy, may be part of a new ecosystem. This chapter concludes with a discussion of these themes, and the development of CSR 4.0 mapped on to Globalization 4.0 within a deeply transformed systems approach to create transformed value (CTV). Emerging research opportunities as a result of these changes are discussed throughout this chapter.

This chapter explores the evolution of a network, initially based on providing sustainable seafood through Loblaw’s supply chain, to a network that is collectively working to improve ocean health. It describes the role of the CEO and key managers, the internal changes taken by Loblaw to become a more sustainable organization, and the external partnering that resulted in a more coherent network with shared goals.

The chapter describes models and theories of sustainable organizations, issue nets, and collaboration and then applies the concepts to understand Loblaw’s sustainability journey and the creation of a network.

The model of the evolution to a sustainable organization is extended to include the journey to sustainable issue or domain networks. What Loblaw and the partnering organizations were able to create suggests that there are increasing levels of collaboration around changing a domain, if there is the courage to take a leap of faith and increase an organization’s time horizon beyond immediate financial demands.

The findings of this chapter will help senior executives with responsibility for shifting supply chains to become more sustainable. In addition, this case provides a new level of detail in describing the journey to sustainability, shifting from a company focus to an issue focus.

This chapter compares and discusses the 10 sustainability-oriented food supply chain innovations described in the previous chapters. Our purpose is to address and reflect on the questions and challenges introduced in the first chapter.

The cases are first analyzed in terms of the extent to which the innovations were motivated and impacted the social, environmental, and economic dimensions of sustainability. The various sustainable food supply chain practices adopted are compared. The third section explores the innovation strategies used in the cases, including the type of strategy, the breadth and level of innovativeness of the strategy, the governance approach, and the extent of capability development required. The final section presents our conclusions.

The results suggest that to become truly sustainable, companies need to adopt a broad set of practices that address all three dimensions of sustainability, and develop strategies to make the sustainability-oriented innovation economically viable. The more radical and systemic the innovation, the more difficult it is to generate these outcomes.

The purpose of this chapter is to develop and review a set of indicators that measure the level of sustainable performance achieved by individual restaurants and to provide a means by which all restaurant operations can implement sustainable practices. The set of indicators, derived from extensive literature review, were tested on four London restaurants purporting to be sustainable. Results show that these indicators can be used effectively by the restaurants wishing to improve their sustainable performance. In addition, by using sustainable indicators the study aims to develop a theoretical concept for future improvement in the sustainable management of restaurant operations.

We investigate the innovative supply chain contracts developed and implemented by Barilla, the leading Italian pasta company, in sourcing high-quality durum wheat from farmers in Northern Italy in the Emilia Romagna region.

Using case study techniques to gather information, we captured the evolution of the supply chain contracts adopted by Barilla. We gained information mainly through semi-structured interviews with Barilla’s managers, co-op and consortium managers representing farmers, Barilla’s quantitative data related to contracts’ elements and structure, preliminary experimental results, agri-business magazines, industry reports, and academic literature.

These contracts helped the company improve not only its long-term profits and strategic objectives such as supply security, but also the farmers’ income as well as environmental sustainability, thus providing triple bottom line benefits.

We investigate how Barilla and its suppliers – with the support of additional stakeholders, such as regional institutions – combine in their innovative contracts fixed and market-based prices as well as quality and sustainability-based premiums for desired triple bottom line benefits.

Fashion/textile small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are currently adding value to previously discarded textile waste by applying practical skills, knowledge and expertise to rework and reuse this material. As a result, sustainable design strategies such as zero-waste pattern-cutting, design for disassembly and upcycling are beginning to emerge. However, the scope for redesign will always be limited and the complete lifecycle of the material used needs to be considered at the front-end of the innovation process, to optimise material lifespans and reduce consumer waste. Further work is also required to inspire and educate the next generation of designers to the creative potential of reuse, and help the industry to understand its viability, scalability and role in the future. This chapter explores how the principals of the circular economy might support business model innovation within fashion and textiles. To this end, an exploratory canvas tool for SMEs, ‘Circular by Design’, was devised to aid SMEs to embrace closed-loop systems and to identify the most appropriate sustainable design strategies for their business.

This chapter presents the case study of Origin Green, the Irish food industry’s national program that committed the entire supply chain to meet sustainability targets and simultaneously branded the efforts and outcomes to increase demand for Irish food products. The brand creation is discussed under headings of building predictability, creating innovative capacity, and facilitating an intimate relationship.

The chapter describes supply chain risk mitigation, brand development, and the relationship between the two, proposing that they should be regarded as simultaneous rather than separate processes. This is followed by the case history of Origin Green.

The literatures on risk mitigation and brand equity development are extended by suggesting that the development of each should be regarded as simultaneous rather than consecutive activities.

The chapter outlines a program for national branding and sustainability and an insight on risk mitigation and branding that should be of interest to policymakers designing such programs and senior leaders considering involvement.

This chapter will be useful to policymakers considering national or industry-wide initiatives. Further, the chapter demonstrates the opportunity and challenges of systemic approaches to sustainability. The opportunity to brand nations and systems and the need to simultaneously build supply chain and brand for such is an original insight that is of value to strategy and planning. Similarly, at firm level, removing risk from the supply chain and building a brand would be of value.

In recent years, sustainability considerations in the real estate sector have moved from being a niche market phenomenon to a mainstream trend. The movement has been accompanied by a shift in the industry’s perception of sustainable buildings. Traditional cost-saving goals are now complemented by a growing interest in the potential for sustainable buildings to tackle broader economic and social sustainability challenges as well as issues related to health and well-being. The real estate industry is increasingly expected to adapt its strategies to incorporate new and more stringent environmental and urban development requirements, to cater to shifting demographics, and to utilize new advancements in construction processes and materials. This chapter explores recent research on sustainable real estate and highlights some of the newest trends in the market. The chapter then examines how policy and technological advancements can enable real estate developers to tackle environmental, social, and economic sustainability challenges. This will be exemplified through a focus on carbon taxation and timber construction. Based on these case studies, the chapter illustrates how today’s sustainable real estate sector – marked by its move beyond a focus on cost savings – requires for building practices to be strongly rooted in global, sustainable development policies.

The UK is a developed retail economy with some of the largest and most powerful retailers in the world. These retailers have been attempting to offer sustainable distribution, both for consumer focus reasons and as an aid to performance. At the other end of the scale, small local community focused stores have begun to emerge to offer an alternative food supply to that of the major chains. They too argue for a focus on sustainability but from a very different perspective. This chapter explores these varying approaches, using the contrasts to develop a discussion about sustainable distribution in the UK.