ABSTRACT
The discussion and practice of sustainability has become a prominent feature of many industrial as well as government and international development forums since the Brundtland Commission published its 1987 report, Our Common Future (WCED 1987). The Rio ‘Earth Summit’ of 1992 and the Kyoto meeting in 1997 on global warming placed a further, very public, spotlight on the issues of physical resource usage, development, industrial practice and government policies. The extent to which these themes have gained credibility and serious attention is illustrated by the fact that the World Business Council for Sustainable Development has now over 140 members, most of which are multi-billion-dollar transnational corporations. Business for Social Responsibility has more than 1,400 members or affiliates, who collectively represent revenues of over US$1.5 trillion. Professor Stuart Hart’s 1997 article in the Harvard Business Review won the McKinsey award for best paper of the year (Hart 1997). This paper outlined with uncommon clarity the positive role that developing nations could play in the pursuit of sustainability.
