Social Sustainability: Theories, Concepts, Practicability

Abstract

While the concept of sustainability is widely recognized these days, it is questionable how adaptable and how beneficial most of the corporate solutions regarding sustainability management are. It is very likely that most of what passes for mainstream reporting in Corporate Sustainability Management fails to do precisely the one thing it purports to do – which is making it possible for organizations to measure and report on the sustainability of their operations (McElroy, Jorna, van Engelen, 2007). When it comes to the social aspect of sustainability, this problem is even more imminent. The objective of this paper is to give a solid scientific definition of sustainability to get past the fuzzy understanding of social sustainability and to suggest real methods and solutions on how to get the concept more operational. Everything can be conceptualized; however there are reasons why, among others, the Global Reporting Initiative struggles with closing on more globally accepted and lasting definitions for social sustainability and ways to promote it. One of them is in the subject itself. Ethical considerations play into the determination of defined quotients of social sustainability and those differ between different countries, cultures, even from one person to another. Crucially, it is not only the definition of social value/capital that is in question, but the fact that its slow progress inhibits strategies and applicable methods from evolving further.