Mindsets for Linking Strategy and Sustainability: Planetary Boundaries, Social Foundations, and Sustainable Strategizing

Thomas Wunder ()
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Thomas Wunder: Neu-Ulm University of Applied Sciences

Chapter Chapter 1 in Rethinking Strategic Management, 2019, pp 1-40 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Sustainability today is very different from what it meant only a few years ago. We have crossed at least four planetary boundaries and are facing severe shortfalls in our social foundations. The Earth has entered a new geological epoch called “Anthropocene”. Today, investors, customers, and other groups in and beyond a business ecosystem are increasingly demanding that companies manage their impacts and make effective contributions to sustainable development. A typology of three strategizing mindsets will help corporate leaders to make business sense of sustainability. In Strategizing-as-Usual, sustainability is seen as an unfolding market shift much like any other business opportunity or threat. With a Sustainable Strategizing 1.0 mindset, executives pro-actively seek to create win-win situations between economic and social or ecological performance. Leaders following a Sustainable Strategizing 2.0 mindset consider socio-ecological future fitness as a prerequisite for economic future fitness and ask “What can my business do for sustainability?”. They follow a societal purpose and seek to achieve positive systems impact through a variety of levers. Strategists need to be aware of and reflect their own strategizing mindset before they make strategic decisions toward a thriving future for both business and society.

Keywords: Sustainable strategizing; Strategy; Strategic management; Business case for sustainability; Sustainability; Anthropocene; Planetary boundaries; Mindsets; Socio-ecological system; Positive systems impact (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-06014-5_1

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