Business and the Environment: Critical Issues and Emerging Perspectives

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, the academic discourse on environmental management and organizational sustainability has pursued more meaningful mechanisms for shared analytical frameworks and metrics at the interface between businesses and societies. The ‘inside-out’ lens has been devoted to the management of externalities, stemming from profit-seeking activities, on the environment. An inverse perspective, in order to better incorporate and demonstrate the ‘outside-in’ lens, indicates the emerging trend which places greater emphasis on addressing grand challenges which are impacting business entities, mainly under the scope of environmental perturbations reflecting high-impact–low-probability natural hazards.

In this Special Issue, we aim to provide ground for up-to-date, fruitful, and actionable insights from these two specific strands of the ‘business and the environment’ literature through conceptual models, analytical frameworks, as well as empirical studies on critical perspectives from different contexts. These inverse perspectives indicate their potential for bringing forth actionable insights and fruitful research outcomes. We welcome both theoretical and empirical contributions, under the scope of a multidisciplinary approach, which collectively may provide a reference for pressing issues describing the interaction between for-profit entities and the natural environment.

This is particularly important as policy-makers estimate sustainability transitions offer new market opportunities of $12Tn USD and, at the same time, the economic and social risks of not addressing the human impact on the environment remain far greater. Few of the questions emerging at this interface are: How does the natural environment potentially shape organizational practices and performance? How can businesses generate broader value and contribute to macro-level environmental and sustainability goals? How can the environmental impacts of business activities be contextually assessed and mitigated through policy, practice, and disclosure towards sustainability? How can innovative or technological solutions approved by business and environmental stakeholders across different industries improve shared responsibilities and accountability?

Prof. Nada Korac Kakabadse
Assist. Prof. Antonis Skouloudis
Dr. Nadeem Khan
Assoc. Prof. Konstantinos Evangelinos
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Corporate environmental management
• Corporate environmentalism
• Environmental responsibility in business
• Corporate environmental accounting and reporting
• Business strategy and environmental threats
• Micro-, Small-, and Medium-sized Enterprises and the environment
• Business responses to climate change, weather extremes, and environmental hazards
• Circular economy engagement and the enterprise
• Harnessing innovation and technologies for business and the environment
• Sustainability transitions and value creation
• Embedding environmental accountability in established and start-up enterprises
• Planetary Boundaries and business- or sector-specific perspectives