Sustainability: aligning corporate governance, strategy and operations with the planet

Purpose – To demonstrate that mainstream current ethical stances of corporate governance and associated strategic and operational management are contributors to global unsustainability, and to discuss issues and approaches for bringing governance and management into alignment with sustainability. Design/methodology/approach – A representative model of a business is used to predict outcomes for financial wealth creation and environmental sustainability under mainstream ethical stances for corporate governance. Findings – Analysis of the model concludes that, given these stances, enhanced management practice and/or technological innovation is unlikely to take such businesses above the threshold of sustainability. This leads to proposal of a model that demonstrates seven alternative pathways to achieving alignment of governance and management with planetary sustainability. One pathway retains current mainstream ethical stances, that must be constrained by government interventions. The other six pathways show alternative influences that cause corporates to shift their ethical stances autonomously and hence to change governance and management strategies and action. Research limitations/implications – The paper reaches theoretical conclusions that could be further developed as research propositions for empirical testing and raises issues that can be considered directly by corporate directors and managers. Originality/value – The paper introduces models and analysis that have not appeared elsewhere in the literature.