CASE STUDY When Is a Business Sustainable?1-By what criteria would you judge a company as sustainable?2-Are some industries simply not sustainable?3-What, exactly, is the role of social factors such as diversity, tax payments, and CEO/average worker pay ratios in judging sustainability? How do these factors connect to the definition of sustainability?4-The Bruntland Commission's definition of sustain- ability was targeted at macroeconomic develop-ment. How does this definition relate to individual firms and industries? Can unsustainable firms or industries thrive in a sustainable economy?

CASE STUDY When Is a Business Sustainable? It is difficult to find many institutions in contempo- rary culture that have not become attached to the idea of sustainability. We find \"sustainable\" used to modify not only business but also agriculture, architecture, buildings, construction. communities, consumerism, development, economics, ecosystems, forestry. investing, transportation, and on and on. Within business, we find sustainable management, marketing, accounting, operations, and invest ment. Other areas such as corporate strategy and corporate reporting have almost entirely evolved into corporate sustainability. Thousands of corpo- rations, for example, have replaced the traditional corporate annual report with an annual sustainabil- ity report. But one should be leery when any idea is so ubiq- uitous, especially when it was originally introduced as a critical alternative to the status quo. Has \"sus- tainability" lost its meaning? Is it only a passing fad, or worse, is it a public relations smokescreen behind