<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Countless people and organisations have been wrestling with the practical application of sustainability and sustainable development. Yet there is no rigorous and unequivocal template that can be followed for management because the meaning of the key concepts of sustainability and development in particular haven’t been properly identified. Although the fundamental meaning of the word sustainability is continuance, the concept has its controversies especially when it drifts into the ‘abstract’ and even becomes confused with sustainable development. For our purposes it is the ability of development and of its associated processing activities to continue that is being managed. For management effectiveness, a system framework is necessary but more importantly what goes into that system has to be rigorously and unambiguously defined. In our case, the mechanisms describing the practicalities that govern the sustainability of development have been clearly identified in this paper and called by name. The concept of development needs clarification, while the accepted popular ‘three pillar’ depiction of sustainable development is also fundamentally flawed when compared with the form of words of the ‘Brundtland’ definition. This well-known ‘Venn representation’ implies a type of ‘balance’ or ‘synergy’ at the heart of sustainability management. In fact, because of the fundamentally unsustainable nature of current development processes, the ‘balance’ turns into a trade-off amongst the three sustainability players. For real sustainable development there can be no such trade-off. Once the misunderstandings are clarified the true basics of sustainability and sustainable development are fed into a standard ISO14001 iteration loop for management to commence.</p></abstract>

Countless people and organisations have been wrestling with the practical application of sustainability and sustainable development. Yet there is no rigorous and unequivocal template that can be followed for management because the meaning of the key concepts of sustainability and development in particular haven’t been properly identified. Although the fundamental meaning of the word sustainability is continuance, the concept has its controversies especially when it drifts into the ‘abstract’ and even becomes confused with sustainable development. For our purposes it is the ability of development and of its associated processing activities to continue that is being managed. For management effectiveness, a system framework is necessary but more importantly what goes into that system has to be rigorously and unambiguously defined. In our case, the mechanisms describing the practicalities that govern the sustainability of development have been clearly identified in this paper and called by name. The concept of development needs clarification, while the accepted popular ‘three pillar’ depiction of sustainable development is also fundamentally flawed when compared with the form of words of the ‘Brundtland’ definition. This well-known ‘Venn representation’ implies a type of ‘balance’ or ‘synergy’ at the heart of sustainability management. In fact, because of the fundamentally unsustainable nature of current development processes, the ‘balance’ turns into a trade-off amongst the three sustainability players. For real sustainable development there can be no such trade-off. Once the misunderstandings are clarified the true basics of sustainability and sustainable development are fed into a standard ISO14001 iteration loop for management to commence.

Total Sustainability Management. Describing the Conditions, Requirements and Application of Sustainability Management

Management Systems in Production Engineering

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Countless people and organisations have been wrestling with the practical application of sustainability and sustainable development. Yet there is no rigorous...

Total Sustainability Management. Describing the Conditions, Requirements and Application of Sustainability Management

Published Online: Jun 03, 2019

Page range: 110 - 118

Received: Dec 01, 2018

Accepted: Mar 01, 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/mspe-2019-0019

Keywords
sustainability management, ‘Brundtland’, real sustainable development, ISO14001

© 2019 Stefan Boroń et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Total Sustainability Management. Describing the Conditions, Requirements and Application of Sustainability Management

Published Online: Jun 03, 2019

Page range: 110 - 118

Received: Dec 01, 2018

Accepted: Mar 01, 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/mspe-2019-0019

Keywordssustainability management, ‘Brundtland’, real sustainable development, ISO14001

© 2019 Stefan Boroń et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Keywords
sustainability management, ‘Brundtland’, real sustainable development, ISO14001