Sustainability Leadership towards Strategic Sustainability: Examining

Brazilian Organisations

Cássia Ayres

Master in Social Science MSc Social Responsibility and Sustainability

Supervisor: Josie Kelly September, 2015

 2  

The flying V formation of some birds, like geese, allow the whole group to add 71 per cent of flying range compared to if the bird flew isolated. Flying together also protects a goose when it gets sick, tired or shot down. When it happens, at least two geese fly down and support the bird till it is able to fly back with the group or dies. The V formation is due to the leadership position, which is seen with respect by the group since it is not comfortable for a goose to fly faster while facing the air resistance. Hence, the leader always counts on the back geese’s honk to be encouraged and keep its speed in order to ensure advantages for the whole group. Frequently, the leader has to give away its position, to allow other birds experience to lead as well as to follow (Glouberman, 2003).

 3  

Table of Contents:  

Acknowledgment   6   Abstract  

7  

CHAPTER 1: This project  

8  

1.1 Introduction 8  

1.2 Aim and objectives 9  

1.3 Research Question

1.4 Significance and inspiration

10  

 CHAPTER 2: Literature Review 12  

2.1 Part A Strategic Sustainability 12  

2.1.1 Evolution and motivations

12  

2.1.2 Causes of inefficiency 14  

2.1.3 Transitional and transformational 15  

2.1.4 Sustainability Value Framework 16  

2.1.5 SVF through transformational approaches 18  

2.1.6 Evaluation of SVF’s 20  

2.1.7 Corporate sustainability in Brazil Corporate sustainability in 21  

2.2.4 Part A summary  

23  

2.2 Part B Sustainability leadership

24  

2.2.1 New ways to lead are required

24  

2.2.2 Definition of sustainability leadership 26  

2.2.3 Streams of sustainability leadership 26  

2.2.3.1 Behaviour orientated leadership 26    

2.2.3.2 Technical-instrumental or task oriented 36    

2.2.3 Trends in sustainability leadership 38    

2.2.4 Part B summary 40    

     

 4  

2.2.5 Gaps in the literature  

40  

CHAPTER 3: Methodology

 41  

3.1 Chapter introduction 41  

3.2 Overview of research methodology 41  

3.3 Samples 42  

3.4 Data Collection process 44  

3.4.1 Interviews 45  

3.4.2 Case study method 45  

3.5 Data analysis 47  

3.6 Chapter summary 48  

CHAPTER 4: Findings

 49  

4.1 Chapter introduction 49  

4.2 Case studies presentation 49    

4.2.1 Duratex SA 49  

4.2.2 Votorantim Metals 52  

4.2.3 AES Brasil (Eletropaulo) 56  

4.2.4 Tetra Pak  

59  

4.3 Data analysis process 63  

4.4 Summary of key findings 67  

4.6 Chapter summary 67  

CHAPTER 5: Discussion

 68  

5.1 Chapter introduction 68  

5.2 Discussion of the drivers and supporting findings 68  

5.2.1 Strategic sustainability 74  

5.3 Implications of this study 76  

5.4 Limitations of this study 79  

5.5 Recommendations for further research 80  

4.6 Recommendation for the organisations 81  

Conclusion

 82  

References 83  

   

 5  

     

   

   

Appendices 94  

Appendix (A) Denominations of sustainability Leadership 94  

Appendix (B) Coded quotes from sustainability managers 95  

List of figures

 

 1 Sustainability Value Framework 17  2 The Buzzword Sort 18  3 Sustainability critical issues 25  4 The Seven Action Logics 31  5 LDF applied to sustainability 34  6 Relationship between mindsets and the five Gears 35  7 CPSL model of leadership 39  8 Analysis process 47  9 Summary of key findings 65  10 Sustainability Leadership Framework 78   List of tables

 

1 Elements categorized into two major topics 64  2 Conceptualization of elements. 66    

 6  

Acknowledgments This project culminates with the completion a significant journey of my masters at Aston

University in the UK. More than an examination of topics, this project has tested my

knowledge about sustainability acquired so far, and also inspires my next steps in this

field. From the point in which I took my decision to return to the classrooms in Luanda, I

would like to thank special friends, Cyla Weihsmann, Dr. José Octávio Van-Dúnem and

Dr. Cláudio Cardoso and for their warm motivation. This project effectively counted on

the support of my supervisor Josie Kelly for her meticulous inputs towards high

academic standards, she incentivised me to achieve with this project. I also want to

thank to Dr. Chinny Nzekwe-Excel for her precious support during my learning process

in each step of this project.

This topic was successfully accomplished thanks to Ricardo Voltolini, and his robust

and pioneering work about sustainability leadership in Brazil, and for the valuable

resources that he made available to me. In the view of this, I also express my special

thanks for the Brazilian organisations that voluntarily participated: Duratex, Votorantim,

AES Brasil and Tetra Pak. A sustainability representative from each organisation took

part in this project. These four knowledgeable professionals, which for ethical reasons I

will keep in anonymity, cooperated enormously with their time, informing me about

technical information as well as subjective impressions which were crucial for this

project contextualization.

I thank all my course colleagues for their input, continuous cooperation in person and

our digital conferences. I also wish to thank all my dear friends for their emotional

support when I needed it the most.

Lastly and from my core and spirit I thank God and to Saint Anthony, my guardian, for

illuminating me everyday during my path. I thank my mum, Joana Angélica for her

example of strength and persistency and to my father, Evandro Ayres, (in memorian),

my beloved environmentalist, for his eternal inspiration that I will use to pursue a better

society.

 7  

Abstract This study examines how sustainability leadership drives strategic sustainability by

using four large Brazilian organisations as a sample to analyse how this relationship

happens, and the implications of it. The results show that there is a positive influence

from this leadership towards corporate sustainability strategies when three main factors

are in place: (1) Support of top leadership through its projection of vision, motivation

and risk-taking in a innovative way; (2) Skilled leaders which are highly knowledgeable

about their business and sustainability as well being able to possess emotional

competence; (3) Leadership with a system thinking approach, comprising a holistic

vision and co-participation of different actors. The main implication of this study is that

developing the leadership in the mentioned factors would lead to improvement of these

organisations’ sustainability practices, and possibly towards more transformational

ones. Therefore, it is suggested that leadership programmes work to develop the

elements found in the model proposed systematically. Eventually, this model and these

recommendations can be adapted to the realities of other organisations that resonate

with the characteristics found in the sample.

Key words: sustainability leadership, strategic sustainability, leadership development,

action-logics, transitional sustainability, transformational sustainability, Brazil,

sustainable development.

 8  

CHAPTER 1: This project 1.1 Introduction

Our society is currently living in an inversion of patterns of scarcity when compared to

the Industrial Revolution two centuries ago. During that period, there was a shortage of

people’s capabilities to deal with the machines and a profuse source of natural

recourses available. By contrast, today the workforce has been replaced by modern

systems and the natural capital is in deep deficiency and shows the boundaries of

economical growth related to Earth’s carrying capacity (Hawken, Lovins, and Lovins,

1999). Practically, society has been not only postponing to tackle this problem

effectively, but has also been depleting resources rapidly. Both facts associated have

been stressing the resilience ability of ecosystems and decreasing species,

exterminating habitats and damaging the health of human beings as a result of the sick

planet we are living in (Hawken, 1995).

Korten (2001) argues that private organisations are directly part of the problem and

have become the most powerful institutions worldwide. Therefore, organisations should

be part of the solution, using their power to turn damaging corporate systems into

reconstructive ones, enabling natural resilience and meeting the needs of society.

Indeed, there is a stream of cutting edge organisations with authentic commitment in

changing the current paradigm, but the problem is that the amount of actions is not

enough related to the challenges that the planet is currently facing. Clean technologies,

for example, have been more frequently used to cooperate with nature’s resilience

capacity. Nevertheless, the amount of development owned by organisations is still

disproportional when compared to the effects of an unsustainable world: exponential

population growth, scarcity and extinction of natural resources, loss of biodiversity

habitats destruction and extreme poverty (Stahel, 2007).

Despite many other drivers, such as market and governmental incentives, human

psychology and absence of sustainability vision, lack of participatory corporate

leadership is one of the factors which seriously accentuates these symptoms. (Borland

and Paliwoda, 2011). In fact, the way that leaders use their power to make

transformations happen is crucial and is in the core of the debates today (Korten,

2001). Presence of leadership orientated to sustainability may explain why some

 9  

companies are able to understand the sustainability challenges as opportunities to

develop internal capabilities and generate advantages for their businesses, for society

and for the environment while others are not able (Doppelt, 2010). Hence, the answer

for some organisations to foster corporate sustainability or sustainability embedded into

business strategies often starts when the leadership is convinced and committed to

implement it (Ferdig, 2007; Borland, 2009).

For those leaders who understand that fostering sustainability is a paramount condition

for all species survival, but are not convinced that they are the generation to play the

role, the issue reveals a permanent defect in mind-set change and lack of participatory

leadership (Starkey and Welford, 2001). Consequently, if strategic sustainability

represents a gear in which organisations can operate to generate business profitability

without leaving behind wellbeing in a long-term perspective by restoring the

environment and improving human conditions (Bennett and James, 1998; Borland,

2009), leadership orientated to sustainability or sustainability leadership is therefore a

fuel to move this gear, with fundamental roles. These roles encompass support towards

other leaders to act upon their corporations, shift mindsets and consumer patterns and

partner with governmental structures and other relevant stakeholders in order to focus

on common environmental and societal goals (Ferdig, 2007).

1.2 Aim and objectives

The predominant aim of this project has been to better understand how sustainability

leadership drives strategic sustainability, by identifying and interpreting factors that can

be observed through this relationship. This purpose unfolds into the observation of

sustainability strategies performed in four Brazilian organisations, and the

characteristics of sustainability leadership that is in place in this given environment. This

explorative and interpretative study has been focused on the way this leadership has

been shaping these organisations and moving beyond its borders of strategic

sustainability practices.

In complement to this aim, the project has three objectives:

• To explore strategic sustainability and sustainability leadership concepts and

distinct approaches

• To analyse case studies from the perspective of both aforementioned topics

• To draw conclusions and produce recommendations to further studies

 10  

This project considers two assumptions confirmed through data collection:

1- The sample performs strategic sustainability as part of its corporate orientation,

being reflected into its vision, mission and daily practices.

2- The leadership orientated to sustainability performed in all four organisations

has been contextualized in this study as sustainability leadership.

1.3 Research Question

How does sustainability leadership drive strategic sustainability?

This is the main question that this project wants to answer in order to reveal and

improve understanding of what factors are connected to sustainability leadership and

how they lead to strategic sustainability. This question unfolds into a secondary

question: which sort of sustainability leadership has been used to address strategic

sustainability?

1.4 Significance and inspiration

Despite an abundance of natural resources and biodiversity, Brazil has been

dramatically loosing these resources over the last 30 years. Together with this fact,

social inequalities are still a major problem in the country that primarily leads to a

chronic economic inefficiency and a lack of wellbeing. This scenario requires, therefore,

strong corporate policies in place that are associated to public ones to ensure people’s

basic needs are met: education, health, safety, decent income as well as nature’s

preservation in a long-term view (Barata, 2007). Positively, with a gradual access to

products and services for the low middle class and those considered as in the poverty

line in the last decade, the corporate’s mission to assume a responsible posture and

help to meet the needs of almost 108 million people, or 54% of the population,

proportionally increases. Therefore, this new corporate posture concretized in

sustainability strategies has a great challenge in Brazil to learn from an empirical

process and succeed (Eight, 2014). Currently, there is a wave of sustainability leaders

changing their organisations through these strategies and influencing other

organisations to follow the same path (Voltolini, 2011). The inspiration of this project

derives from this significant movement where Brazilian corporations are involved,

creating and sharing strong business cases and therefore impacting society. Its

significance arises from the novelty of the topics discussed in this study and the effects

it could have for the academic literature and also for other organisations, as per

 11  

increasing awareness about these topics in this particular context and motivating

positive corporate decision making-processes.

 12  

CHAPTER 2: Literature Review

Chapter introduction

This chapter addresses the understanding of two major topics of this dissertation:

strategic sustainability and sustainability leadership. Shared into two parts, this

literature review will examine in depth the concepts and approaches of both topics,

discussing its limitations and directing the focus to comprehend the relationship

between these topics in order to create a theoretical background to respond the

research questions.

 

2.1 PART A – Strategic sustainability

This section describes the evolution of strategic sustainability, reveals the causes of its

inefficiency and underlines the difference between transitional to transformational

sustainability. Later, this section analyses the Sustainability Value Framework from the

view of new sustainability approaches and observes the development towards strategic

sustainability within a Brazilian context.

2.1.1 Evolution and motivations

The origins of Strategic sustainability can be found in the expression Sustainable

Development from The Brundtland Report (Galpin and Whittington, 2012). This term

refers to sustainable development as the ability of humans to satisfy their needs without

inhibiting the ability of other humans (WCED, 1987). At the time it was launched, this

document represented a call for action, finally embracing corporations to participate

together with the public and non-profit sector by setting strategic goals to maintain food

security, water supply, natural resources and biodiversity preservation, as well as

tackling over population, pollution control, climate change among other challenges

within its operations (Hawken, Lovins, and Lovins, 1999).

Today, strategic sustainability has different but converging definitions among scholars.

Its meaning tackles issues without dissociating from profitability (Galpin and

Whittington, 2012). For Stead and Stead (2010) Strategic sustainability, or sustainable

strategic management, embraces a set of corporate processes and strategies that

orientate the organisation’s mission, vision, values and culture, and therefore set

 13  

practical direction on profitable practices which keep the equilibrium of nature and

humankind wellbeing. According to Elkington (2004), corporate sustainability is the

incorporation of the Triple Bottom Line (economy, environment and social) into

corporate priorities aiming sustainable development and profitability. Similarly for Hart

(2012, p. 19), strategic sustainability represents an opportunity for the organisations “to

make money and to make the world a better place” by developing internal capabilities

associated to the context in which they operate. Berns et al (2009) argue that these

abilities are also motivational factors for the organisations to pursue strategic

sustainability, since they also enable the companies’ development against challengers,

such as: capacity to work in a system wider basis with society and environment, ability

to respond positively to a long-term system thinking, capacity to re-think and re-design

its business models (including financial, products and services), and finally, ability to

communicate and partner with a wide range of stakeholders.

In practice, these capabilities allow the company to move from early stages of

performing in a responsive and incremental way, merely integrated to the operations, to

a broader perspective in which the company understands itself as part of an

interconnected system within nature and society in which it relies upon to prosper

(Stead and Stead, 2010). SustainAbility (2004) demonstrates the evolution of strategic

sustainability and acquisition of corporate capabilities in four stages as follows:

• 1st stage - Compliance (commitment with regulations)

• 2nd stage - Profit-orientated/ (integrated into the operation for cost reduction

and risk minimization)

• 3rd stage - Integration with stakeholders/partner (beyond legal commitment

and profit orientation)

• 4th stage - Re-engineer/holistic (as a result of co-participation, the organisation

expands business models, products and services)

Complementary to this overview, Hart (2010, p. 16) summarized these stages of

corporate sustainability to demonstrate this evolution through the last 60 years as

follows: “Stage 1- Pollution Denial (1945 – 1960s); Stage 2 – End-of-pipe regulation

(1970–1980s); Stage 3 – Greening (mid-1980s–1990s); Stage 4 – Beyond Greening

(1990s–present).” The term “Greening” is used to refer to continuous improvement in

incremental or transitional phases.

 14  

Hence, corporate internal motivations are migrating from cost reduction, risk

management and profit maximization, towards marketing differentiation, brand image,

stakeholder recognition and lastly, reputation in advanced stages (Porter and Kramer,

2006; Marrewijk, 2003). Despite these internal motivations, the evolution of strategic

sustainability has been driven also for external motivations from environmental stresses

already referred together with stakeholders’ pressure, such as: government legislation,

consumers concerns, employee’s interests and social licence to operate from

communities (Berns et al, 2009; Stead and Stead, 2010; Porter and Kramer, 2006).

In other words, all these motivations demonstrate the levels of an organisation’s

commitment with stakeholders spheres beyond its limits, being often translated into

external direct impacts such as: stakeholder value-creation, responsible and

differentiated markets, customer trust, employees satisfaction, sustainable supply

chain, communities wellbeing and environmental preservation (Porter and Kramer,

2006; Marrewijk, 2003; Berns et al. 2009). Consequently, since late of the last Century,

strategic sustainability has been part of corporate agenda, no more as an only

differential element for market advantages, but mainly as an essential factor for

business survival in a long-term view. (Galpin and Whittington, 2012; Blowfield, 2013).

2.1.2 Causes of inefficiency

The process towards strategic sustainability is not always successful for organisations

and its stakeholders, displaying weaknesses and inconsistences (Porter and Kramer,

2006). The pressure levels and the short-termism view often leads to uncoordinated

sustainability activity, ‘‘disconnected from the firm’s strategy, that neither make any

meaningful social impact nor strengthen the firm’s long-term competitiveness’’ (Porter

and Kramer, 2006 p. 4). In other cases, poor performances and irregular commitments

are due to a lack of authenticity in this process since the practices are not genuinely

sustainable and seems to exist only to satisfy corporate communications, which are

motivated by stakeholder’s influences for the company to state a sustainable policy at

the same level or above its peers in the market (Blowfield, 2013; Marrewijk, 2003).

In addition to that, Berns et al (2009) comprehend the existence of other factors

associated to the weak corporate performances: ignorance and lack of understanding

of what sustainability is, difficulty to adapt sustainability into a business model, lack of

action, poor measurement and finally, difficulty to pursue a business case. Some other

 15  

scholars justify that the cause of fragile performances are due to the company

persistence in transitional stages of sustainability strategies, which are no longer

enough to address social and environmental issues (Hart, 1997; McDonough and

Braungart, 2002). Rather, corporate views require a radical step forward towards

transformational strategies added into business which comprises not only reductions

and minimising devastation of natural resources, pollution and waste, but also

eliminating waste and going beyond simply greening the operations (Hart, 2012; Stead

and Stead, 2010).

2.1.3 Transitional and transformational sustainability

Even tough scholars agree that many important advances were made since

sustainability started to be incorporated into business strategies. One of the most

important discussions today is about how organisations can act by doing more than just

reducing problems they create, through using less raw materials or preventing pollution,

but being regenerative to environment and to tackle social problems such as poverty,

food, water, jobs, education and high consumption patterns (Blowfield, 2013).

Traditional approaches of reuse, reduce and recycle are not meeting those last issues,

but rather, just “doing less bad”. Hence, some responses include a shift from

transitional approaches to transformational ones (McDonough and Braungart, 2002, p.

45). Stead and Stead (2010) defend that restorative organisations should be seen from

the perspective of close loops systems, incorporating waste back to production, since

they are part of an open loop, coexisting with society and environment. Thus, in this

permanent interaction with other systems, instead of generating outputs that

ecosystems cannot assimilate or social consequences that society alone cannot deal

with, companies should be able to learn how to cohabit by making a business

ecosystem dedicated to sustainability as the superior purpose.

This superior purpose is observed in Hart (1997) as reaching a superior performance by

developing a unique value preposition, which is “valuable, rare, difficult-to-imitate and

non-substitutable” (Hart, 2010, p. 45). From these viewpoints transformational

approaches allow organisations to develop new capabilities through breakthrough

strategies that generate new markets oriented to solving social and environmental

problems while operating, rather than merely decreasing impacts of its operations (Hart,

1997; Hart, 2010; Stead and Stead, 2010).

 16  

In other words, to point out the main difference between transitional and

transformational approaches, the first are considered incremental because they are

short-lived, or just efficient, such as: reduction or minimisation of ecological inputs and

outputs back to nature and also tackle superficially social interventions, such as

philanthropy and charity. The later approaches, however, have a problem-solve

perspective towards nature and people in a permanent way such as: waste and

pollution elimination or transformation into new inputs for production as well as more

permanent social outcomes, such as people empowerment. Therefore they are

considered effective (Blowfield, 2013; Hart, 2010; Stead and Stead, 2010).

2.1.4 Sustainability Value Framework (SVF)

Considering the evolution from transitional to transformational approaches in

sustainability as well as emerging market opportunities for organisations, this project

will discuss the Sustainability Value Framework (SVF) created by Hart and Milstein

(2003), a comprehensive model created to suggest corporative solutions based on both

approaches. In order to make SVF even more practical, this project proposes a critical

reflection on the application of this model in the light of four transformational

sustainability approaches: Cradle-to-Cradle, Circular Economy, Biomimicry and Base of

Pyramid.

This framework presents business opportunities to companies to develop their

sustainability performance considering internal and external expectations as well as

short and long-term perspectives, represented as “today” and “tomorrow”, or transitional

and transformational sustainability, respectively. Focusing on transformational

strategies, Hart and Milstein (2003) defend that they enable organisations to develop

advanced market competences beyond operational ones, which leads to more

profitability. From this viewpoint, Hart (2010) argues that organisations that are

profoundly reliant on fossil fuels, raw resources and toxic materials, for example, would

have potential opportunities to acquire new skills by using clean technologies and

create a unique differentiation for business and society. Successful cases are already

emerging from the automobile, chemical and plastic sector. Observing the external

environment of “tomorrow”, the same firms should be able to increase and deepen a

relationship with their stakeholders where they become part of the company’s co-

creation of products and services; therefore they are integrated into the business

process of generating product stewardship. More than creating responsible products

and services, the evolution of this process towards social solutions allows organisations

 17  

to think and perform business models, which can address society’s needs with regards

to poverty and other social inequalities. The focus proposed in this frame is to deliver

new business solutions from the base of the pyramid model. From the viewpoint of the

organisation, this framework increases legitimacy and reputation as per a deeper level

of stakeholder engagement and can turn traditional business models into social

oriented business as Hart exemplifies through Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and

Hewlett-Packard (Hart, 2010; Mirchandani and Ikerd, 2008).

Complementary, Hart (2010) describes the strategies from SVF, which composes this

model: The Buzzword Sort. Both frames can be visualized in the figures 1 and 2 below.

Figure1. Sustainability Value Framework. Source: Hart and Milstein (2003).

 18  

Figure 2. The Buzzword Sort. Source: Hart (2010)

2.1.5 SVF through transformational approaches

Cradle-to-Cradle

Examining Hart’s model through Cradle-to-Cradle, from pollution prevention to evolved

stages of clean technology it represents an added value from eco efficiency to eco

effectiveness (Kumar and Putnam, 2008). In Cradle-to-cradle, systems are designed to

consider waste as a nutrient in two ways: biological or technical. Therefore, instead of

saving resources in an eco efficient way or cradle-to-grave, cradle to cradle approach

proposes an upgrade in the life cycle analysis, by closing the loop of production

(McDonough and Braungart, 2002). On the one hand, the advantages are that nature

can digest biological materials. On the other hand, industry can decompose chemical

materials into technical closed cycles, permanently reusing and generating a limited

amount of waste as possible, reaching therefore eco effectiveness (McDonough and

Braungart, 2002). However, some weaknesses of cradle-to-cradle were observed in

 19  

Kumar and Putnam (2008). Large products such as cars or electro materials would

have limitations performing through cradle-to-cradle, as there would be drawbacks in

reverse logistics since it is difficult and expensive to pick up products either at B2B or

B2C levels. Additionally, there is a lack of robust supply chain, making it difficult to

disassemble and re-assemble materials because they were not designed for this new

purpose.

Circular Economy

From the view of circular economy product stewardship through stakeholder

participation would enable the change from a linear model, or “end of life”, to a circular

one. In this circular model innovative solutions to deliver products and services affects

not only production with close loops and zero waste, but also changes the relationship

of products and its consumption. This suggests new ways of acquisition and usage,

such as shared ownership or transforming tangible products into services also known

as servitasation, eg. leasing. Organisations like Xerox, Renault, Ricoh, IKEA and

Unilever developed this approach in their production and commercialization: leasing

their products and receiving them back to the industry until the end of its line

(MacArthur, 2013).

The common benefits experienced by these companies are: it enables industry

innovation, job creations, capital efficiency, and a more resilient economy in the long-

term with new ways of consumption instead of traditional consume-dispose (MacArthur,

2013).

The limitations of circular economy are associated to its novelty rising from the current

capitalism system. Xu and Wu (2009) argue that scaling up, especially in developing

countries, would depend upon a very conductive public policy and change in the

legislation framework, by first reinforcing compliance, and later generating incentives for

technological investments, research and development and know how transfer.

Leadership is a paramount key to catalyze this process.

Biomimicry

Disruptive clean technologies are the target of Biomimicry as an innovative way of

designing product systems considering nature as an inspiration in its conception of

industrial systems and manufacturing products as well as implementing solutions in

agriculture, chemical science, and nanotechnology among others (Benyus, 1997). For

this purpose biomimicry imitates nature in its features such as: use of renewable

 20  

energy, decomposable characteristics of materials, permanent use of all types of waste

as nutrients to feed systems and make use of diversity to constitute strong partnerships

in order to ensure resiliency. Health, transportation and IT sectors are benefiting from a

biomimicry approach (Benyus, 1997). Criticisms of biomimicry relate to the high level of

resistance or corporate facing the risk of not having return on investment after

transforming the industrial clean design into products in which the market is not ready

to absorb. Hence, consumer mindset shift should move in parallel with research and

development (Volstad and Boks, 2012).

Bottom of the Pyramid

Lastly, the Bottom of the Pyramid or BoP approach applies to a high population living in

poverty and other social inequalities. According to Prahlad (2005) it is possible to

eradicate extreme poverty and to generate sustainable development with solutions to

poor people with added value and low costs of acquisition. These solutions would bring

profitability to investors in the long term considering the high volume of purchases, even

with small profit margins and also in the supply chain value, by generating jobs and

qualifications. Telecoms, cosmetics and large food organisations are among the main

pioneers adding value to their business in developing countries (Prahlad, 2005).

However, BoP also has some drawbacks that can potentially damage small business

and intimidate income generation of other entrepreneurs. It can also contribute to

waste generation if clean technologies are not associated to this business model,

creating a reverse of its original aims (Warnholz, 2007).

2.1.6 Evaluation of SVF’s

Hart’s model has a broad approach that provides opportunities for companies to

develop capabilities and improve performance in different stages of development in

strategic sustainability. It has been a useful resource to identify the approaches used by

Brazilian companies and to understand the developmental stage. However, the

complexity of this model resides in being put in to practice for more advanced

approaches, as the novelty ais perceived with excitement and reluctance at the same

time by the market, especially in developing countries where strategic sustainability is a

relative new topic, as will be shown in the next section. Scholars suggest that the

reasons for resistance that is delaying more advanced approaches are, on one hand, in

the amount of investment in research and development versus the uncertainties of

return on investment and, on the other hand, the lack of corporate and political

 21  

leadership to foster innovation into the mainstream.

2.1.7 Corporate sustainability in Brazil

In order to have a clear understanding of corporate sustainability in contemporary Brazil

it is necessary to follow the evolution of historical factors from the 1970s to present day

in which society and organisations have been gradually incorporating sustainability into

their mindsets and business operations (Paro and Boechat, 2008; Barata, 2007; Gife,

2013). During the 1970s the government was the main inductor of social and

environmental investments. However, in the beginning of the 1980s the civil society

played a role with social movements against hunger, combating poverty and ensuring

basic education. As a result of these social inequalities, individuals and organisations

started to act on a philanthropic basis (Young, 2004).

In the 1990s firms established a systematic support delineating the first steps of

corporate social responsibility, or CSR. This CSR was accelerated by the pressure from

stakeholders, consumers, clients, media, and NGOs among others and initiated a

response to shortages of natural resources (Young, 2004). Hence, increasing diversity

of private actors has allowed perfecting corporate mechanisms to support society’s

needs (Paro and Boechat, 2008). One of these models which derives from CSR that

gradually gained relevancy since the 1990s was the Private Social Investment, or PSI,

in which privative organisations directly intervene in social and environmental issues

through investing in foundations and institutes’ programmes in a more strategic

manner, as PSI involves metrics of evaluation of return over investment and is more

associated to the core business of a company (Gife 2013).

Some figures reveal the evolution of organisations and investments that evolved from

philanthropy stages to strategic CSR and PSI from the 1980s up to present day. With

regards to CSR, Ethos Institute, the main organism, which disseminates and

incentivizes CSR culture nationally, congregated 11 organisations when it was founded

in 1998. Today, the institution has 586 associated organisations (Ethos, 2015; Young,

2004). On behalf of PSI, more than U$ 833 billion was invested in 2013 by

organisations into foundations and institutes aligned its business targets (Gife, 2013).

This optimistic scenario in the private sector opens a perspective to the corporate

involvement in environmental and social issues through strategic sustainability, the next

level of organisational’s intervention according to Eight (2014).

 22  

Strategic corporate sustainability is a topic that has progressively been part of the

agenda of large organisations in Brazil due to a combination of specific drivers:

leadership awareness, scarcity of material resources, public pressure, risk management

and reputation and legitimacy (Barata, 2007; Lourenço and Branco, 2013). Some

indicators which will be examined in detail below point out this increasing trend:

changes in the Brazilian stock market, increasing practices of accountability reporting

and change in businesses and consumers mindset (Paro and Boechat, 2008; Exame

2013).

The first factor, which incentivizes corporate sustainability, is the Sustainability Index

created by São Paulo Stock Exchange-Bovespa that was launched in 2005 aiming to

rate the interest of listed organisations committed to sustainability. Similar to other

mechanisms such as Down Jones Sustainability Index and FTSE4Good in London

Stock Exchange, the Brazilian version is comprised of 40 organisations engaged in 19

different sectors (Bovespa, 2015).

The second factor refers to accountability and reporting as a trend, which confirms the

increasing commitment of businesses. In this area, 160 Brazilian organisations are

currently reporting using Global Reporting Initiative - GRI framework. This number

increased from 74 in 2014, placing Brazil as 4th in the international ranking.

Furthermore, 11% of worldwide organisations reporting with Integrated Reporting

Council – IIRC are Brazilian, placing Brazil in third place, after the United Kingdom and

the Netherlands (IR, 2015; GRI, 2015; Exame 2013).

The third factor that indicates a conductive environment for strategic sustainability is the

Brazilian society mindset. According to Gife (2013), Brazilian expectations of ethical

conduct of organisations act beyond their goals and financial and legal responsibilities.

Currently most of the public (52%) require business ethics that transcends the classical

responsibilities of the private sector. Similarly, environmental issues are part of

Brazilian’s concern in which three out of four companies expect a high degree of

interest in the environmental behavior of companies. Finally, consumer behavior is also

evolving towards responsible choice patterns. According to Gife (2013) 60% of

consumers consulted in surveys believe that the power of individual’s choices for

ethical products support environmental balance, while 68% agree that they need to

consume less in order to increase environmental resilience for future generations, and

the other 54% would pay more for sustainable products (Gife, 2013). In complement to

 23  

that Eight, (2014, p. 24) states some main trends of consumers are influencing

organisations to meet their needs are: collectivism, servitasation or dematerialization of

products, shared values and digital competence.

Despite of the drivers and positive indicators mentioned, Paro and Boechat (2008)

argue about the need of Brazilian organisations to refine sustainability, considering its

core business against local needs. In other words, there are disconnections and a lack

of alignment between strategies and core business and these lead to poor results to

both sides in Brazil (Paro and Boechat, 2008). However, weakness and strengths

reflect opportunities and challenges in which Brazilian society is evolving as a result of

joined efforts with companies and its stakeholders (Lourenço and Branco, 2013). In

complement to these opportunities, Hart (1996, p. 70) argues that emerging economies

are mostly using incremental approaches to tackle pollution, depletion and poverty

challenges. However, they should take the lessons not learnt from developed nations

and can “not afford to repeat these mistakes”.

 

Part A summary

Sustainability embedded into business strategies or strategic sustainability is the next

level in which companies can create policies and act and manage results in a

responsible manner for society, the environment and the economy. The current

scenario described so far requires much more than transitional solutions, but also

transformational ones. Hart’s framework suggests advanced approaches in this

direction, but it also has drawbacks and difficulties to be implemented in developing

nations. The Brazilian context has been evolving from philanthropy to strategic

sustainability driven by organizational and consumer awareness. This represents

opportunities to engage and perfect sustainability approaches. However, these

advanced stages of sustainability are mainly restricted to large organisations as per

influence of leadership and finance resources combined.

 24  

2.2 Part B Sustainability Leadership Introduction

Part B of this chapter dedicates attention to explain the purpose of sustainability

leadership and its concepts that are relevant for the research question of this project. It

starts by examining classical approaches of sustainability leadership and controversial

points and critiques. Then, the section follows scrutinizing this leadership according to

its different streams thoughts: task and behavior orientated. In both streams, this

section displays concepts and models and analyses limitations, which represent an

opportunity for this study to address. Finally, this section examines new trends in

sustainability leadership, stating a multiple factor approach, including contextual factors

into the two existing streams and broadening the meaning of sustainability leadership

which can respond to current challenges.

2.2.1 New ways to lead are required

Leadership is widely recognized as one of the successful factors leads organisations to

good performances. It has been described in extant literature as a practice which

involves, influences, defines results, accomplishes goals and engages teams to fulfill

their potential (Northouse, 2007; Yukl, 2013; Whatmore, 1999). However, the dynamic

panorama of business today has been changing from the traditional pattern of produce,

consume and dispose, to sustainable ways of using raw resources, manufacturing and

consuming (Hart, 2010; Mc Donough and Braungart, 2010). Hence, as it is so important

to have physical infrastructures, innovation technology and applied knowledge

available, it is needed to count on a leadership which can commit and encourage new

behavior patterns and implementing strategies to thrive positive impacts for three

systems: organisations, societies and environment, translating sustainability challenges

into practical actions (Visser, 2008; Benn, Dunphy and Griffiths, 2014). Consequently,

scholars are currently dedicating efforts to apply leadership to sustainability issues,

therefore impacting the society positively (McEwan and Schmidt, 2007; Galpin and

Whittington, 2012; Ferdig, 2007).

The pressure for this type of leadership originates from facts associated to limited

progress in corporate sustainability (Bendell and Little, 2015; Sustainability, 2012).

According to Accenture (2013) 1/3 of 1,000 corporate leaders recognize that the efforts

have not been enough to achieve societal goals. This resonates with scientific data

 25  

revealed in thematic events since Rio 92 to Rio+20 in 2012. Recent evaluations of the

sustainable development agenda showed that a poor progress was done in comparison

with negative figures with regards to shortages of clean water and its pollution,

exhaustion of natural resources, loss of biodiversity, and climate change, demonstrated

in figure 3 (Sustainability, 2012). This disproportional balance added to the low speed of

leaders providing solutions revealed the need for a catalytic leadership applied to

sustainability, having a singular ability to cross public sector, business and civil society,

building coalitions and sharing responsibilities towards sustainable development

(SustinAbility, 2012; SustinAbility, 2015; Benn, Dunphy and Griffiths, 2014).

Figure 3. Sustainability critical issues (source: SustainAbility, 2012)

 26  

2.2.2 Definition of sustainability leadership

Sustainability leadership emerged in parallel with sustainable development’s collective

discussions aiming to tackle complex issues aforementioned, therefore its different

designations were developed having the sense of purpose and change as a main

background (Brown, 2011). Yet, sustainability leadership is not a pure approach, but it

derives from conventional leadership classical theories: grounded, situational and

individual (Bendell and Little, 2015). In additional to that, there are more than 20 types

of different terms for this leadership since academics investigated this topic from

different viewpoints, generating an overlap of meanings (Brown, 2011). Despite

exploring all these terms which are displayed in appendix 1, this project has focused on

the two major classifications of this leadership which will set a background for further

discussion: (1) values-orientation, based on behaviour and personal traits; (2) technical-

instrumental” or task orientated (Bendell and Little, 2015 and Blowfield, 2013).

Definitions of sustainability leadership from the development of leader’ behaviours are

seen in Bendell and Little (2015, p. 4) as “the ethical intention of helping groups of

people to achieve environmental or social outcomes”. Similarly, Metcalf and Benn

(2013) describe it as a process that requires agents’ abilities to predict and act in a

complex scenario, engaging teams and adapting constantly. Lastly, Schein (2015)

centred sustainability leadership in a leader’s ability to have an ecologically orientated

worldview, combined to long-term view and critical capacity, which enables

organisations to implement and succeed sustainability practices.

Inversely, attributing less emphasis on the leader’s behaviours, yet focusing on power

decentralization and purpose, sustainability leadership is seen by Foster (2015) as a

collective act which results in a group agreement towards a shared purpose. Hence,

this leadership “is extended to anyone who seeks sustainable change regardless of role

or position”, therefore the role of the leader is to engage others to seek fundamental

changes (Ferdig, 2007, p. 3).

2.2.3 Streams of sustainability leadership

2.2.3.1 Behaviour oriented leadership

This first stream encompasses the way the leader’s personal characteristics are

conductive to sustainability results. This project will present some of the main classical

approaches recognized by its importance for sustainability leadership and the recent

perspective of leadership development based on traits and behaviors applied to

 27  

sustainability: Leadership Development Framework (LDF) as per its relationship with

the two topics of this study.

Classic approaches:

Transformational Leadership

Transformational leadership is based on the belief that leaders and followers can

support themselves mutually and progress with motivation, having the leader as a

charismatic figure who motivates not only for the accomplishment of the task, but also

to excel expectations by the leader’s accurate vision, coaching, integrity, ethical values,

commitment and enthusiasm (Avolio and Bass, 1995). This style recognizes differences

between individuals and improves their capabilities in order to reach higher levels of

performance (Avolio and Bass, 1999). Bass and Avolio (1993) defined the basilar

characteristics of transformational leaders, denominating them as the 4I’s: Influence,

inspiration motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration.

Because of its relevance and focus on personal leaders’ qualities mentioned above,

transformational leadership has been largely utilized to define leaders whose

challenges encompass sustainability (Hay, 2010; Hargreaves and Fink, 2012;

Timmermans, van der Heiden, and Born, 2014). Common characteristics found on

sustainability leaders that echo on transformational leadership are: create a vision of a

desirable future, valorise relationships that contribute to mutual development, learn by

coaching and systematic reflection (Vinkhuyzen and Vinkhuyzen, 2014; Benn, Dunphy

and Griffiths, 2014).

Authentic Leadership

Authentic leadership is grounded on the principle of authenticity, which means that

these leaders are genuine with themselves. Indeed, this principle orientates the

authentic relationships as a fundamental value of this model and relies upon social

justice, equality, honesty, trustworthiness and responsibility (Avolio and Gardner, 2005).

The authentic leaders have an important concern of the way that they are perceived by

others, being aware about their moralities, beliefs and visions as well as their own

values in the context in which they work. These concerns confer to the leader a high

level of self-awareness and self-regulation on an individual level.

Connections between authentic leadership’s characteristics and capabilities required for

project sustainability managers roles are shown in Lloyd-Walker and Walker (2011).

 28  

This study reveals characteristics that the current generation and the next generation of

leaders should possess in order to satisfy growing demands across organisations,

society and environment: value driven, relationship centered, realistic and confident,

positive, visionary and resilient.

Visionary Leadership

Visionary leadership has been constantly discussed in the literature as the leader’s

capacity of inspiring and compelling a vision in which followers can personally identify

and pursue. These elements enable organizational change and lead to performance

effectiveness (Groves, 2006; Robertson, 2002; Waite, 2013). Visionary leadership

applies to uncertain corporate environments and external crises that demand re-

organisation of structures in a dynamic way having in visionary leaders a source of

robust effort, personal commitment and emotional intelligence. Strong traits that are

based on visionary leadership are: self-awareness, communication capacity, positive

thinking, determination and consistency (Groves, 2006).

Characteristics of visionary leadership play an important role in advanced phases of

implementing sustainability such as proactivity and sustaining the corporation targets.

In these stages the leader is required to work in a more complex scenario where radical

changes in the mindset inside and outside the organization and re-thinking systems and

processes are needed (Benn, Dunphy and Griffiths, 2014). In these stages, a personal

commitment active network and engagement, enabling third parties’ power constitutes

the set of the leaders’ profile.

Critiques of classic approaches

 

Despite the personal characteristics in transformational, authentic and visionary

leadership mentioned above being conductive towards strategic sustainability, there are

many weaknesses and limitations when using solely these approaches (Benn, Dunphy

and Griffiths, 2014; Bendell and Little, 2015). The ground for these limitations relies on

two views that these approaches are primarily based on: the dominant Western culture

and the anthropocentric paradigm. The first view argues that these leaderships have

been predominantly influenced by Western culture, which frequently stereotypes the

leader as a hero figure, a self-centered powerful man (Mirvis et al, 2010; Quinn and

Dalton, 2009;). The leader’s robust traits of personalities and characteristics enable him

to lead from a top-down hierarchical and command and control perspective that the

media glamourizes and perpetuates (Mirvis et al, 2010; Higgs, 2009;). Therefore, this

 29  

over attribution of power and self-centrism, undermines changes towards sustainability

since the leader’s narcissistic view ignores collaboration and incentivizes competition,

eventually leading to corruption and illegal activities, bullying, coercion, and bias with

gender (Gregory Stone, Russell and Patterson, 2004; Wood, 2007; Van Wart, 2013).

The second view, the anthropocentric paradigm, has basis in the scientific revolution

during the Renaissance (Schein, 2015) and it influences the leadership overview by

stating that nature is a mere instrument for humans to achieve their personal aims,

therefore it implicates vulnerabilities of natural resources. Hence, instead of being

holistically orientated, including wellbeing of other species at the same level of human

issues, this paradigm concerns create ways to control nature in an instrumental manner

and using it for granted (Schein, 2015 Foster, 2015).

Leadership Development Framework (LDF)

A group of scholars in this field: Cook-Greuter (2004) and Rooke and Torbert (2005)

agree that good leaders are developed rather than born as leaders. Consequently, the

human development unfolds in specific phases from an egocentric perspective to a

more holistic one, thus there are two types of development that occur simultaneously

and that shape the human mindset: horizontal and vertical. On one hand, the horizontal

development is improved along the life through theoretical knowledge and technical

abilities, such as those related to formal traditional studies and work skills. On the other

hand, the vertical development is formed by a broader capacity of self-awareness and

understanding about others and the context where the person is part of; therefore the

assimilation of varieties increases the level of consciousness and culminates with

transformations of a determined pattern.

From this perspective, David Rooke, William R. Torbert and Suzanne Cook-Greuter

dedicated 25 years of research on this subject matter. The research included surveys

with thousands of managers in different contexts, and as a result of these findings they

developed the Leadership Development Framework (LDF) where seven mindsets were

primarily identified and then tested against the capacity to transform their organizations,

called “Seven Actions Logics: Opportunist, Diplomat, Expert, Achiever, Individualist,

Strategist, and Alchemist”. Characteristics are shown in detail in figure 4 (Rooke and

Torbert, 2005, p. 43). With this study that originated this framework Rooke and Torbert

(2005) concluded that Diplomat, Expert, or Achiever, action-logics are functioning in

conventional stages, representing the majority of society (75-80%), while the other

action logics: Individualists, Strategists and Alchemists are in post-conventional levels

 30  

of consciousness, representing only 15-20% of society, being the ones able to

implement robust changes as they possess a more developed meaning-making

systems (Brown, 2011).

LDF applied to sustainability

Utilising this LDF background, a study conducted by Avastone Consulting called

Mindsets in Action concluded that levels of development in sustainability can be directly

linked to leaders’ mindsets (Mc Ewan and Schmidt, 2007). This study was a positive

contribution considering that there is a lack of studies aimed at the understanding of the

relationship between leadership and sustainability results (Voltolini, 2011). In the first

part of this study, Mc Ewan and Schmidt (2007) state that the mindsets characteristics

found in Rooke and Torbert (2005) are connected to a set of cognitions that enable

sustainability contributions. Mindsets in Action brings the original percentages in the

survey’s finding conducted by Rooke and Torbert (2005) during more than two decades

and starts with the Diplomat, evolving up to the Achiever mindset. This is not

considering the Opportunist, as it is not a significant contribution in sustainability. At the

core, the study demonstrates that the leader can improve his/her ability to implement

changes, enable processes and integrate all sorts of resources towards sustainable

development, depending on the mindset he/she possesses. The LDF application to

sustainability is described in detail in figure 5 below.

 31  

Figure 4 - The Seven Action Logics

Source: Rooke and Torbert (2005)

LDF associated to the Five Gears

The second part of Mindsets in Action, which complete this framework, is to outline the

relationship of these mindsets with the five gears or levels in which an organisation can

achieve corporate sustainability. The relationship between these two elements allows

comprehension on the ways that leadership is, in practice, applicable to sustainability

based on which mindsets are more likely to provoke in profound transformations

(McEwan and Schmidt, 2007; Voltolini, 2011).

 32  

Before presenting the link between these two elements, it is relevant to describe each

gear individually and what they represent with regards to strategic sustainability. The

gearing up is a framework created by SustainAbility (2004) and integrates five phases

that denominates progress that organisations do in response to sustainability

challenges, orientated to strategies. Each of the gears are described as follows

according to McEwan and Schmidt (2007) and SustainAbility (2004).

The  Five  Gears  Framework  

 

Gear  1:  Comply  –  The  company  has  a  limited  perception  of  strategic  sustainability,  and  still  demonstrates  

presence  in  philanthropy  activities  and  compliance  with  regulatory  framework  and  defensive  attitudes  

guide  most  of  the  strategies.  

Gear  2:  Volunteer  -­‐  The  firm  aims  to  have  a  more  proactive  behavior  beyond  the  law  obedience,  

sustainable  development  issues  are  gradually  incorporated  to  processes,  but  in  management  and  

operations  the  main  issues  are  risk  management  eco-­‐efficiency.  Prevention,  cost  reduction,  or  benchmark  

with  the  peers  is  in  this  stage  of  the  main  drivers.  

Gear  3:  Partner  –  At  this  level  the  company  commences  to  incorporate  sustainability  in  a  business  

perspective.  The  engagement  with  volunteering  mechanisms  such  as  GRI  and  Global  Compact  evaluate  

performance  based  on  the  social  environmental.

Gear  4:  Integrate  -­‐  Gradually,  the  business  strategies  incorporate  the  sustainability  agenda  and  this  

reflects  in  the  company  business  cases.  The  board  and  other  top  leaders  are  now  involved  and  the  

emphasis  is  to  include  sustainability  in  business  portfolio  and  all  processes.  However,  as  much  as  the  

complexities  are  happening,  the  organization  still  fluctuates  between  radical  changes  and  traditional  

business.  

Gear  5:  Re-­‐engineer    -­‐  This  stage  means  that  the  organization  is  ready  to  focus  on  new  markets  and  

business  models  and  to  engage  with  other  leaders.  Sustainability  shifts  to  sustainable  operations  such  as  

close  loops  and  models  that  re-­‐think  patterns  of  ownership  such  as  servitization,  working  with  external  

integration,  through  coalition  and  a  multi  stakeholder  approach,  therefore  incorporating  sustainability  

not  only  in  operations,  but  within  the  purpose  of  the  company.

 33  

As figure 6 shows, at the point where the correlation is made there is a clear hierarchy

in the mindsets combining with the gears, which refers to the levels of complexity while

evolving from gear 1 to gear 5 in sustainability, associated to the capacity of the leader

to assume and perform according to this increasing complexity. Therefore requiring a

more holistic approach, creativity and innovation from the leaders profile (McEwan and

Schmidt, 2007). This model will be considered further in the discussion of findings to

combine the main topics of this study.  

 34  

Figure 5: LDF applied to sustainability

Source: McEwan and Schmidt’s (2007)

 35  

Figure 6: Relationship between mindsets and the five Gears

Source: McEwan and Schmidt’s (2007)

 36  

Evaluation of behaviour stream LDF applied to sustainability integrated to the Five Gears has points of convergence

with this study when it observes the relationship between sustainability leadership and

levels of strategic sustainability. Its contribution to this study consists of clarifying which

type of profile or action logic could lead to corporate sustainability progress and

understanding a set of conductive traits and behaviours necessary to sustainability

leaders from the classical approaches. However, as the focus of this framework is

restricted to only one factor: the traits and behaviours, it restricts the observation of the

leader’s tasks, roles and situational factors, therefore limiting the purpose of this study

which is to verify how leadership drives to sustainability. Hence, if the leadership is

narrowed to some factors it will not result in broader comprehension as an important

driver. Schein (2015) reinforces this limitation of the behavioural stream, arguing that

these traits cannot be generalized since they depend upon a given context to develop,

therefore a restricted use of these approaches can fall in bias by the imposition of the

Western paradigm.

2.2.3.2 Technical-instrumental or task oriented

This second stream focuses on the ways that sustainability leadership responds to

challenges through orientated and structured corporate actions (Blowfield, 2013). This

stream has its basis on sustainability management. This project grouped three different

views aiming to compare and contrast them and reflect about the limitations.

Leading Change Towards Sustainability

While leading towards strategic sustainability, Doppelt (2010, p. 101) proposes a deep

organisational reform, which firstly requires a shift in the internal corporate mindset in

which the organization was founded. Secondly, it rearranges the staff structure by

selecting people with complementary skills and reorganizing the way that they interact

and get results. Thirdly, the leadership should change the organisational goals focused

on staff demands as well as all the stakeholders and environmental needs; orienting

performance criteria. Finally, the leadership should tackle communication, adjusting the

flow of information, conveying a unified sustainability corporate message from outside

in and from inside out.

 37  

Task Leadership Framework

This model was created as a result of a study conducted with US leaders, which are

formally implementing sustainability in their organisations in different levels of

achievements. The aim was to enable co-creation and co-participation with other

relevant actors within the sustainability agenda. It summarizes three main tasks among

the leaders’ roles: “setting direction, creating alignment, and maintaining commitment”

(Quinn and Dalton, 2009, p. 24). Setting direction defines purpose and vision while

initiating sustainability into the organization. The second task, creating alignment,

relates to the implementation of strategies and policies to ground the vision and

objectives, therefore this task involves creation of sustainable products and services,

staff education, stakeholder engagement and communication of results. Lastly, the third

task, maintaining commitment, embraces the way the leader keeps processes ongoing

by treating the employees and other stakeholders as a true asset, empowering them

and valorizing their direct effort and co-leadership (Quinn and Dalton, 2009).

Responsible Leadership

This model proposed by Mirvis et al (2010) tackles the main leaders’ task, power

decentralization empowerment and collaboration as elements of leadership. From this

view, numerous actors across organisations are needed to foster collective actions

instead of individual efforts to engage a large number of stakeholders. The rationale of

this model can be summarized by the expression: “from Me to We to All of Us”. (Mirvis

et al, 2010, p. 35 -39). This model allows value creation by embedding distinct spheres

of society, reflecting the mutable and global, decentralizing decisions and making local

connections to perform with other powerful agents. Therefore, responsible leadership is

synonymous of shared leadership with emphasis to bottom-up decisions, integrative

capacities and shared tasks in a cross-functional way without the hierarchy divisions.

Some business cases were built based on this model represented by Interface, The

Body Shop, Novo Nordisk, Oxfan and Unicef (Mirvis et al, 2010).

Evaluation of task orientated leadership

From the three views presented the authors agree on the role of the leader towards

engaging staff and other stakeholders in order to co-create and cooperate. The

decentralization of power is emphasized on the last two approaches while the

importance to have a clear vision about future and set-directions based on this is

accentuated in the first two. Points of contrast were not found among them, rather the

 38  

three views are complementary, since the first two are broadly strategic whilst the last

one is focused on strict leadership and followership relationship. The importance to this

project is to explore the aspects of the leadership tasks’ against the findings.

However, despite of the advantages of the focus on tasks that are orientated to the

purpose while complementing leader’s traits and behavior with meaningful tasks, some

weaknesses about this stream are detected in Kopnina, and Blewitt (2014); Banerjee

(2008) and Blowfield (2013) with regards to lack of ethical values. This may lead to bad

leadership practices in two ways: the use of business cases as a main expression of

corporate success and back of transactional school of leadership to assess

effectiveness. In the first, an indication of accomplishment, the case studies can be

easily manipulated into greenwashing practices to be used as part of corporate PR

strategies to promote company visibility and increase reputation through lying behind

and fantasying successful stories (Kopnina, and Blewitt, 2014; Banerjee, 2008). In the

second, the tools used for tasks assessment are still hugely associated to the tripod:

quantification, motivation and reward/punishment and that contrasts to sustainability

while setting innovative goals (Blowfield, 2013). Hence, this approach likely requires the

complementing personal characteristics embedded in the leader to ensure ethical

conduct of these roles.

2.2.3 Trends in sustainability leadership

No single leadership style seems to be enough to face times of uncertainty and different

types of leadership could be either appropriate or inappropriate to different types of

decision making processes (Blowfield, 2013). In addition to this, Foster (2015) argues

that leadership oriented to sustainability simply inserted into the current economic

paradigm would not be enough for unknown consequences with regards to

environmental destruction and social conflicts. Foster further states that the evolution of

leadership from “hard control” during the Industrial Revolution to the “soft control” of

modernity and current sustainability leadership towards the “beyond control” stage

where a “post-sustainability leadership” should be seen as a collective where the

individual leader perspective should replace a team and contextual exercise (Foster,

2015, p. 2). Therefore, the leader could lead with others, instead of or “over others”

(Ferdig, 2007, p.3). Bendell and Little (2015, p. 11) forecast sustainability leadership as

a result of “critical sociology, deeper psychological reflection and inspiration from wild

nature”.

 39  

To summarize these different views of sustainability leadership, the Cambridge

Programme for Sustainability Leadership (CPSL) has a model that embraces individual

characteristics, actions and contexts in a cause-effect relationship with mutual

influences as demonstrated in figure 4 below (CPSL, 2011). These contexts consider

both internal or organisational aspects, such as a corporate governance model,

organisational culture and characteristics of the company’s sector together with external

factors such as political, economical, ecological and community.

Evaluation of new trends

The convergence of leader’s behaviour and tasks viewed above into the context in

which sustainability leadership takes place, and together with sociology and

environmental sciences seems to form the concept of sustainability leadership with

relevant breadth that this study project aims to consider. More comprehensive and

complete, the addition of the third element of context, appears to close the gap of

fragmented views aforementioned.

Figure 7: CPSL model of leadership (2011)

Figure 7: adapted from CPSL (2011).

 40  

2.2.4 Part B summary

This section examined two different streams and its approaches in sustainability

leadership. Due to the limitations in each of these approaches and streams, this study

considered new trends in sustainability leadership towards more complex and

contemporary challenges that are a blend of theories from human to environmental

sciences. The Cambridge model represented a comprehensive summary of many

relevant characteristics for this project observed including contexts, individual traits and

actions.

2.2.5 Gaps in the literature

Despite that the contribution of leadership is recognized as a factor that drives

organisational policies towards strategic sustainability to be a consensus between

scholars, there is a lack of social and environmental sciences disciplines incorporated

into the business curriculum that clarifies the comprehension of sustainability leadership

applied to business strategies (Schein, 2010). Therefore, the relationship between both

issues and the mutual influence that they play still remains in early stages of research,

consisting of a gap in the extant literature (Quinn and Dalton, 2009; Brown, 2011).

Moreover, this gap applies to critiques and possible negative issues associated to this

relationship. Rather, mostly the positive side is evidenced (Quinn and Dalton, 2009).

The literature also ignores the roles of sustainability leaders and that despite extensive

evidence that they are in position to influence policies and improve organisational

performance, scholars have failed to examine the effectiveness of their practices to

organisation and societal results and observe closely their values, mindsets and

motivations to foster sustainability (Angus-Leppan, Metcalf and Benn; 2010; Sharma

and Starik 2002; Visser and Crane, 2010).

 41  

CHAPTER 3: Methodology

3.1 Chapter introduction

This chapter describes the research methods for this project. The general research

methodology is examined first. The following steps explain the rationale for a qualitative

methodology, describe the samples and reason for its selection, and follows with a

description of data collection, analysis process and observation of ethical issues.

3.2 Overview of research methodology

This exploratory and interpretive character of this project has identified drivers of

sustainability leadership and has revealed how they act towards strategic sustainability.

This fact leads to the use of qualitative methodology, specifically due to four factors:

First, because of the nature and purposes of this study has intended to observe a social

phenomena and a production of explanations of facts from real life expressed in

actions, events, social actors, social constructions and interactions (Denzin, 2010,

Mason, 1996); Second, because sustainability is a topic that does not have a single and

rigid working methodology but encompasses flexibility, the use of qualitative methods

are appropriate (Dalton, 2009). Third, because the research questions related to

leadership and sustainability constitutes a new field of studies in Social Science, still in

an exploration stage, therefore making qualitative methodology more suitable (Conger,

1998). Finally, qualitative methodology was also appropriated because it permitted a

subjective observation of the participant’s experience (Conger, 1998). Supported in this

last factor, qualitative methodology also allowed the investigation of the whole picture of

the social context in which companies are involved in Brazil and revealed multiple

realities and viewpoints of the interviewees as part of a study instead of a single

perspective.

 42  

3.3 Samples

This project has investigated four large Brazilian organisations from different sectors

described in this section, which have sustainability embedded in its business strategies,

having initiatives towards economical, social and environmental development confirmed

on primary and secondary data collection. The selection of these organisations are due

to two main reasons: First, due to high relevance they demonstrate strategic

sustainability through corporative sustainability reports, volunteering commitment,

awards and recognition from the specialized media (Exame, 2013; Voltolini, 2011).

Second, because the presence of leaders which put a personal commitment, having

singular aspects in their leadership style that all of them have in common (Voltolini,

2011; 2014).

The justifications of choosing these four companies are as follows:

Duratex

Duratex SA is a Brazilian private and publicly traded company, and is the largest

producer of wood panels and floors, porcelain and metal fittings in the Southern

Hemisphere. Duratex is a leader in the Brazilian market with a portfolio of brands

including Durafloor, Duratex, Deca and Hydra. Headquartered in São Paulo, it has

approximately 12,000 employees and 15 plants strategically located in seven Brazilian

states (Duratex, 2015).

Main highlights in sustainability

• Duratex was the first Latin American organization to concur the FSC certification

• It is the only Latin American company to join the Dow Jones index Sustainability

• Holds an Environmental Management System certified according to ISO 14001

• Holds 260,000 hectares of planted forests, conservation areas Is founding

member of the Green Building Council (GBC Brazil), whose mission is to

develop a sustainable industry in the country

 43  

Votorantim Metals

Votorantim metals and mining division is part of a large Brazilian conglomerate known

as Votorantim Industrial (VID). It was founded more than a century ago and employs

44,000 people in 19 countries. The metal sector was created in 1996 and currently

extracts: aluminum, zinc, nickel, copper, silver, metallurgical coal and other minerals

that are sold for the transformation industry (Votorantim, 2015)

Main highlights in sustainability

• In 2013 Votorantim Metals was voted the most sustainable company in the

sector by Exame magazine with the reuse of wastes of industrial processes as

fertilizer for agricultural activities, making a successful business case (Revista

Exame, 2013)

• Up to 87% of the energy consumed in Brazil comes from self-production

• The company occupies the 13th position among the Brazilian companies with

the best reputation

• Votorantim protect and restored 2.6 million hectares of ecosystems

• R$ 76.5 / US$ 25.3 million invested in social and culture for communities

AES Brasil (Eletropaulo)

AES Eletropaulo is an electricity distributor that is part of the of AES Brasil Group which

is Brazil’s largest electricity provider in terms of distributed energy, representing 34.1%

in São Paulo Estate directly serving 20.1 million people with 46,415.3 GWh of energy.

The company has 6,152 direct employees and 8,798 contractors and participates in the

supply of 9.8% electricity consumed in Brazil (AES Brasil, 2015).

Main highlights in sustainability:

• The AES Brasil was elected by Exame Magazine as one of 20 model companies

in sustainability in Brazil in 2013 (Exame, 2013)

• The company is member of Sustainability Index Stock Exchange BM&

FBovespa. Portfolio 2015: inclusion in the portfolio for the 10th consecutive year

 44  

• Invested R$ 220 million or approximately U$73 million in smart grids to avoid

losses of energy

• Created programmes of education with the consumer towards behaviour change

in safety and energy saving

Tetra Pak

Privately held, Tetra Pak is part of the Swedish group Tetra Laval. The Brazilian unit is

the second largest operation of the Tetra Pak Group. Headquartered in São Paulo,

Tetra Pak holds a portfolio of more than 30,000 different types of packages that are

used for food and drinks, ensuring that these products will reach the final consumer

with its original taste and nutritional values preserved. In the past two years, Tetra Pak

has produced more than 25 billion packages, reaching about 95% of Brazilian homes.

In addition to the factories, Tetra Pak has several other regional sales offices and

technical assistance, employing 2,615 people in Brazil (Tetra Pak, 2015).

Main highlights in sustainability:

• Elected in 2013 as one of the 20 most sustainable companies in Brazil by

Exame Magazine (Exame, 2013)

• Production of fully recyclable packaging and certified by Forest Stewardship

Council - FSC

• Recycle up to 23% of the packages, being the second branch worldwide in sales

and revenue

• Built the first factory worldwide dedicated to reusing its packages, popularly

known as “long life packaging” type

3.4 Data collection process

The data for this project was obtained through two main sources: primary and

secondary. For the primary data, semi-structured interviews were conducted via Skype

with four representatives in sustainability departments in the organisations

aforementioned. The process related with the interview is further detailed in this section.

For the secondary data, the study utilized sources of data collected in the period

between March to July of 2015. This source included corporate sustainability reports,

 45  

websites, magazine articles, videos of leaders in story telling format on behalf of

Sustainable Leadership Platform, or originally, (Platform Liderança Sustentável)

available on the Internet, and relevant facts about the organisations published in

Voltolini (2011; 2014).

3.4.1 Interviews

The interviews utilized were semi-structured with five open-ended questions directed

with purpose to guide the conversation to answer the main research question displayed

in the introductory chapter. This type of interview was adopted due to its flexibility

(Denzin and Lincoln, 2005). This character of flexibility was used because it allowed the

interviewer to have an in depth comprehension of the topic by adding complementary

questions depending on the response of the participants, re-ordering the questions

according to the conversation flow and extracting more complete answers by

elucidating doubts of participants during the process (Denzin and Lincoln, 2005;

Silverman, 2010; Saunders et al., 2007).

The interviews happened one-on-one via Skype calls using audio and video systems in

order to increase the interaction with the participants, facilitating the observation of the

non-verbal communication and to ensure descriptive integrity (Mann and Stewart,

2000). This communication also meant a maximised quality of the relationship, allowing

the interviewees to be more comfortable in a face meeting environment (Cassel and

Symon, 2004). The Internet and the Skype platform were useful resources that

minimized costs considering the geographic distance between the interviewer and the

interviewees. In some cases, some additional questions requiring further data were

sent via e-mail as per complement of the interview, reinforcing completeness and

validity aspects of data generation. All the conversations were kept confidential and

voice recording with leaders happened with their permission, the interviews had

approximately 60 minutes each.

3.4.2 Case study method

The case study is a method of empirical inquire appropriated to “understand complex

social phenomena” by permitting the researcher to have a broader view of features of

real events (Yin, 2014 p. 4). It is widely suggested for research questions which raises

description of social occurrences starting with “ how” or “why” for a determined event

aiming to explain, describe, demonstrate or clarify causes in existent environments

(Cassel and Symon, 2004). Both definitions support the reason for selection of the case

 46  

study approach for this study. Indeed, the case study created a truthful description of

the different aspects of the leaders identified in the data collection and the intersection

of these characteristics to strategic sustainability. In addition to this factor, the case

study also permitted that an amount of subjective and objective content from the data

collection containing evidences of real facts from the leaders and their organisations

could be object of discussion in the extant literature.

In this project the case studies have a descriptive and exploratory character, aiming to

understand to what extent the leaders are influencing a social process: strategic

sustainability. Therefore, the case studies represented in this research are a

fundamental tool to comprehend emerging human influence on organisational

processes and performances through the everyday practices linked with particular

behaviours (Yin, 2014).

For this purpose, the case studies were prepared according to a rigorous approach in

research design and avoided disadvantages common to case studies displayed in Yin

(2014). Firstly, it was written using a high level of impartiality, as a result of a data

collection free of personal influences, but using a variety of sources: interviews,

documents and observations. Secondly, different from a teaching purpose, in this

project the case study refers to sources, contain evidence and display data. Thirdly, the

case study has a medium length and uses sections that highlight the main evidence,

making it easy and pleasant to read, representing a robust summary of facts related to

the research questions and the main objectives of this project and ultimately building

each case study through a unique feature material. The construction of the case studies

followed the rationale of a chronological sequence of happenings, verifying a possible

cause-effect of leadership and strategic sustainability, facilitating the data analysis

process by collecting evidences.

Other aspects related to the validity and trustworthiness for cases studies (Eisenhardt,

1989) were also observed and applied in this study. Main actions included checking the

findings with participants in order to minimise mistakes in data and facts before closing

the case study and to search for more in depth evidences behind the relationship with

participants to confirm information from primary data.

 47  

3.5 Data analysis

The data generated was analyzed using Thematic Analysis as part of the narrative

analysis method. This positivist method was a useful resource to encode and interpret

participants’ experiences through classification according to occurrences of patterns

(Boyatzis, 1998; Hinchman and Hinchman, 1997). This method was selected due to the

simplicity and straightforward character, which combine case studies with an inductive

approach of interpretation (Thomas, 2006).

The data analysis procedure encompassed the following stages: data transcription from

the interviews, data coding, data interpretation and conceptualization using the

literature review, and generation of themes or in the case of this project, drivers (Lindlof,

1995). The visualization of these stages is demonstrated in figure 8 below. Detailing

these stages: first, the raw data files from the voice recorder and hard copies from

secondary data were transcribed in a common format on Word document. Second, the

raw file was coded, using tags to identify the strategies of sustainability in practice by

the organisations and the leadership characteristics performed. Third, these findings

were interpreted in the extant literature supported by different frameworks and theories

in sustainability and leadership already discussed in the literature review chapter.

Finally, themes or drivers were identified and discussed generating the contributions of

this project.

Figure 8: Analysis process

Transcript  and  review  data      

Code  transcripts  using  tags  in  the  two  major  topics  

Interpret    data  by  using  literature  

review  

Identify  and  Rinalize    themes  or  

drivers    

 48  

3.6 Ethical issues  

This project will be conducted according to the principles of good practice in research

which include some obligations for the interviewer in relation to the participants: obtain

the interviewee’s informed agreement, be truthful about the planned use of the study,

avoid deceptions, do positive good, ‘do no harm’, not causing any embarrassment or

psychological risks for all the participants, respect confidentiality and anonymity of the

respondents (Bryman and Bell, 2011).

It is relevant to identify that there are no reputational risks involved for the organisation

or for the participants considering that there is no sensitive or unauthorized material

that will be used in this study. Rather, great part of the content produced apart from the

interview is considered public domain, since it has been published in open sources

authorized by the organisation such as corporate reports, media articles, books and

websites. With regards to the interview content, there was an agreement between the

researcher and the organisations respecting principles of data protection under the

1998 Data Protection Act. According to this principle, the respondents can renounce at

any time they decide to do so (Bryman and Bell, 2011).

3.7 Chapter summary

This chapter has explained the stages of research methodology for this project. A

qualitative methodology using case studies to communicate the findings and a thematic

analysis to interpret data were a suitable manner to conduct this study due to its

exploratory character and focus on a social phenomena. Finally, ethical aspects were

also carefully observed while conducting this project.

 49  

CHAPTER 4: Findings

4.1 Chapter introduction

This chapter starts displaying full case studies with an overview of the organisations

exploring the topics, demonstrating the data analysis process and concluding by

revealing and summarizing the key findings that will be discussed in the next chapter.

4.2 Case studies presentation 4.2.1 Duratex SA

Process towards strategic sustainability

While developing sustainability, Duratex's leadership realized that the most important

challenge to implement consisted of changing the organizational culture. There was a

barrier in the perception of the issue by the majority of staff and it was necessary to

make a profound change across the enterprise from culture to management. Therefore

the following steps to constitute strategic sustainability happened in the management

process when Duratex created a committee in its administration board at the request of

the president in 2007. Later, in 2011, the company created a committee within the

executive board involving senior management to implement the board strategies. Thus,

from the governance model, a top down flow quickly reached all areas of business

involving other employees in managerial and operational levels, decentralizing

sustainability decision-making and evaluation processes.

As a result of this process Duratex launched in 2013 its Sustainability Platform,

containing objectives to focus and drive sustainability actions until 2016. The pillars of

this platform comprises to integrate sustainability into all of the company’s departments

and to improve relationships with stakeholders and to make them part of the decision-

making process. In order to comprise this platform, Duratex took into account seven

material themes after consultation with key stakeholders: People (workforce), Quality of

relationships (with a focus on suppliers, customers, communities and experts), Efficient

use of natural resources and energy, Quality and impact of products, Waste

management and emissions, Conservation and biodiversity, Integration of

environmental criteria in the management (Duratex sustainability report, 2014).

 50  

Sustainability leadership characteristics

Duratex considers this leadership as a vital role in the successful implementation of

sustainability into its strategies. However, the sustainability manager appointed two

risks for performance through leadership: “Concentration of power in the person and

not in the process and traditional use of force in top-down approaches without

employees’ previous understanding about sustainability”. For this manager, the first risk

decreases performance when the leader for some reason leaves the company, while

the second risk affects the team’s engagement and continuity of initiatives.

In response to both risks Duratex believes that sustainability leadership should perform

from an open, co-creative and co-participative perspective where the engagement of

employees and other stakeholders influence the formulation of objectives, development

of strategies, validation and permanent performance evaluation. As an example,

Duratex has shared its sustainability platform throughout the company structure by

using internal communications that primarily allowed employees to acquire knowledge

on the subject, extrapolating their area of operation and having a more holistic view

about sustainability and how broadly it affects the organisation limits and beyond. Also,

external interactive communication is an ongoing process that enables the participation

of more stakeholders throughout the process. Using this participatory approach,

Duratex assumes to differ from the traditional hierarchical structures, characterized by

the use of the command and control towards a reticular perspective where sustainability

becomes “a meaningful experience related to stakeholders beliefs as well as to

organizational’s values” according to the sustainability manager.

Despite success of its initiatives, Duratex’s sustainability manager states that along this

journey things do not advance as expected and that “make[s] the leader and teams

loose some enthusiasm”, therefore emotional competences are crucial to allow people

to manage their dissatisfactions. Thus, “many times, the best move is to stop and wait”.

Key attributes of sustainability leaders

– Aptitude to be disruptive, to break paradigms and rethink organisation’s

directions

– Deep understanding of the business in order to make appropriate connections

between the organisation and social-environmental development

– Capacity to communicate clearly and engage with different stakeholders

– Ability to be resilient and persistent against negative answers

 51  

– Maturity and emotional intelligence to define when to act and when to wait,

strategically

– Commitment to ethical values and self-motivation to ensure continuity in the

projects

Business cases

 

1. Power generation for domestic consumption  

In 2013, the publication of Exame magazine chose Duratex as the most sustainable company of the

year in Brazil in the building materials sector. The case published in the magazine highlighted the

company's work to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, emphasizing the replacement of diesel

by residues of wood from pipeline as an energy source. This “indoor” solution allowed producing

65% of its energy from biomass eucalyptus since the company owns 23,000 hectares of eucalyptus

forests.

2. Eco-efficiency of products: Sustainable use of wood

The company states that the environmental impacts of production processes of Duratex in all areas

are monitored in a consistent and systematic way, with a focus on reducing the use of natural

resources and increasing production efficiency. A specific case illustrating this example is that the

wood used in the manufacture of boards and panels comes from 100% of the cases from forest

plantations, which are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and ISO 14001. The

company has 260 thousand hectares of planted forests; conservation areas in the states of Minas

Gerais, Rio Grande do Sul and São Paulo (Duratex sustainability report, 2014).

3. Eco-efficiency of products: sustainable use of water

The Deca division brand of Duratex has an eco-efficient line with more than 150 products and items.

This includes basins, urinals, exhaust systems, showers and electronic and timed taps that allow

water as well as energy conservation . An example of products from this line are the showers, Deca

Balance, models with jets of 6 and 12 liters of water per minute, saving the resources without losing

the user’s comfort. This is due to a technology of air injection in the water jet, which generates a

feeling of greater volume of water even at low flow rates for the user (Duratex sustainability report,

2014).

 52  

4.2.2 Votorantim Metals

Process towards strategic sustainability

Votorantim has started to approach sustainability within the environmental issues due

to the high impact the industry generates in its operations. From 2006 onwards, it

began to systematize processes that allowed standardized environmental indicators.

However, the environment team gradually realized that they needed to go beyond risk

assessment and started to evaluate opportunities to implement sustainability in a

broader sense. Hence, the higher leadership requested a study to define how

sustainability issues should be tackled from a proper department or from different

directions having specific roles and responsibilities related to those issues. The study

proved that having a department would be a better solution for defining policies,

monitoring indicators and developing the topic in the context of the company’s strategic

planning, transversally.

The sustainability department was constituted in 2009. The next steps towards strategic

sustainability happens as follows: first, the team defined what sustainability represented

for Votorantim in practice; Second, the department set strategic planning of

sustainability, detailing processes and projects connected to sustainability to the core

business and stakeholders expectations, through its material themes; Third, changing

the model of remuneration based upon sustainability performance, to generate

incentives for leaders. This full process was concretized with the 2020 Vision, the

updated version of Votorantim strategic planning validated by the sustainability

committee.

Sustainability leadership characteristics

The implementation of sustainability into Votorantim business happened as a result of a

combination of two factors: from influence of mid-managers and a final demand from

higher leadership. Considered as a top-down approach, the initial challenge of the

organisation was to make the rest of the corporation to understand sustainability from

Votorantim’s perspective and to be able to perfect its productive industrial processes

and foster innovation, therefore impacting transversely diverse businesses and

generate value not only for Votorantim’s operations but also for society as a whole.

 53  

At the beginning some resistance due to misunderstandings and lack of technical

knowledge was faced by managerial structures. Education and communication from

sustainability leadership played a fundamental role to clarify concepts and show

directions. Therefore, leadership empowerment and capacity building were put in

practice from inside out at Votorantim and was extended to its stakeholders. The

sustainability manager stated that they had make sustainability more clear for all the

departments, “we coached teams and ensured that each one is playing their own role,

like an orchestra”.

In order to get 2020 Vision in place and exhibiting positive results, the sustainability

manager of Votorantim admitted that the department received support from the higher

leadership on the board. The sustainability manager stated that “without this support

the projects would not have been performed and even if there have been some in

progress, the performance would not have been sustainable since Votorantim could

have regressed to preview stages of compliance and behaved in reactive manner

rather them being innovative and progressive.”

Key attributes of sustainability leaders

- Capacity to communicate with diverse businesses and interests

- Competence of education about sustainability issues: transform complexity into

advantages

- Skills in mediate conflicts and misunderstandings along the journey

- Experience in engaging and building positive alliances

- Capacity to build knowledge from a holistic view and deliver tangible values for

society as a whole: capacity building for sustainable development

- Be guided by ethics

 54  

Business cases

1. Zero Waste Project

Aiming to reduce by 50% the disposal of hazardous waste to external landfills by 2020 and zero

waste in some plants, Votorantim Metals was recognized as the most sustainable of the metal

sector nationally in 2013 by the Exame Magazine Sustainability Guide. There were two cases

where the company led strategically with toxic waste from its industrial processes. The first

successful case is the mining plant in Niquelândia, Estate of Goiais. The company transformed

an intermediate residue of copper with high maintenance costs and environmental risks in

fertilizer input by selling it later for animal nutrition. With the sale of these products the company

earned 23 million, around U$ 7,56 million. The second case is in Paracatu mining plant, in Minas

Gerais estate. Votorantim reached the zero mark in solid waste when zinc sulphide ore, a waste

that used to be deposited in barrage of the mine, was converted to produce agricultural lime

powder, which can be used to correct agricultural soil acidity. About 880,000 tons of product is

produced per year, increasing unit revenue in R$ 10 million, around US$ 3 million. In both cases,

through clean technology, Votorantim reached a double solution: avoids future damages to

environment with close loop approach and regenerates the soil (Exame, 2013).

2. Reuse zinc and steel

With the use of technology the unit in Juíz de Fora, Estate of Minas Gerais, Votorantim recovers

zinc and steel from the waste generated in steel plants of Votoratim and other private partners. This

steel dust, previously stored in controlled landfills, has now been used to give a new life to zinc and

steel. This reusing process helps Votorantim Metals to reduce its need to import new zinc,

increasing its revenues, and also to support other companies to give a better destination for toxic

waste therefore decreasing the risks of environmental impacts.

 55  

3. Stakeholder empowerment

Guided by the principle of social license to operate, going beyond legislation requirements, Votorantim engage

with its stakeholders aiming technical and financial empowerment. In the first way, by offering training

programmes for public servants. This aims to improve public administration in issues such as raising public

founds from federal and state structures, formulating urban master plans, executing accountability balances and

ultimately to enable the local vocations of the city and make it independent of the mining activities, such as

truism, agriculture, culture among others industries. Until the end of 2014, 19 municipalities were attended and

11 teams were trained. (Votorantim sustainability report, 2014). In the second way by supporting inclusive

businesses aiming to generate income in cities where the social indicators are poor. In practice, the programme

empowers members of communities for social entrepreneurships in fields of agriculture, fishery, recycling,

chestnut processing and other areas. On December of 2014, 1,620 families in 48 projects were involved and

R$15 million/ U$5 million were invested generating income for 43% of the projects (Votorantim sustainability

report, 2014)

 56  

4.2.3 AES Brasil (Eletropaulo)

Process towards strategic sustainability

The inclusion of sustainability into the company’s strategy started in 2010 when AES

Eletropaulo conducted an internal assessment to verify the meaning of sustainability

and material themes among the higher and medium leaders. Later, the company

expanded this consultation to external stakeholders in order to confirm those themes

against their expectations. As a result, AES defined five priorities that would later

integrate its material themes and orient its strategic and action plan: security,

sustainable power generation; efficient use of natural resources; financial and energetic

innovation and excellence for customer satisfaction; development of employees and

suppliers and community.

The action plan was therefore shared and put into practice supported by more than 100

employees in different fields. Thus, rather than concentrating these matters exclusively

with the sustainability area, AES strategies comprised to involve diverse leaders from

distinct areas of the organisation such as the finance and the legal department that

started to deal with uncommon issues such as environment and safety. The idea was to

motivate managers to leave their comfort zone and have a more holistic approach on

the company’s goals where sustainability was embedded.

Sustainability leadership characteristics

This decentralization process of sustainability from higher leadership to middle

managers counted on a very enthusiastic president. This suggests that sustainability

practices should be progressive. Through his conduction, the company empowered

managers in a continuous process of leadership development through group

workshops, coaching and other individual training sessions. The focus was to make the

leader think and act in a multidisciplinary way and to make sustainability more

transversal and accessible to everyone in the organisation to understand and

cooperate. The manager stated that “Through his personal touch events at AES were

accelerated in a positive manner”. As a result, AES succeeded in incorporating

sustainability as part of its strategic planning in 2012, first with the creation of

sustainability platform 2012-2016, and later with the updated version of sustainability

strategic planning 2015-2019.

 57  

The shared leadership also enabled AES to build the knowledge in sustainability as part

of a co-creation process. This involved the participation of multiple stakeholders and

other employees in actions where the focus was to pursue the organisation targets

while sharing and multiplying valuable experiences. As a result, the company realised

the enthusiasm and commitment of areas previously considered outside the core

business, such as environment and conferred legitimacy to its material themes, by

listening to the stakeholders who made their company’s expectations clear .

Key attributes of sustainability leaders

- Holistic thinking

- Capacity to inspire and motivate for meaningful change

- Ability to engage and persuade people

- Emotional abilities in managing expectations against frustrations

- Competence to disseminate knowledge, educate and coach.

 58  

Business cases

1. Energy efficiency

One of the main goals of AES Eletropaulo is to reduce electricity losses due to technical reasons,

commercial or inappropriate consumption. The company’s target is to reduce these losses by

9.11% by 2016. In order to make it possible, AES has invested R$ 220 millions or approximately

US$ 73 millions in an innovative programme that uses a smart grid in its electric system at

Barueri, Greater São Paulo region. Already in operation since January, 2014, the company’s

expectation is to offer safer options, a quicker customer service and a reduction of energy losses.

In practice, the smart grid provides a more efficient and sustainable electric system, because it

allows the customer to follow the consumption in real time and re-establish the services remotely

in case of interruption and reduces losses (Exame, 2013).

2. Increasing awareness towards health and safety and energy saving

AES has a very close approach with its consumers through advertising campaigns, which focus

on education to save power and protect lives by avoiding risks while managing poles and wires in

the electric grid. These campaigns are part of the responsible attitude of AES while advertising its

services. Some of these initiatives are very interactive and require participation of energy users in

peripheral districts of São Paulo, an area very susceptible to casualties as the population

performs irregular connections as an attempt of power theft or to manage wires while building

their houses.

 59  

4.2.4 Tetra Pak

Process towards strategic sustainability

Sustainability is considered at the very core of the Tetra Pak operations since its

mission is linked to a socio-environment cause: preserving food and limiting waste,

since the food industry is a highly environmentally impacting activity in a world where

people still die from starvation. However, even though the company uses innovative

packages, which preserve the food and give it a longer life, the company also

recognizes that its business generates impact on municipal solid waste. Thus, Tetra

Pak considers recycling as part of its value chain and incentivizes environmental

education as well as income generation programmes since 1994 when the

environmental area was created.

More recently in 2011, Tetra Pak formally integrated environmental and social goals

into its global strategy, electing themes linked to the business and to stakeholders

expectations: value chain management, use of natural resources, environmental

education, training and support food safety, street collector cooperatives, energy, water

footprint offset and GHG emissions, among others topics. These topics were the

foundations in which Tetra Pak established key performance indicators, measuring

achievements and linking them to remuneration policies (Tetra Pak Sustainability

Report, 2014).

This integration made Tatra Pak convert sustainability into a strong competitive

advantage, investing constantly in industrial green design to produce 100% recyclable

packages in order to reduce input of raw materials and create opportunities for

communities to collect and transform these packages into income streams. The next

strategic goals of Tetra Pak consists of: reduce 40% of CO2 emissions by 2020, to

increase the rate of recycling from 23% to 40% by 2020 and to have 100% of its

materials coming from renewable sources, since two of them already are: paper, which

correspond to 75% of the its packages is 100% renewable certified by FSC1 and 200%

from Bio-based Polyethylene. The third element is aluminum, a component that

provides a better barrier to the food against oxygen and light, which Tetra Pak is

investing in research and development to replace this material for an alternative which

could be not only recyclable, but also renewable.

                                                                                                               1  FSC (Forest Stewardship Management) non-profit organization created to contribute to the global forest management  

 60  

Sustainability leadership characteristics

Strategic sustainability is seen as a transversal issue at Tetra Pak, not being led by a

proper department, but being shared by all business units to be assimilated by all of the

company’s areas and processes. In practice, Tetra Pak engages leaders in different

areas, having the CEO as the main motivator and spokesperson for sustainability

matters, encouraging other leaders to disseminate the philosophy and values

throughout the organisation. “In fact his leadership was essential to integrate the

environment within the business, especially at the beginning, 10 years ago when we

did not have measurement procedures or performance indicators to prove

effectiveness”, admitted the environmental manager. Without the leader influence,

processes do not flow as expected. From top-down to a decentralized leadership

approach Tetra Pak has in its leaders a resource to define the cause, set the process

and count on other leaders to engage and sustain this cause. A strong communication

is an ally which supports this process of change with authenticity, educating and

coaching in one hand and evolving stakeholders in the other hand, both internally and

externally. The context in which this leadership happens also counts. “In Brazil

companies have more pressure from external stakeholders, since the credibility of

public institutions is heavily affected of being inefficient.”, pointed the environmental

manager.

Key attributes of sustainability leaders

– Ability to have focus and decide about relevant causes for the business,

environment and society where the company is sited

– Being a sustainability believer therefore making it real with knowledge

– Capacity to communicate in authentic, evolving and engaging manner

– Facility to be open mind and motivated by new challenges

– Aptitude to deal with people, to enjoy participating in discussions

 61  

Business cases

About the Law 12,305 / 102

                                                                                                               2 Law No. 12,305 / 10, establishes the National Solid Waste Management Policy (PNRS contains important instruments to allow the necessary Brazil’s progress in addressing the major environmental, social and economic impacts of inadequate management of solid waste. The law provides for the prevention and reduction in waste generation, and proposes the practice of sustainable consumption patterns and a set of instruments to provide increased recycling and reuse of solid waste. Establishes shared responsibility of waste management with waste generators: manufacturers, importers, distributors, merchants, citizens and management services holders of municipal solid waste in Reverse Logistics of waste and post-consumer packaging (Ministério do Ambiente, 2015).

1. Influence on public policies

In order to stimulate recycling strategies from third parties it is necessary to have support from

the legal framework. Therefore, Tetra Pak plays a role influencing public policies on waste

management through a closer relationship with local authorities with regards to practices of waste

segregation. One example is the participation of Tetra Pak on the Brazilian National Policy of

Solid Waste in 2010 during the creation of the Law No. 12,305 / 10. Tetra Pak participated

actively, promoting the law through a spokesperson on the media. Among other topics, the law

encourages waste management performed by the public sector with shared responsibilities with

the private sector (Voltolini, 2014).

  2. Empowering recycling chain cooperatives

Tetra Pack invests in training programmes for recycling cooperatives. The initiative called

"Cooperative in Action" consists of providing advisory services in management and elaboration of

didactic materials that provides information on how to improve the organization, efficiency and

productivity of waste collectors and recycling cooperatives. The income generation of 23 groups

or cooperatives that integrate more than 500 members of the programme have risen from R$ 900

(US$ 295,00) up to R$1,550 (US$ 411,00) per month. Tetra Pak took the lead in this issue

since1995 and a result, the company is a reference of a combined solution which reduces the

volume of waste and creates new jobs and income generation in the recycling chain (Tetra Pak

Sustainability Report, 2014).

 62  

 3-­‐  Technology  for  recycling  

Tetra  Pack  Brazil  has  became  an  international  reference  in  this  field  by  building  technologies  in  order  

to   recover   the   polyethylene,   paper   and   aluminum   of   post-­‐consumer   package   cartons.   The   plasma  

technology  separates  these  three  materials  and  recycles  them  individually.  This   innovation  allowed  

Tetra   Pak   to   reach   72,400   tons   of  materials   or   32.6%,   of   total   production   to   be   recycled   in   2014  

(Tetra  Pak  Sustainability  Report,  2014).

4.“Nascentes” Project

Created in 2013, this project aims to recover and protect the headwater of the important

Piracicaba River, which supplies important cities in São Paulo Estate. “Nascentes” includes

practical activities such as planting and restoration of riparian forests, building small barrages and

improvement of sanitary conditions, actions that happen in parallel with environmental education

and awareness of local population. These actions contribute not only in regeneration of the

environment, but also improve the quality of life of the rural families

 63  

4.3 Data analysis process

Through the interviews and case studies displayed, this project coded the quotes of the

participants, grouping them into two tags to categorize the patterns: Strategic

Sustainability and Sustainability Leadership in which the highlights of their quotes and

subjects mentioned in secondary data are displayed at the appendix B.

Table 1. Coding the open quotations

Following the stages of data analysis methodology described in chapter 3, this project

identified 29 elements among the four organizations, which correspond to the

relationship between strategic sustainability and sustainability leadership. These

elements were interpreted and grouped into major topics as demonstrated in table 2

below. Later, these elements were conceptualized using the frameworks discussed in

the literature review and were grouped according to six different approaches as shown

in table 3. This conceptualization clarified the relationship between the two major topics

and allowed these elements to be turned into three themes or drivers with eight

supporting findings totalizing the key findings of this project as follows: (1) Support of

top leadership (believe in positive outcomes, motivate towards change, assume the

risks of uncertainty); (2) Skilled leaders (business knowledge, ability to educate, engage

and communicate, hold emotional skills); (3) Leadership with a system thinking

approach (holistic vision, co-participation) shown in detail in the figure 9.

 64  

Table 1: Elements categorized into two major topics

 65  

Figure 9. Summary of key findings

 66  

Table 3: Conceptualization of elements

 67  

4.4 Summary of key findings

As shown in figure 9, the major findings confirm that sustainability leadership is a

driving force for strategic sustainability. This acts as a catalyzer in organizational

processes, and leads these four companies towards sustainability practices with a long

term-perspective. Thus, if sustainability leadership has been conducted towards these

strategies, the supporting findings are that the elements that constitute this driven

leadership for these companies generate social, environmental and economical

outcomes beyond corporate boarders, called in this project as tangible outcomes.

4.5 Chapter summary

This chapter presented, through four descriptive and exploratory case studies and its

main findings, how sustainability leadership drives strategic sustainability. Therefore,

the summary of the key findings answers the main research question of this project.

The discussion of these drivers in the next chapter complements the understanding of

the research question.

                                                 

 68  

 

CHAPTER 5: Discussion

5.1 Chapter introduction

This chapter will state the major findings of this project, followed by a detailed

explanation in the light of the extant literature. It will also convey the implications of th

research and will approach the limitations of this project, making some

recommendations for further research.

5.2 Discussion of the drivers and supporting findings

This project consists of empirical research of four large Brazilian organisations aligned

with corporate sustainability aiming an in-depth understanding of how sustainability

leadership drives to strategic sustainability. This unfolds to a secondary question: which

is the sort of sustainability leadership that has been used to address strategic

sustainability? As interpreted in the findings summary, the first element leads to the

second through three drivers and its supporting findings. However, more than simply

identifying drivers and characteristics, the main contribution of this project consists in

broadening the understanding on how this influence happens and what the implications

are for sustainability leadership approaches.

Driver 1: Support of top leadership

All the participants acknowledged top leadership support as a key reason for strategic

sustainability to be implemented successfully. In common they recognize the

importance of having top leadership directly engaged through a governance model

towards sustainability. This top leadership supports all the strategies as well as the

sustainability managers, first by believing, motivating, orientating strategies and

assuming risks uncertainties in a new scenario. This combination of factors makes

strategic sustainability initiatives flourish and be seen in a long-term perspective, as the

following quote of the sustainability manager of Votorantim summarizes “We received

support from the higher leadership on the board, otherwise the projects would not

[have] been performed and even if there have been some in progress, the performance

would not have been sustainable, going back to compliance stages”.

 69  

An interesting element found in some of these organisations is that more than having a

supportive structure of top leadership, they also have the personal support from the

president and the CEO, which are also the spokespersons. A reflection of this suggests

that these top leaders seem to add an extra effort while fostering sustainability. They

identify themselves personally with the organisation’s mission and motivate teams to

innovate and break paradigms. Hence, this might be the reason why they personify the

companies’ causes, values and vision internally and externally.

Sustainability leadership literature supports this first driver either in tasks or in

behavioral approaches. From the task-orientated leadership perspective, Quim and

Dalton (2010) argue that after setting sustainability strategies, the top leadership should

create alignment and keep commitment with teams to ensure enthusiasm and

accomplishment along the journey. From the behavioral-orientated leadership

viewpoint, motivation and team’s connection are fundamental elements for catalyzing

sustainability processes. This stream of sustainability leadership also suggests that

these top leaders might have traits of the “Strategist” action logic as per their abilities to

innovate, challenging the current status of the business and accelerating new practices

as demonstrated in figure 6 in chapter 2.

Even though all managers undoubtedly feel the top leadership support is a positive

input, it is important to emphasize that all these strategic processes started from a

linear top-down approach which is criticized in sustainability leadership literature for

being associated to a less democratic way of leading towards disruptive changes and

innovation. In view of this, the new trends in this literature state that instead of

stimulating and promoting sustainability, this approach undermines it as an over

attribution of leader’s power and creating an intimidating environment for new ideas to

germinate and people genuinely conceive them as part of their mindsets (Bendell and

Little, 2015; Higgs, 2009). In addition to that, overall in Brazil the organisational

environment has been evolving from strong leadership command-control structures with

cases of abuse of power and top-down decisions towards flexible ones as seen in

Tanure, Evans, and Pucik (2006).

Hence, if these four organisations succeeded using top-down approaches, it could

possibly happened because sustainability was incorporated in its corporate governance

structures therefore allowing power decentralization within different directions as the

case studies displays. From this perspective sustainability could be disseminated and

conducted horizontally, balancing command and control patterns of a top-down

 70  

approach. In fact, the influence of corporate governance structures are crucial to

embrace a new culture orientated to sustainability because the board or top leadership

main roles’ are to empower managers to embrace the company mission instead of

holding control (Doppelt, 2010).

Driver 2: Skilled leaders

The existence of capable and talented leaders is a factor that makes strategic

sustainability succeed for all of the four participants interviewed. This study investigated

what the key attributes were that makes a sustainability leader, as presented in the

case studies. From many characteristics cited, most of the findings converged to three

set of abilities: (1) A profound knowledge of the business as well as technical

sustainability; (2) Abilities to educate about sustainability inserted into the business,

engage people and communicate these ideas; (3) Hold emotional skills useful to

overcome obstacles and crisis, such as: resilience, patience and mediation of conflicts.

Most of the participants stated these capabilities in a sequential manner as

demonstrated above. Hence, their rationale suggests a sequence of happenings in

which they probably experienced along their own journeys as leaders. When asked

about these main attributes, the answer of Votorantim, leader, for example was: “ the

leader has to know about the business as well as about sustainability”. Similarly for

Tetra Pak manager “we need people who know a lot about business and sustainability”.

These quotes suggest that without this combined knowledge, the leader cannot develop

sustainability opportunities associated to the organisation’s core business, and

therefore cannot be called strategic sustainability (Stead, 2010; Hart, 2012). In addition

to that, Porter and Kramer (2006, p.4) state that ‘‘disconnected from the firm’s strategy,

neither make any meaningful social impact nor strengthen the firm’s long-term

competitiveness’’.

The second set of abilities identified referred to the capacity to share this knowledge

throughout the organisation and beyond, being didactical about the novelty

sustainability and finally being able to engage more supporters and convey the

message through a clear communication. About that, Duratex manager stated: “as a

new topic, sustainability requires a leader to be able to translate its meaning for

business and society and explain [to] people why to adhere and the risks of not taking a

decision”. Similarly, the sustainability manager of Votorantim evoked the need to “make

sustainability more clear for all the departments, coaching teams and ensuring that

each one is playing their own role, like an orchestra”. These last citations added to the

 71  

knowledge development aforementioned suggest that these leaders believe that it is as

important to hold knowledge, as it is to share this knowledge, aiming to multiply

supporters in order to make corporate sustainability effective, acting as a catalyzer. The

Brazilian background might encourage these leaders’ educational role, since strategic

sustainability is a very new topic emerging from CSR and it requires practical

development as mentioned in chapter 3.

This corporate knowledge and education ability combined are seen as part of

knowledge management, a process in which the organisation builds its own intelligence

and uses it as a valuable resource to reach strategic goals (Rubenstein-Montano,

2001). The relationship of knowledge management and sustainability is seen in Doppelt

(2010) and Blowfield (2013) as an influential factor towards mindset change. Similarly,

Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee (2013) emphasize the importance of education in

leadership for sustainability as a primary leader’s role, embracing its constitutive

elements: guiding, coaching and motivating with a compelling vision.

With regards to the leaders’ consensus about the ability to communicate clearly on the

subject of sustainability, it is related to the purpose of influencing and persuading

people to partner. Frequently, communication comprises behavior and mindset change

outside the company. As portrayed in the case studies, for Tetra Pak, communication

has been used as an ally in its strategies to convince people to join in selective waste

collection to support social entrepreneurship activities and also to work closely with the

public sector. For AES Eletropaulo, communication is associated to external campaigns

of safety energy savings addressing costumers. For Votorantim, as well as for the other

organisations, communication is also synonymous with telling corporate and personal

stories of the sustainability journey and motivating others leaders to follow their own

path. As mentioned in the methodology, they all contribute as speakers to a web

communication initiative named “Sustainable Leadership Platform”, or originally

Plataforma Liederança Sustentável. Yet, despite the fact that communication attends

the purpose of strategic sustainability of these leaders, attracting more adepts and

increasing its range, it is also seen as a controversial topic with regards to

greenwashing, or lack of genuine sustainability in corporate practices. About those

practices, two of the organisations, Tetra Pak and AES Eletropaulo brought, explicitly

the need to be authentic while communicating their ideas.

Regarding the use of the leader figure as a protagonist in processes again, the new

trends in sustainability leadership refer that more than charisma; sustainability leaders

 72  

should hold a humble posture and make actions be in first place rather than their own

personalities. Bendell and Little (2015) argue that the self-centrism and the hero figure

should give space to facts and team approaches. They point out the risk of narcissistic

culture in sustainability. This project did not research in detail the influence of

communication into leadership practices towards sustainability results, but overall

having the leader figure as a spokesperson is a controversial topic, and what makes

sense for these leaders and help them to showcase sustainability has some differences

between scholars.

Finally, the last set of abilities found summarizes the relevance of the emotional skills to

respond to personal frustration and crisis, where the leader seems to “lose some

enthusiasm”, as said by Duratex’s manager. These abilities are: resilience, patience

and conflict mediation. At the core of these abilities reside the complexity of

sustainability challenges that these leaders face while dealing with people’s resistance

in adhere and support projects, lack of appropriate human and financial resources, or

simply because their ideas are beyond the capacity of the organisation to implement.

This interpretation made can be reinforced in these set of quotes: For Duratex’s

manager, “The leader has to manage his/hers dissatisfactions for things are not moving

as expected, so many times, the best move is to stop and wait”. For Votorantim’s

manager “the leader should use mediation abilities to facilitate understanding and solve

conflicts when it comes”.

Emotional abilities have strong ground in developmental theories which consider

emotional intelligence attributes such as empathy, social awareness and meta-

cognition as paramount to improve human relations and develop leader’s potential

(Higgs and Aitken, 2003). However, resilience, patience and mediation are not explicitly

cited as required competences to sustainability leaders in the literature. In fact, the

terms “crisis, frustration and conflicts” as part of the leaders’ routine are not present in

the sustainability leadership traits’ stream. Rather, the leader’s behavior is commonly

portrayed in a more enthusiastic manner, such as: inspiration, motivation and action.

Therefore, these findings may represent unprecedented qualities required to

sustainability leaders.

Driver 3: Leadership with a system thinking approach

This third driver relates to the basis upon these four companies orient its sustainability

strategies and improve effectiveness. The supporting findings of this driver are: holistic

vision, indigenous overview and co-participation process. As referred in the case

 73  

studies, these companies build its own meaning of strategic sustainability through an

internal organisational perspective as well as from external stakeholders expectations,

thus the material topics or materiality matrix of these organisations were built upon a

collaborative process, creating, consequently its sustainability vision concretized into

platforms or action plans to be pursued.

The first supporting finding is that the holistic vision of leadership reflected in those

companies’ business cases enables to broader the corporate perspective by integrating

people’s needs, ecosystems, supply chain and urban issues. Votorantim’s

sustainability manager for example referred to this vision as “fundamental to improve

knowledge and thrive sustainable development.” Overall, the other organisations

approach the holistic view as the capacity to look systemically on relevant issues

related to the business, creating meaningful sustainability strategies.

In complement to this broad view, the participants referred to a local perspective of

perceiving and delivering solutions adapted to local reality. The second supporting

finding is this local orientation contextualized in these projects is here referred as

“indigenous overview” (Schein, 2015, p. 41), results from a co-creation process

between the companies and the participants in the society. In practice, projects and

programmes are designed to address the context in which these firms operate.

Duratex, for example, implemented a programme orientated to save energy in urban

buildings, since Brazil has a chronic issue with power misuse. Similarly, AES

Eletropaulo, increases the awareness of its customers about the risks of building

irregular and dangerous electricity connection in urban slams.

Through the observation of business cases, it is possible to infer that stakeholder

engagement permits more than simply customised programmes, but it ensures a

feeling of ownership through active participation of the beneficiaries in social

programmes. One example is Tetra Pak’s support on waste collectors and recycling

cooperatives, where they act as catalyzers of local social opportunities and the

Votorantim’s support on local economical development in the countryside, offering

solutions to keep the GDP per capita of municipalities when the mining operation is

over. Being indigenous also means that the leadership should consider the influence of

contextual factors such as politics, economy, culture and community needs (CPSL,

2011). Thus, these factors act as important drivers on strategic sustainability as the

Tetra Pak manager quote summarizes “In Brazil companies have more pressure for

external stakeholders, since the credibility of public institutions is heavily affected”.

 74  

The third supporting finding is the co-participation deriving from corporate governance

and power decentralization processes in which the leaders share roles and

responsibilities, resulting in a wider range of new sustainability leaders and their

contributions. In this perspective, AES Eletropaulo’s sustainability manager mentioned,

“We are succeeding to build sustainability as part of a co-creation process…in a

coalition basis”.

All these three supporting findings together converge to the system thinking approach

that an organizational level referred in Senge (1997) as the leadership ability to

understand the interdependence of systems and for them to see the context in which

the problem is involved generating knowledge and appropriate solutions to it. Moreover,

the literature in sustainability leadership reinforces system thinking when approaching

the transition from conventional to more integrative perspectives. Scharmer and Kaufer

(2013, p. 13-16), for example, assume that the conventional leadership characterized

for a disconnection between traditional free markets human centric systems, should

evolve from a more complex system based leadership: “from ego to eco, from me to

we”, therefore “co-create and co-share solutions”. From the local viewpoint Schein

(2015) and Hart (2013) explore the indigenous aspect of sustainability leadership and

strategies and conclude that it offers a chance for amplifying the company’s bandwidth

by engaging stakeholders in a social orientation and contextualizing disruptive solutions

in an environmental perspective.

5.2.1 Strategic sustainability

As the three drivers discussed above and its respective supporting findings lead the

four companies to tangible results in strategic sustainability, this section aims to

interpret this second set of findings to conceptualize the companies’ sustainability

approaches. Even though the primary purpose of this study is not to assess the sample

level of corporate sustainability, this evaluation is useful to broaden the comprehension

of the whole process in which sustainability leadership is a driver. For this purpose, this

section has worked with two frameworks: Sustainable Value Framework (SVF) and The

Five Gears.

The tangible outcomes and approaches described in the case studies confirmed that all

four organisations perform strategic sustainability. These contributions encompass

social and environmental programmes in a long-term perspective. In particular, all

 75  

companies have case studies addressing the local reality in which they operate in

Brazil, considering factors such as: scarcity of natural resources in which companies

and communities rely upon, biodiversity preservation, social inequalities related to

educational and financial issues, health and safety among others.

However, despite the highlights presented in chapter 3 that demonstrate advanced

sustainability outcomes and justify the inclusion of four firms in this present study, these

companies exhibit different approaches of strategic sustainability according to SVF.

From these lenses, most of these organisionions’s strategies are qualified as “pollution

prevention” and “product stewardship” being framed as “today”. The main approaches

are summarized in table 2 against this framework displayed in figures 1 and 2 and

explained in chapter 2. In view of this, these four companies are sited in transitional

approaches which prioritise waste and pollution minimization and integration of

stakeholder’s opinions, having main corporate payoffs: cost and risk reduction and

reputation and legitimacy, respectively.

This fact suggest that the development of capabilities for the future or “tomorrow” such

as innovation within the business model through clean technology and sustainable

development, require more attention from these organisations if they want to pursue

fundamental changes or transformational sustainability (Hart, 2010).

Nevertheless, some exceptional initiatives are already considered transformational and

are framed as “tomorrow”, since they are using clean technology and acting towards

social inclusion with projects performed in the base of the pyramid such as: Zero Waste

project (Votorantim), environmental regeneration of water basins (Tetra Pak) and social

entrepreneurship initiatives (Votorantim and Tetra Pak).

Analyzing all these initiatives from Gear 5 Framework, which investigate the degree of

development in strategic sustainability, these organisations are sited mostly in the

“Gear 4: Integrate” transitioning to “Gear 5: Re-engineer”. This evaluation suggests that

the business cases reflect strategic sustainability, demonstrated by a co-creation

process with stakeholders and the shift in their operations towards advanced clean

technologies as the figure 7 displays.

In sum, the application of the findings in both frameworks suggests that these

companies are mostly in advanced transitional strategic sustainability, yet are gradually

evolving towards transformational approaches. The second conclusive fact is that these

 76  

companies seem to acknowledge and pursue this evolution when their processes of

embedding sustainability into core business and its relation with leadership reveals.

5.3 Implications of this study

The two key implications of this study are presented as follows:

Sustainability leadership drives strategic sustainability and improves its practices

The three drivers presented confirm the initial hypothesis of this study. Sustainability

leadership is influencing the companies’ approaches by engaging supporters, thriving

change, fostering actions, modeling and perfecting programs and enriching activities

addressed to stakeholders and environment. These elements are also leading these

organisations to reach tangible results aforementioned. Therefore, the importance of

this implication for strategic sustainability field is based on the fact that if sustainability

leadership is developed through corporate programmes, strategic sustainability could

also amplify its potential through its initiatives. This implication is not a generalization

due to the facts exhibited in the limitations of this study.

Sustainability leadership that addresses strategic sustainability is revealed

Which sort of sustainability leadership has been used to address strategic

sustainability? This is the secondary question developed from the main research

question that this project has been focused on. This leadership is a balance of

sustainability leadership approaches already studied in the literature review added to

the relevant findings discussed in this chapter. Consequently, the second implication of

this study is to broaden the existent views of sustainability leadership. In other words,

rather than to consider narrow models based solely in leaders’ behaviors or tasks, a

need for leadership for today’s challenges should also be adapted to contexts: internal

and external, as explained in chapter 3. For this purpose and based on a blend of

approaches discussed in the literature review, this project has proposed the

Sustainability Leadership Framework (SLF) explained in this section.

This project reveals characteristics of sustainability leadership that could be used as

guidance for sustainability leadership development to improve corporate sustainability

possibly towards transformational strategies primarily in these four organisations and,

secondarily in others, which find similarities with the main findings of this study.

 77  

The SLF proposed in this project considers: leadership / leader’s tasks, traits,

behaviours and context. Therefore, the proposition of this specific leadership balances

the context factor with the other two. Similarly to Cambridge proposition in figure 7 in

chapter 2 and differently from the other polarized approaches discussed in the same

chapter. The differentiation of this framework to the Cambridge model is to present the

three main factors unfolded into customized characteristics found. The framework

contains the following characteristics: (1) contextual factors to same level as tasks and

traits; (2) emotional competences such as resilience, patience and conflicts mediation

(3) emphasis on the leader’s roles of co-creating through coaching and communicating.

The justifications for each one of these characteristics are as follows, respectively: (1)

Contextual factors are a robust driver that design and orient strategies, especially when

added to the macro view consolidates a systemic thinking. Main factors are economical,

political, cultural and organizational. (2) Is fundamentally important to develop

emotional traits to prepare leaders for an uncertain scenario that leaders face such as

crisis and frustrations so far not mentioned in the approaches. (3) To improve

connecting abilities in which the leader can use to create productive partnership and co-

create intended strategies that are relevant to convey success and mistakes along the

sustainability journey, coaching and inspiring. The proposed leadership discussed is

summarized in figure 10.

Despite advantages of this balance of sustainability leadership approaches, the main

vulnerability of SLF consists in its difficulty of adapting to other organisations, due to its

fundamental basis being generated from a small sample. Nevertheless, this implication

could be taken into consideration if organisations that are operating in similar contexts

also have similar elements found in table 2 in chapter 4.

 78  

Figure 10: Sustainability Leadership Framework

Tasks,  traits  and  context      

• Tasks:  Apply  sustainability  knowledge  into  the  business;(Knowledge  managment)  Decentralize  leadership;  Align  and  co-­‐create  with  stakeholders;  Maintain  team's  commitment  and  motivation  through  communication.  • Traits  and  behavior:  ethics,  engager,  communicator,  educator,  resilient,  patient,  mediator.  • Context:  (External)  political,  social,  economical,  cultural,  environmental.  (Internal)  corporate    governance,  corporate  culture.  

Sustainability  leadership  for  strategic  

sustainability      

 79  

5.4 Limitations of this study

Lack of similar studies

As emphasized in chapter 3, there is a gap in the literature including the relationship

between sustainability leadership and strategic sustainability in the terms that this

project has been proposed. Rather, the studies treated these topics in a segregated

manner or when relating both, the studies have not approached sustainability

conceptualized as strategic nor leadership conceptualized as part of sustainability

robust and credible approaches, but simply orientated generically to sustainability.

Consequently, this study encountered difficulties to integrate both topics in a relation

of influence as presented, mainly as not counting on similar parameters for

evaluation. The alternative found to draw conclusions was based on more generic

studies added to an empirical viewpoint from the participants perspectives to create

an orientated sustainability study.

Lack of Brazilian data about the subject

The topics studied in this project are particularly recent in the local context.

Conceived in the terms that this project considers: Strategic Sustainability and

Sustainability Leadership has made relevant development in the last decade. This

fact has affected the academic production and other credible sources of research. In

addition, some terms developed and used in the extant literature were not the same

as those found in the organizational concept. As this project intended a truthful

approach on these topics and with a high level of accuracy, the alternative for both

difficulties was first to use reliable resources in the media and from experienced

consultants approaching these issues. Second, original terms in Brazil involved into

Sustainable Development approaches were adapted to concepts used from the

frameworks observed.

The small sample size

The sample was constituted of four organisations, and therefore four interviewees

who were sustainability represents/practitioners. This made it impossible to draw

generalizations and it narrows down the background in terms of viewpoints to

discuss in depth and in breadth visions and characteristics of sustainability

leadership. The difficulty in this process was due to the busy agenda of the large

 80  

firms’ managers. To compensate these issues, the author searched for

representative organisations in Brazil with a robust background in the subjects of this

study and coming from different sectors or industries, a fact that coincidently

matched with experienced managers which contributed to this study overall’s

objectives.

5.5 Recommendations for further research

After acknowledging the limitations of this project and reflecting on follow up research

questions, future studies could:

- Give emphasis on sustainability leadership development, aiming strategic

sustainability’s effective practices and moving beyond the classical vision of

leadership development based on personality traits and behaviors, towards

acknowledgement of tasks and contexts as proposed in this framework.

- Orient how leadership could serve more advanced stages of transformational

sustainability such as: developing organizational competences for the future with

regards to clean technology and addressing social unmet needs.

- Amplify the sampler, significantly in order to allow more general conclusions about

drivers of sustainability leadership towards strategic sustainability.

- Deepen the relationship of sustainability leadership and strategic sustainability and

direct implications into organization’s performance through leadership influence.

- Inquire some quantitative research questions about how much the sustainability

leadership counts in comparison to other drivers towards strategic sustainability.

- Within the leadership development approaches, expand the meaning emotional

competences to support individual leader’s maturity against complex challenges in

sustainability.

 81  

5.6 Recommendations for the organisations:

a) Sustainability Leadership (Addressed to all the organisations)

- Invest in frequent corporate programmes of sustainability leadership development

in the aspects emphasized in the SLF in order to reinforce successful aspects

identified and develop knowledge management and emotional competences in sub-

levels of leadership whilst decentralizing power.

b) Strategic Sustainability approaches

Duratex - A dual solution: clean technology and social and economical development.

- The model of servitasation or transforming products into services could be suitable

to the wood office furniture unit where the clients would lease the goods and return

them to be re-manufactured according to the principles described in the circular

economy.

- To tackle the shortage of technical skills in Brazil in woodwork together with

insufficient income generation, opening courses of carpentry and incentivising social

entrepreneurship through wood recovery to be reused in the industry in re-

manufacture of the furniture unit as part of reverse logistic in the above business

model proposed

Tetra Pak: Developing a regenerative pack

- Investment in research and development using biomimicry principals to consider

chemistry planned biodegradation packs which can be used as fertilizer in agriculture

and also keep the food protected to long term and distinct thermal conditions.

Votorantim: replacing pollution for water rich in nutrients

- Considering that water is one of the main impacts of the mining activity not only for

the large amount of usage, but also polluting the quality of metals in the process.

Votorantim could extend the practices of transforming waste from metal production

into rich nutrients to the water used in the refinery process for soils and oceans.

Green Chemistry can mimic the microbes that chelate metals out of water and filter

waste from metal mines streams. As a reference, MR3 Company is already selling

this technology to the mining sector.

 82  

Conclusion This project has been focused firstly on how sustainability leadership drives

corporate strategic sustainability, and secondly to reveal the characteristics of this

leadership which are influencing positively sustainability strategies and daily

practices of four Brazilian organisations. Hence, the first part of this general

conclusion is that sustainability leadership drives strategic sustainability, by

motivating practices and generating social and environmental outcomes in a long

term-view. The main drives found were: support of top leadership (belief in positive

outcomes, motivate towards change, assume the risks of uncertainty); skilled leaders

(business knowledge, ability to educate, engage and communicate, hold emotional

skills); leadership with a system thinking approach (holistic vision and co-

participation). The second part of this conclusion is that the features of this

sustainability leadership revealed, specifying leader’s and leadership’s tasks,

behaviour and contexts. Both parts implies respectively, (1) on strategic sustainability

since its practices could be developed towards transformational models if

sustainability leadership is also developed (2) on sustainability leadership

approaches which could be seen in a broader perspective. Finally, the model

proposed and the suggestions of this study could, at the service of other

organisations, adapt similar elements to its realities. While performing practices of

strategic sustainability, these companies are advancing from transitional to

transformational approaches and its leadership has been a gear for all to perfect

processes such as: investment in technologies, engaging with stakeholders,

communicating towards mindset change among other initiatives. If sustainability

leadership has been a key driver of rolling out these resources, this study has

identified possibilities of improving a new set of findings or formulating additional

research questions that can lead to environmental and social development.

Developing leadership abilities, adapting strategies from a local perspective and

thinking through macro systems might be some steps to take in a world in crises.

Some practical recommendations to some companies focused on disruptive

sustainability approaches discussed in this project as “tomorrow” and enable higher

level of organisational capabilities.

At the very core, this project explored how profits, people and nature could win with

strategic sustainability in a higher level. If these three elements can possibly coexist,

sustainability leadership stands as a connector to create a more meaningful

humanity.

 83  

References:

AES Brasil (2015). AES Brasil. [online] Available at: http://www.aesbrasil.com.br

[Accessed 12 Jun. 2015].

AES Brasil sustainability report (2014). AES Eletropaulo. [online] Available at:

http://projetos.riccari.com.br/clientes/aes/eletropaulo/home [Accessed 12 Jun. 2015].

Alina, W. (2013), Leadership's influence on innovation and sustainability, European

Journal of Training and Development, 1(2), pp. 15-39

Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational behavior and human

decision processes, 50(2), pp.179-211.

Avolio, B. (2005). Leadership development in balance: made/born. Mahwah

Lawrence Earlbaum Associates.

Avolio, B., Gardner, W., Walumbwa, F., Luthans, F., and May, D., (2004). Unlocking

the mask: A look at the process by which authentic leaders impact follower attitudes

and behaviors. The Leadership Quarterly, 15(6), pp. 801-823.

Banerjee, S. (2008). Corporate Social Responsibility: The Good, the Bad and the

Ugly. Critical Sociology, 34(1), pp.51-79.

Barata, M. (2007). O setor empresarial e a sustentabilidade no Brasil. Revista

Pensamento Contemporâneo em Administração, 1(1), pp.70-86.

Barr, S. and Gilg, A. (2007). A conceptual framework for understanding and

analyzing attitudes towards environmental behavior Geografiska Annaler: Series B,

Human Geography, 89(4), pp.361-379.

Bates, C., Beales, G., and Heathfield, A. (2004). Personal responsibility and

changing behaviour: the state of knowledge and its implications for public policy.

London: Cabinet Office.

 84  

Benn, S., Dunphy, D. and Griffiths, A. (2006). Enabling Change for Corporate

Sustainability: An Integrated Perspective. Australasian Journal of Environmental

Management, 13(3), pp.156-165.

Benn, S., Dunphy, D., and Griffiths, A. (2014). Organizational change for corporate

sustainability. London: Routledge.

Bennett, M., and James, P. (Eds.). (1998). The Green bottom line: environmental

accounting for management: current practice and future trends. Greenleaf

Publishing.

Benyus, J. (1997). Biomimicry. New York: Morrow.

Berns, M., Townend, A., Khayat, Z., Balagopal, B., Reeves, M., Hopkins, M. S., and

Kruschwitz, N. (2009). The business of sustainability: what it means to managers

now. MIT Sloan Management Review, 51(1), pp.20-26.

Blewitt, J., and Cunningham. R., (Eds.). (2014). The post-growth project: how the

end of economic growth could bring a fairer and happier society. London: Green

House Publishing.

Blewitt, J. (2014). Understanding sustainable development. London: Routledge.

Blowfield, M. (2013). Business and sustainability. Oxford: University Press.

Borland, H. (2009). Conceptualising global strategic sustainability and corporate

transformational change. International Marketing Review, 26(4/5), pp.554-572.

Borland, H., Ambrosini, V., Lindgreen, A. and Vanhamme, J. (2014). Building Theory

at the Intersection of Ecological Sustainability and Strategic Management. Journal of

Business Ethics. pp.1-15.

Borland, H. and Paliwoda, S. (2011). Marketing responsibility in an era of economic

and climactic challenge. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 29(1), pp.49-62.

Bovespa, (2015). BM&FBOVESPA – Serviços financeiros · Centro de negócios.

[online] Available at: http://bmfbovespa.com.br/pt-br/a-bmfbovespa/sala-de-

imprensa/Releases/2014/BMFBOVESPA-divulga-a-10a-carteira-do-Indice-de-

 85  

Sustentabilidade-Empresarial-2014-11-26.aspx?tipoNoticia=32&idioma=pt-br

[Accessed 16 Jun. 2015].

Boyatzis, R. E. (1998). Transforming qualitative information: Thematic analysis and

code development. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Brown, B. (2011). Conscious leadership for sustainability: how leaders with a late-

stage action logic design and engage in sustainability initiatives. A dissertation

submitted (Doctoral dissertation, Fielding Graduate University).

Bryman, A. and Bell, E. (2011). Business research methods. Cambridge: Oxford

University Press.

Cassel, C. and Symon, G. Essential guide to qualitative methods in organisational;

research. (2004). London: Sage Publications

CPSL (2011). A Journey of a Thousand Miles: The State of Sustainability Leadership

— Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. [online] Available at:

http://www.cisl.cam.ac.uk/publications/archive-publications/journey-of-a-thousand-

miles [Accessed 01 Jul. 2015].

Conger, J. (1998). Qualitative research as the cornerstone methodology for

understanding leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 9(1), pp.107-121.

Cook-Greuter, S. (2004). Making the case for a developmental perspective. Industrial

and Commercial Training, 36(7), pp.275-281.

Corraliza, A., and Berenguer, J. (2000). Environmental Values, Beliefs, and Actions

A Situational Approach. Environment and behavior, 32(6), pp.832-848.

Denzin, N., and Lincoln, Y. (Eds.). (2011). Handbook of qualitative research (4th ed.).

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Doppelt, B. (2010). Leading Change Toward Sustainability: A Change-Management

Guide for Business, Government and Civil Society. Sheffield: Greenleaf Publishing.

Dunphy, D., Griffiths, A. and Benn, S. (2014). Organizational change for corporate

sustainability. London: Routledge.

 86  

Duratex (2015). Duratex. [online] Available at:

http://www.duratex.com.br/en/Company/Duratex.aspx [Accessed 17 May. 2015].

Duratex sustainability report (2014). Duratex Sustentabilidade. [online] Available at:

http://www.duratex.com.br/Sustentabilidade/en/Default.aspx [Accessed 17 May.

2015].

Eight (2015). Emerging economies consumer behavior change brazil [online]

Available at:http://eightsustainability.com/docs/Emerging_Economies.pdf [Accessed

1 Aug. 2015].

Eisenhardt, K. (1989). Building theories from case study research. Academy of

management review, 14(4), pp. 532-550.

Environment Ministry (2015). Ministério do Meio Ambiente. [online] Available at:

http://www.mma.gov.br/pol%C3%ADtica-de-res%C3%ADduos-sóli [Accessed 15

Jun. 2015].

Ethos, (2015).Instituto Ethos [online] Available at: http://www3.ethos.org.br

[Accessed 12 Jul. 2015].

Exame (2013). Guia de Sustentabilidade 2013| Revista EXAME | EXAME.com.

[online] Available at: http://exame.abril.com.br/revista-exame/guia-de-

sustentabilidade/arquivo/2013/ [Accessed 05 May. 2015].

Ferdig, M. (2007). Sustainability leadership: Co-creating a sustainable future. Journal

of Change Management, 7(1), pp.25-35.

Ford, J., Ford, L., and D'Amelio, A. (2008). Resistance to change: The rest of the

story. Academy of management Review, 33(2), pp. 362-377.

Foster, J., (2015) Leadership after sustainability. Call for Papers - Leading Wellbeing

International Research Festival. [online] Available at:

http://www.lifeworth.com/leadingwell/callforpapers/ [Accessed 20 Jul. 2015].

 87  

Galpin, T. and Lee Whittington, J. (2012). Sustainability leadership: from strategy to

results. Journal of Business Strategy, 33(4), pp.40-48.

Gardner, W. and Avolio, B. (1998). The Charismatic Relationship: A Dramaturgical

Perspective. The Academy of Management Review, 23(1), p.32-58.

GIFE (2013). Investimento social privado no Brasil: tendências, desafios e

potencialidades. [online] Available at :

http://www.gife.org.br/arquivos/publicacoes/29/Livro%20instituto%20Sabin%20-

%20Final.pdf [Accessed 5 Jul. 2015].

Glouberman, D. (2003). The joy of burnout. Makawao, Maui, HI: Inner Ocean Pub.

Goleman, D., Welch, J., and Welch, S. (2006). What Makes a Leader? Audio

Renaissance.

Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R., and McKee, A. (2013). Primal Leadership: Unleashing the

Power of Emotional Intelligence. Harvard Business Press.

GRI (2015). English Language Page. [online] Available at:

https://www.globalreporting.org/network/regional-networks/gri-focal-points/focal-

point-brazil/Pages/Focal-Point-Brazil-English.aspx [Accessed 25 Aug. 2015].

Gregory Stone, A., Russell, R. and Patterson, K. (2004). Transformational versus

servant leadership: a difference in leader focus. Leadership & Organization

Development Journal, 25(4), pp.349-361.

Groves, K. (2006). Leader emotional expressivity, visionary leadership, and

organizational change. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 27(7),

pp.566-583.

Hargreaves, A., and Fink, D. (2012). Sustainable leadership. John Wiley and Sons.

Hart, S. (1997). Beyond greening: strategies for a sustainable world. Harvard

business review, 75(1), pp.66-77.

Hart, S. (2010). Capitalism at the crossroads: Next generation business strategies for

a post-crisis world. New Jersey: Pearson Education.

 88  

Hart, S., and Milstein, M. (2003). Creating sustainable value. The Academy of

Management Executive, 17(2), pp.56-67.

Hawken, P. (1995). Taking the natural step. Context, 41, 36-38.

Hawken, P., Lovins, A., and Lovins, H. (1999). Natural capitalism. London: Earthscan

Hawken, P. (2010). The ecology of commerce: A declaration of sustainability. Harper

Business.

Hay, R. (2010). The relevance of ecocentrism, personal development and

transformational leadership to sustainability and identity. Sustainable Development,

18(3), pp.163-171.

Higgs, M. (2009). The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Leadership and Narcissism.

Journal of Change Management, 9(2), pp.165-178.

Hinchman, L., and Hinchman, S. (Eds.). (1997). Memory, identity, community: The

idea of narrative in the human sciences. Suny Press.

IR (2015). Integrated Reporting. [online] Available at: http://integratedreporting.org

[Accessed 28 Jun. 2015].

Joiner, W., and Josephs, S. (2006). Leadership agility: Five levels of mastery for

anticipating and initiating change. John Wiley and Sons.Kopnina, H., and Blewitt, J.

(2014). Sustainable business: key issues. London: Routledge

Korten, C. (2001). The responsibility of business to the whole. Business and

Sustainable Development. London: Earthscan.

Kotter, P. (1999). John P. Kotter on what leaders really do. Harvard Business Press.

Kumar, S., and Putnam, V. (2008). Cradle to cradle: Reverse logistics strategies and

opportunities across three industry sectors. International Journal of Production

Economics, 115(2), pp.305-315.

Lloyd-Walker, B. and Walker, D. (2011). Authentic leadership for 21st century project

delivery. International Journal of Project Management, 29(4), pp.383-395.

 89  

Lindlof, T. (1995). Qualitative communication research methods. Thousand Oaks,

California: Sage.

Lourenço, I. and Branco, M. (2013). Determinants of corporate sustainability

performance in emerging markets: the Brazilian case. Journal of Cleaner Production,

57, pp.134-141.

MacArthur (2013). Towards the circular economy. [online] Available

at:http://www.mvonederland.nl/system/files/media/towards-the-circular-economy

[Accessed 12 Jun. 2015].

Mann, C. and Stewart F. (2000) Internet communication and qualitative research: A

handbook for researching online. London: Sage Publications

Manning, T. and Robertson, B. (2002). The dynamic leader – leadership

development beyond the visionary leader. Industrial and Commercial Training, 34(4),

pp.137-143.

Marrewijk, M. (2003). Concepts and definitions of CSR and corporate sustainability:

Between agency and communion. Journal of business ethics, 44(2-3), pp. 95-105.

Mason, J. (1996) Qualitative Researching. London: Sage Publications

McDonough, W., and Braungart, M. (2002). Remaking the way we make things:

Cradle to cradle. New York: North Point Press.

McEwen, C. and Schmidt, J. (n.d.). Leadership and the Corporate Sustainability

Challenge: Mindsets in Action. SSRN Electronic Journal.

Milbrath, W. (1995). Psychological, cultural, and informational barriers to

sustainability. Journal of Social Issues, 51(4), pp.101-120.

Mirchandani, D., and Ikerd, J. (2008). Building and maintaining sustainable

organizations. Organization Management Journal, 5(1), pp.40-51.

Mirvis, P., DeJongh, D., Googins, B., Quinn, L., and Van Velsor, E. (2010).

Responsible Leadership Emerging. Boston, MA: Boston College Center for

Corporate Citizenship.

 90  

Northouse, P. (2007), Leadership: theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Paro, R. and Boechat, C. (2008). Strategic planning and millennium development

goals in Brazilian companies. Corporate Governance: The international journal of

business in society, 8(4), pp.532-545.

Porter, M., and Kramer, M. (2006). The link between competitive advantage and

corporate social responsibility. Harvard business review, 84(12), pp.78-92.

Prahlad, K. (2005). The fortune at the bottom of the pyramid: Eradicating poverty

through profits. Pennsylvania: Wharton School Publishing.

Quinn, L. and Dalton, M. (2009). Leading for sustainability: implementing the tasks of

leadership. Corporate Governance: The international journal of business in society,

9(1), pp.21-38.

Reinhardt, F. (1999). Market Failure and the Environmental Policies of Firms:

Economic Rationales for "Beyond Compliance" Behavior. Journal of Industrial

Ecology, 3(1), pp.9-21.

Rooke, D., and Torbert, R. (2005). Seven transformations of leadership. Harvard

business review, 83(4), pp.66-76.

Saunders, Mark, (2007). Research methods for business students. Harlow:

FT/Prentice Hall

Scharmer, C. (2013). Leading from the Emerging Future. Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Inc.

Schein, S. (2015). A New Psychology for sustainability leadership. The hidden power

of Ecological Worldviews. Sheffield: Greenleaf Publishing.

Sharma, S., and Starik, M., (Eds.). (2002). Research in corporate sustainability: The

evolving theory and practice of organizations in the natural environment. Edward

Elgar Publishing.

Silverman, D. (Ed.). (2010).Qualitative research. Sage.

 91  

Starkey, R., and Welford, R. (2001). Win–win revisited: A Buddhist perspective.

Business and sustainable development, London: Earthscan Publications.

Stead, J, & Stead, W. (2010). Sustainable strategic management. New York: Sharpe.

Stern, P. (2000). New environmental theories: toward a coherent theory of

environmentally significant behavior. Journal of social issues, 56(3), pp.407-424.

Sustainability (2004). SustainAbility | Independent think tank and strategy

consultancy. [online] Available at: http://www.sustainability.com/ insight/scalingup-

article.asp?id=133 [Accessed 22 Jul. 2015].

Sustainability (2007). Growing Opportunity – Library | SustainAbility. [online]

Available at: http://www.sustainability.com/library/growing-

opportunity#.Vdxb4OntmTU [Accessed 23 Jul. 2015].

Sustainability (2015). SustainAbility | Independent think tank and strategy

consultancy. [online] Available at: http://www.sustainability.com/ insight/scalingup-

article.asp?id=133 [Accessed 22 Jul. 2015].

Svensson, G. and Wood, G. (2007). Sustainable leadership ethics: a continuous and

iterative process. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 28(3), pp.251-

268.

Tetrapak (2015). Soluções de processamento e envase de alimentos e bebidas da

Tetra Pak. [online] Available at: http://www.tetrapak.com/br [Accessed 11 Jul. 2015].

Tetrapak sustainability report (2014). Relatório de sustentabilidade. [online] Available

at: http://www.tetrapak.com/br/sustainability/sustainability-report [Accessed 11 Jul.

2015].

Thomas, D. (2006). A general inductive approach for analyzing qualitative evaluation

data. American journal of evaluation, 27(2), pp.237-246.

Timmermans, J., van der Heiden, S. and Born, M. (2014). Policy entrepreneurs in

sustainability transitions: Their personality and leadership profiles assessed.

Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 13, pp.96-108.

 92  

Van Wart, M. (2013). Lessons from Leadership Theory and the Contemporary

Challenges of Leaders. Public Administration Review, 73(4), pp.553-565.

Vinkhuyzen, O. and Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen, S. (2014). The role of moral leadership for

sustainable production and consumption. Journal of Cleaner Production, 63, pp.102-

113.

Visser, W. and Crane, A. (2010). Corporate Sustainability and the Individual:

Understanding What Drives Sustainability Professionals as Change Agents. SSRN

Electronic Journal.

Visser, W. (2008). Corporate social responsibility in developing countries. The Oxford

handbook of corporate social responsibility, pp.473-479.

Voltolini, R. (2011). Conversas com líderes sustentáveis: o que aprender com quem

fez ou está fazendo a mudança para a sustentabilidade. São Paulo: Senac.

Voltolini, R. (org.) (2014). Líderes sustentáveis com a mão na massa: o que

aprender com a experência dos principais executivos de sustentabilidade do brasil.

São Paulo: Ideia Sustentável.

Votorantim (2015). Home. [online] Available at: http://www.votorantim.com.br/en-

US/Pages/home.aspx [Accessed 01 May. 2015].

Votorantim sustainability report (2014). Reports. [online] Available at:

http://www.votorantim.com.br/en-

us/responsabilidadeSocialCorporativa/Pages/relatorios.aspx [Accessed 01 May.

2015].

Volstad, N., and Boks, C. (2012). On the use of Biomimicry as a Useful Tool for the

Industrial Designer. Sustainable Development, 20(3), pp.189-199.

Warnholz, J. (2007). Poverty Reduction for Profit? A critical examination of business

opportunities at the Bottom of the Pyramid. Document de travail, 160.

WCED, U. (1987). Our common future. world commission on environment and

development. Oxford: University Press.

Whatmore, J. (1999). Releasing creativity: how leaders develop creative potential in

 93  

their teams. London: Kogan Page.

Willard, B. (2002). The sustainability advantage: seven business case Benefits of a

triple bottom line. Gabriola Island: New Society Publishers.

Xu, J., Li, X., and Wu, D (2009). Optimizing circular economy planning and risk

analysis using system dynamics. Human and Ecological Risk Assessment, 15(2),pp.

316-331.

Yin, R. (2014). Case study research: Design and methods. California: Sage

publications.

Young, R. (2004). Dilemmas and advances in corporate social responsibility in Brazil.

The work of the Ethos Institute. Natural Resources Forum, 28(4), pp.291-301.

Yukl, Gary (2013). Leadership in organizations (8th edition).London: Pearson.

 94  

Appendix:

Appendix (A)

Denominations for Sustainability Leadership

Source: (Brown, 2010)

 95  

Appendix (B)

Coded quotes from sustainability managers

Company Strategic Sustainability Sustainability Leadership

Duratex

“When we decided to

implement sustainability in

our strategies, we realized

that changes in the

organizational culture

should be made first”

“As per request of the

president, Duratex created

a committee in the

executive board in 2011,

involving senior managers,

therefore reaching all

areas of business involved

other employees in

managerial and

operational levels,

decentralizing

sustainability decision-

making and evaluation

processes.”

Business Cases:

Power generation from

biomass instead of fossil

fuels (Exame, 2013).

Eco efficiency while

natural resources: water

and wood. (Duratex

“Our leadership orientated

to sustainability played a

significant role during the

implementation of

sustainability into its

strategies”

“The company is

abandoning the command-

control structures and

replacing vertical top-down

models for an open, co-

creative and co-

participative approaches”

“Duratex engage

employees and other

stakeholders to help to

formulate its objectives”

“Our leaders have a more

holistic and systemic view

of sustainability applied to

all departments”

“We understand

sustainability first and

them practice. It is a

meaningful process”

“We apply leadership

 96  

sustainability report, 2014)

development and

knowledge management to

empower different areas”

“For me, the leader has to

have capacity to

communicate ideas, but

also, emotional maturity to

wait, strategically, best

moments to act”

Votorantim

“The higher leadership

requested a study to

define how sustainability

issues should be tackled: if

from a proper department

or from different directions

having specific roles and

responsibilities…The study

showed that the

department should be a

better solution”

“Votorantim 2020 Vision

was the concretization

strategic sustainability

which embraces a

strategic planning of

sustainability, detailing

processes and projects

connected to sustainability

to the core business and

consulting stakeholders

expectations, through

material themes.”

Business Cases:

“At Votorantim, the

leadership towards

sustainability influenced

positively the Vision 2020.

The whole process

happened for a internal

perception of mid-

managers, especially in

the environmental

combined to a request

from higher leadership.”

“We received support from

the higher leadership on

the board…. ,otherwise the

projects would not been

performed and even if

there have been some in

progress, the performance

would not have been

sustainable, going back to

compliance stages”

“For me the leader has to

know about its business

and be able to educate

others, building

 97  

Votorantim Zero Waste

Project. (Exame

Sustainability, 2013)

Reuse of hazardous waste

zinc and steel.

Stakeholder empowerment

(Votorantim Sustainability

Report, 2014)

knowledge from a holistic

view, which integrate

sustainable development.”

“Has to have capacity to

communicate in different

ways with businesses and

also has to have ability to

mediate conflicts and act

like a conductor of an

orchestra”

“And above all, have a

ethical character”

AES Brasil (Eletropaulo)

“Before implementing

sustainability into business

strategies, Eletropaulo

conducted an internal

assessment in 2010 to

verify the meaning of

sustainability and material

themes among the higher

and medium leaders,

extending it to its

stakeholders to confirm if

there was alignments

between internal and

external priorities and

expectations”

Business Cases:

Energy efficiency

(Revista Exame, 2013)

“When the strategic and

action plan was created,

more than 100 managers

from different directions

started to deal with

sustainability issues….we

wanted to take them out

from the comfort zone with

this holistic approach”

“Our president has a

personal touch in

sustainability leadership.

He commands the rhythm

in which things happens

and generate enthusiasm”

“This multidisciplinary and

transversal way of

spreading sustainability

within the company more

 98  

Stakeholder engagement

by increasing awareness

towards safety and energy

savings.

(AES Brasil Sustainability

report, 2014).

assessable to everyone”

“We are succeeding to

building sustainability at

AES Brasil as part of a co-

creation process, and we

involved external

stakeholders in this

coalition basis”

“For me, a leader must

have capacity to motivate

for and also competence

to educate and

communicate, persuading

people for a meaningful

change.”

“It has also an holistic

perspective about how

different systems work”

Tetra Pak

“Strategic sustainability

has started more than 10

years ago, when Tetra

Pack has been integrated

environment issues into

the company business and

permeated throughout the

organisation.”

“Today the environmental

area brings reputation for

Tetra Pak and in ours

business meetings we

have a representative

there to integrate business

“Our CEO was a

fundamental to make

strategic sustainability

happens, especially at the

beginning, 10 years ago

when we did not have

measurement procedures

or performance indicators

to prove effectiveness of

these issues…..he was the

one believing and

investing in sustainability”

“In Brazil companies have

more pressure for external

 99  

side with successful

cases”

Business Cases:

Stakeholder management

through influence on public

polices

Social entrepreneurship :

Empowering recycling

chain cooperatives

Technology for recycling

Waste management

stakeholders, since the

credibility of public

institutions is heavily

affected.”

“For me the leader has to

have ability to have focus

and decide about relevant

causes for the business,

environment and society.”

“Has to be a believer and

be knowledgeable about

the business and

sustainability, therefore,

communicate ideas,

genuinely ”