Advances in Sustainability and Purpose Research: Conceptualization and Effective Implementation

Dear Colleagues,

There is a common concern in society about the effects of our actions, individual or collective, on the physical and social environment. Such concern is reflected in the proposition of sustainability. More than two decades have passed since the Bruntland Report came to light and it can still be said that both the concept of sustainability and, above all, its effective implementation in organizations, remains in question. The use of the "Triple Bottom Line" scheme and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) do not seem to have solved either the problem of their conceptualization nor the question of their effective implementation in society. There is a danger of blurring the concept of sustainability and developing "greenwashing" behaviors. Another open question is the relationship of sustainability with corporate social responsibility (CSR) of companies and corporate purpose. The corporate mission, responsibility, and sustainability cannot be treated as separate and unconnected realities, but it is yet to be explored how these concepts are related in theory and in practice.

Apart from economic and business activities directly and indirectly involved in sustainable decision-making, the current issue can focus on various dimensions of sustainability to help understand how systems and resources work, building the knowledge, skills, and practices of working with people and strategy to get things done.

The objective of this Special Issue is to collect and present advances made from an interdisciplinary perspective in the scientific development and practical implementation of sustainability, both referring to society as a whole, as well as those made by public and private institutions, and by business companies.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but not limited to) the following:

• Sustainable Decision-making and Corporate Strategies.
• The SDGs
• Corporate Sustainability, Corporate Purpose and Corporate Strategy.
• Ethics of sustainability. Responsibility, Solidarity, and Sustainability
• Measuring the effective implementation of sustainability
• Sustainability and Education.
• Sustainable and economic development.
• Sustainability challenges and emerging patterns of human resource management.
• Sustainable awareness among stakeholders (trust building among sustainable partners).

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Miquel Bastons
Dr. Carlos Rey
Dr. Regina Selvam
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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

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

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

• sustainability
• sustainable development
• business ethics
• corporate social responsibility
• ethical decision-making
• corporate sustainability
• organizational behavior