404: Environmental Sustainability: Hot Topic or Hot Air? (20162)

Environmental sustainability has emerged as a significant topic capturing considerable managerial as well as scholarly attention. However, there is still a large debate over whether companies are doing much about it beyond pacifying stakeholder pressures and complying with sustainability rankings. This is part of a broader debate on who is responsible for the current state; is it primarily advanced economies and their firm? Or is the energy sector predominantly accountable? Questions surrounding the equitable distribution of responsibility for pollution reduction further intensify the ongoing debate. In this panel, we aim to delve into critical questions that define this ongoing discourse on corporate environmental sustainability strategy and performance. We propose hosting a TED talk-style discussion in which the panelists will present crucial arguments on the role of environmental sustainability on firms’ strategy and behavior and try to elucidate which arguments are the basis of a hot topic that will have a real impact and which ideas are hot air and likely to be less relevant for the future research. The panelists will take extreme positions and provide concise arguments on the topic to generate a long discussion with the audience. This presentation style will help identify environmental sustainability issues that are relevant to firms and academics and better understand the role of the context on firms’ sustainability strategies.