Sustainability and the European Waste Management Industry

Jones, Peter ORCID: 0000-0002-9566-9393 and Comfort, Daphne (2019) Sustainability and the European Waste Management Industry. Advances in Environmental Studies, 3 (1). pp. 198-208.

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Abstract

Waste raises a range of environmental problems within Europe and sustainability has become an increasingly important challenge for the waste management industry. The aim of this paper is to offer an exploratory review of the approaches to sustainability within the European waste management industry. The paper begins with brief outlines of waste and the waste management industry in Europe and the growing interest in sustainability reporting. This is followed by a review of the sustainability reporting by some of the leading waste management companies operating within Europe and the paper concludes by offering some reflections on current approaches to sustainability within the industry. The findings reveal that the sustainability reports included details of a wide range of environmental, social and economic issues but more generally, the reports had a number of weaknesses that undermined their transparency and credibility. The authors also argue that the selected companies’ definitions of, and commitments to, sustainability are principally driven as much by business imperatives as by any fundamental concern to maintain the viability and integrity of natural and social capital.

Item Type:	Article
Article Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Waste management industry; Corporate sustainability; Sustainability reporting; Circular economy; Economic growth; Europe
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD2321 Industry H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management > HD60 Social responsibility in business
Divisions:	Schools and Research Institutes > School of Business, Computing and Social Sciences
Research Priority Areas:	Applied Business & Technology
Depositing User:	Anne Pengelly
Date Deposited:	25 Jun 2019 13:25
Last Modified:	03 Aug 2023 09:37
URI:	https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/6959

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