The document reviews sustainability in organizations, emphasizing the importance of balancing economic, environmental, and social performance through strategic initiatives. It highlights challenges like knowledge gaps and complacency, while advocating for long-term vision, innovation, and partnerships between public and private sectors to tackle world problems. The necessity of adapting educational programs and fostering organizational learning are also discussed as crucial for sustainable development.

1. Sustainable Development
An attempt to review the field, and re-define how
organizations can tackle sustainability more effectively
The 2nd International Conference
on Organization and Management (ICOM) 2016
Organized by the College of Business Administration at Abu Dhabi
University in collaboration with Asia Academy of Management
20-21 November 2016 | Park Rotana, Abu Dhabi, UAE.

2. • Core Functions of Organizations
• The Sustainability Concept
• Social Responsibility from a Global
Perspective
• The need for Sustainability
• Barriers to Sustainability
• 4 Considerations for Organizations
• Conclusion and Recommendations
Agenda

3. Organizations Focus
in Governments and
Private Sectors?

4. Organizations are typically driven
by a set of pre-defined objectives

5. Conventional Business Priorities
Productivity | Efficiency | Effectiveness | Revenue Increase |
Expense Reduction | Profit | Share Price | Stakeholders |
Company Growth | Leadership Quality | Vision | Mission |
Governance | Accountability Transparency | Teamwork |
Learning | Innovation | Talent Management | Technology |
Health | Safety | Risk Management |Emerging Market Forces
| Supply and Demand | Raw Materials | Competition |
Customers Loyalty | Quality | Regulatory compliance

6. Conventional Business Priorities
Productivity | Efficiency | Effectiveness | Revenue Increase |
Expense Reduction | Profit | Share Price | Stakeholders |
Company Growth | Leadership Quality | Vision | Mission |
Governance | Accountability Transparency | Teamwork |
Learning | Innovation | Talent Management | Technology |
Health | Safety | Risk Management |Emerging Market Forces
| Supply and Demand | Raw Materials | Competition |
Customers Loyalty | Quality | Regulatory compliance
The degree to which
organizations successfully
handle and respond to these
priorities determines their fate!

7. Sustainability

8. Sustainability
.. the ability to ‘sustain’,
support, continue,
maintain, ..

9. Sustainability in
Organizations
.. the ability of the
organization to produce
efficiently, and grow
economically while
maintaining
commitment to its
society demands of its
social responsibility.

10. Organizations
are parts of the
community

11. Adverse effects of businesses on
nature may lead to extinction!

12. Honey bees have been dying off at an
unprecedented rate - up to 30% per
year in in the last decade?

13. Scientists claim that chemicals used in
commercial agriculture have lethal
effects on bees?

14. Why would one care about
Bees extinction?

15. Bees play a vital role in sustaining
planet’s ecosystem

16. 84% of crops (400 plants) need bees to
increase yields and quality!

17. Bees alone can impact planet’s
ecosystem, level of oxygen, ….

18. Social
Responsibility
Definition
Is a moral theory that
any entity, whether an
organization or an
individual, has to work
for the benefit of society
as a whole.

19. Social responsibility
Maintain a balance between economy and
ecology (or ecosystem).

20. Examples of how
human development
impacted the world we
live in today ?

21. Environmental Pollution
biggest global killers, affecting
more than 100 million people

22. Climate Changes is threating
increase of carbon dioxide
ratio by 35%

23. Loss of 129 million
hectares of natural
forests in the last 20
years impacting the
ratio of oxygen!

24. Loss of non-Renewable Energy
(natural gas to run out in 35 years –
Oil reserves in 70 years)!

25. World challenges require
all organizations to work
together

26. World Poverty
925 million people
don’t have enough
to eat.
2.8 billion people
survive on less
than $2 a day.

27. Explosive Spread of
Diseases and Epidemics
causing over 17 million
annual deaths.

28. Malnutrition is a 3rd
cause of children death
(3.1 million annually)

29. 20% of world population
suffer from hunger and
lack of clean water

30. Employment
opportunities in a cut-
throat competing
business markets

31. Unemployment ranges 13% among
youth, and approach 30% in ME.

32. Providing labor' rights,
including fair wages,
social security and
health insurance

33. Examples only:
1. reduced extreme poverty by half
2. drinking water for more than 2 billion people
3. Death rates fell 25%
4. improved living standard for 200 million
5. Reduction of hunger from 23% to 15%
6. Child mortality fell from 87 per thousand to 51
7. Decline in illiteracy among children from
102 million to 57
Results obtained from
UN CSR Programs

34. So what’s
Sustainability
Again?

35. Sustainability
Balance performance
in terms of the
equivalent
environmental and
social ‘bottom lines’ in
order to deliver
sustainable economic
value to shareholders

36. Sustainability
.. the ability to ‘sustain’,
support, continue,
maintain, ..

37. Why Organizations Address
Sustainability?

38. During 2007-2012,
revenues of
$15 billion
came from energy
saving and eco-
friendly products.

39. Successfully reduced
waste by two-thirds.
$20 million
annual savings
+ prevention of 17,000
tonnes of waste being
sent to landfills.

40. Through eco-
friendly products
and services,
EUR 32 billion
were brought in as
revenue ..

41. “For every
dollar we spend,
we are getting
US$1.50-2.00
back.”
Wayne Balta, Vice president,
corporate environmental
affairs and product safety,
IBM

42. Barriers to Sustainability?

43. Why sustainable initiatives
hindered?

44. Why sustainable initiatives
hindered?
Lack of knowledge, and inability to
measure and track results

45. Why sustainable initiatives
hindered?
Disconnect between goals and
organisation operations

46. Why sustainable initiatives
hindered?

47. Failing
point!

48. Loosing market
share!
Why?
Company was
complacent, and
unable to see
disruptive
change coming!

49. Overflowed with
complacency
Communication
issue within the
company
Failure to adapt to
new technology

50. Organizations seek
one-size-fits-all
approach

51. Dow Jones World Sustainability Index
-
500.00
1,000.00
1,500.00
2,000.00
2,500.00
7/24/1998 4/19/2001 1/14/2004 10/10/2006 7/6/2009 4/1/2012 12/27/2014 9/22/2017
USD DJSI World Total Return

52. Sustainability Assessment Criteria

53. Where to start
from?

54. The subject field is broad

55. Knowledge Learning
People Leadership

57. Large gap in the demand
and supply of content around
sustainability practices

58. Need for holistic,
top-down
implementation
knowledge as opposed to
ad hoc attempts at
resolving efficiency
issues.

59. Knowledge base to
promote long-term
and rational
perspective vs.
Immediate concerns

61. Organizations
need to
learn
how to
sustain

62. Institutions should become
learning organizations
that discover, interpreted and
import and export knowledge.

63. Current organizational practices are maintained
at single and double loop levels

64. assumptions
Triple loop enables new learning to
improve performance & complex
problem solving

65. Innovation in the
approaches to
organizational
sustainability and in
adding value to society

68. Organizations need to adopt
programs and grants for education
& training to develop skills

69. As organizations develop, personnel
will also need to develop

71. Management
Teams
Need to come to the
fore.. And deal with
crucial elements of short
and long-term
sustainability matters.

72. Knee-jerk Reactions
to unplanned problems
will inhibit
implementing a truly
sustainable approach.

73. Creativity and
Innovation
Safe options stifle
innovation, and
inhibits generation of
new solutions

74. Disrupt Old
Business
Models
Sustainability is
possible if old
ways are
challenged to
generate
innovation

75. Conclusion

76. Need for long
term vision and
strategy

77. The role of Government
and international
organizations in defining &
agreeing on social
development priorities to
be targeted.

78. Encouraging
commit to the
achievement of
intended
specific social
goals

79. Encouraging
Partnership
between public
and Private
sectors

80. Promoting the concept of
organizational learning
in both government and
private sectors to
complement national
education systems.
Appreciation need to
translate into incentives
and privileges.

81. Remember the 4
dimensions of
knowledge,
learning, people,
and leadership!

82. Professor Ali M. Al-Khouri | First Vice-Chairman | Arab Federation for
E-Commerce | Arab Economic Unity Council |
League of Arab States | alkhouriali@arab-ecom.org
Thank You
@DrAliAlKhouriSlide Share: www.slideshare.net/alkhouri
Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/DrAliAlKhouri