A performance framework for corporate sustainability

Recent studies conducted worldwide on corporate sustainability indicate gaps in sustainability practice. Many organisations deal with their economic, social and environmental issues individually and have not explored their inter-connections. They are now required to rethink their business strategies for improving their contribution to both shareholders and society as a whole. This paper is a step further to address these gaps in sustainability practice. Through an empirical study conducted in 85 different Australia-based firms, we unearth the inter-relationships among environmental, social and economic considerations simultaneously and propose a performance framework for implementing corporate sustainability. The framework consciously interconnects the triple bottom line measures using our 'Triple-I' principles of innovation, integration and interdependence that we propose within the managerial thinking. We describe the implementation of this framework in the form of a step-wise roadmap, using the Plan-Do-Check-Act quality cycle. We believe that such a practical guideline would pave way for continuous improvements in corporate sustainability performances.