Focusing on firm-level behavior in the US pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries, Chapter 4 provides evidence that companies do indeed seek stricter standards on their own, out-of-patent products in order to boost sales of newer, patented substitutes, even providing negative information about their own products in pursuit of this goal. In order to show this, the chapter leverages petitions submitted by pharmaceutical and agrochemical companies to the US FDA and EPA, respectively, requesting that the agencies place stricter standards or all out bans on products that these companies themselves developed. In the case of the pharmaceutical petitions, the chapter provides evidence that all but one of the requests for a product ban has targeted a drug that is about to lose or has already lost patent protection and for which the company had a more recently patented substitute. This suggests that such requests are not publicly minded attempts to ensure dangerous products remain off the market but, instead, are strategic gambits to boost profits of exclusively produced alternatives. In addition, the chapter provides a statistical analysis of petitions submitted by agrochemical companies and farm groups to show that, whereas farmers are no more likely to seek stricter standards on out-of-patent pesticides, agrochemical companies systematically request stricter standards on these products while requesting more lenient standards on products still enjoying patent protection.

This chapter introduces business model innovation for sustainability as a new way of achieving corporate sustainability. Why is thinking about business models and business model innovation useful in this regard? Because business models are essentially about how companies create value for themselves and for their stakeholders, such as customers, employees or business partners. And value creation, in turn, relates in various ways to the natural environment and society. Hence, the business model perspective is very helpful in dealing with corporate sustainability challenges. In this chapter, we explain how business models support proactive approaches to corporate sustainability; how business model innovation can help integrate sustainability principles (such as efficiency, consistency or sufficiency) into companies’ activities; and how it can help companies extend their value creation potential to be more inclusive towards non-financial stakeholders. Finally, some patterns and tools to develop business models for sustainability are introduced.

The final chapter concludes by first re-outlining the book’s central arguments. The chapter then revisits how the preceding chapters help shed new theoretical light on the source of regulatory barriers while also answering several empirical puzzles, including why similar risks frequently receive dissimilar regulatory treatment, why some nations impose more precautionary regulatory rules than others, and finally what is behind some of the most contentious agricultural trade barriers. Finally, the chapter explores the ethical implications of the book’s central findings and offers several concrete policy recommendations for addressing both the broader information asymmetry problems outlined in the book and the resulting biases that were identified.

Chapter 5 takes a deep dive into the history of US agrochemical regulation in order to show that innovative companies were a major force behind the adoption of institutions that required the precautionary reevaluation of existing products, in opposition to generic producers who stood to lose out from such institutions. Using an original dataset that tracks changes to US agrochemical regulations over a two decade period, the chapter then provides evidence that in the wake of these institutions’ implementation, regulations have become stricter on older, less profitable products over time for reasons that cannot be attributed to health, safety, or obsolescence alone. In addition, the chapter provides evidence that the mechanism behind this outcome is not the political power of producers but rather their ability to leverage their information advantages under a regulatory regime in which products are subject to precautionary reevaluations.

In the concluding chapter of the book, we reflect on the future of corporate sustainability. We summarise the key topics covered in each of the four sections – approaches, actors, processes and issues. We present past and future developments for each of these sections. We also reflect on how some of the tensions as presented in the introduction remain and become core to corporate sustainability debates. Finally, we end on a reflection of our personal roles in advancing sustainability.

Along with traditional organisational forms, such as SMEs and MNCs, a variety of alternative types of organising exist in the business world. As hybrid organisations between traditional for-profit businesses and non-profit organisations, alternative types of organising often integrate social and environmental concerns deeply into their business models. Hence, these organisations aim at combining economic goals with the pursuit to proactively create a positive social and environmental impact.

In this chapter, we will take a deeper look into alternative types of organising for corporate sustainability as a promising pathway to integrate sustainability into the business sector and discuss the challenges they face as well as the social and environmental impact they create. Specifically, we will discuss four examples of these organisations: foundation-owned companies, which are companies that are fully or partially owned by an industrial foundation instead of shareholders; cooperatives, which are community-based organisations that are owned by their members (i.e., individuals who voluntarily join their forces and collaborate); social businesses, defined as organisations that pursue a social or environmental mission while engaging in commercial business activities; and B Corps as a specific form of social businesses, meaning those that have applied for and passed a certain certification process.

This chapter discusses the nature, legitimacy, impact and critique of voluntary standards for sustainability. We first develop a definition of sustainability standards and distinguish three different types of standards. This discussion shows that, while standardisation in the field of sustainability has grown in recent years, existing initiatives differ in several important ways. Next, we discuss how the legitimacy of sustainability standards can be assessed. We differentiate between standards’ input and output legitimacy. We then focus on the impact that sustainability standards can potentially have on adopting firms, end consumers and the regulated issue area. The final section takes a detailed look at the critique that has been raised against selected standards (e.g., the coexistence of multiple standards with a similar purpose).

The final empirical chapter turns to the international level in order to determine whether delegation to an international standard-setter alters the regulatory dynamics identified. Looking at the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the chapter asks whether this institution has been able to ameliorate the regulatory biases found domestically. In order to answer this, the chapter replicates the analysis conducted on agrochemical regulation in the United States, this time looking at changes to standards under Codex. The chapter shows that even though Codex standard-setters are substantially more removed from the domestic political process than regulators in the USA, the Codex Commission has shown as much of, if not a greater tendency to systematically impose stricter standards on out-of-patent agrochemical products. As such, the international standard-setter has ended up placing more onerous rules on more affordable products for reasons that are less based on science than they are based on the absence of scientific information. In addition to showing that international standards have been vulnerable to similar biases as domestic regulations, this chapter also explores how developing countries and generic producers have sought to combat the regulatory barriers that have arisen at the international level and how innovative firms have successfully blocked them.

This chapter discusses the role of ethical reflection in the context of corporate sustainability. It starts by reviewing the relevance of four normative ethical theories (utilitarian ethics, duty-based ethics, virtue ethics and posthuman ethics) for corporate sustainability. Next, the chapter discusses how people in organisations make ethical decisions and which cognitive biases impact our decision-making. In the following section, the chapter asks two essential questions: Why do we need ethics when discussing corporate sustainability? and Can corporations engage in ethical reflection or is this something that only individuals can do? The final section discusses how firms can manage ethics, and we distinguish two orientations that can guide such management: compliance and integrity.

In Chapters 3 and 4, I described my sample of eco-conscious households and the priorities, resources, and constraints that influence how they get things done in everyday life. In this chapter and Chapter 6, I will describe how these elements combine to generate a set of human activities in households that constitute everyday life. In trying to learn about how households get things done, I focused my conversations with informants on their practices with respect to six categories of daily life: waste, comfort, cleanliness, food, transportation, childcare, and general provisioning. The discussion in this book focuses on waste, indoor comfort, and cleanliness, since these are aspects of everyday life that have not received extensive attention elsewhere. Because of my interest in how practices change or are resistant to change, I asked follow-up questions to help me understand how my informants learned these practices, how these differ from the way they themselves grew up, how things have changed since becoming a parent, and what they would do differently if they had more time or money. This chapter describes how my informants deal with household solid waste.

Household waste includes trash and “packaging,” compost, recycling, diapers, and toilet waste. The eco-conscious households I spoke with were almost universally concerned with reducing their consumption, and for many, the waste generated by their lifestyles and practices serves as an uncomfortable reminder of their shortcomings in the sustainability realm. For some households, practices that prevented waste from going to a landfill, such as composting and recycling, are sufficient to alleviate the guilt associated with waste-generating consumption. Other households attempt to purchase items with as little packaging as possible because recycling and composting are not enough for them to feel absolved. Waste is visible, tangible evidence of things you consumed. Once every week or two, your neighbors can see all of your trash awaiting removal right in front of your home. It smells, it is unsightly, it attracts vermin, and it triggers disgust through our instinctive drive to avoid risks of contamination, parasites, and disease (Kelly 2011, 1– 58). In this sample of households, the topic of packaging—things like plastic films and cardboard boxes—elicited powerful and unexpected reactions from my informants, while practices that involve allowing organic matter to decompose in the backyard or leaving urine in a toilet bowl unflushed elicited few negative reactions.

In this chapter, I will tell you about the resources available to my informants as they go about getting things done in everyday life, as well as the factors that constrain their ability to get things done and the options available to them.

Households draw upon a variety of resources to get things done in everyday life, but these resources can be simplified to three major overlapping categories: money, time, and know-how. Money is used to buy items the household uses or transforms, pay for assistance, and to pay for education and training. Money is obtained through government assistance, trading an adult's time for wages or self-employment income, and directly (cash) or indirectly (gifts) from extended family members. Time is used to transform purchased inputs into usable final-use goods and services, to locate free or cheaper items, to obtain money through waged work, and to obtain know-how. Time can come from household adults or extended family and friends. Know-how (in other words, competence in theories of social practice or human capital in economics) includes the skills that allow household members to produce usable goods and services in the home, to trade their time for a higher-than-subsistence wage, and to find and understand information about sustainability practices. Obtaining knowhow requires time, and in some cases money.

However, these resources are not limitless. In particular, households describe making decisions on a foundation of limited time and limited money, with time constraints by far the most common concern of my informants. Households are also constrained by social and cultural norms, particularly around cleanliness. Finally, information about sustainability and sustainability practices can be difficult to find, and in some cases accurate information is not available.

Household resources

Resources from waged work

Every household I spoke with had at least one adult who engaged in waged work or self-employment for money, and both adults worked for money in nearly all of the households with two adults. Heather decided on a career as a nurse because she knew the schedule would be compatible with her desire be available for her children during the day, and Emily's hours as a consultant are flexible and have allowed her to adjust her schedule to accommodate childcare obligations during her children's different life stages.