CRC Press Introduction to Sustainability Analytics

The roles of corporate and public stewards and the nature of their social contract with society have been changing over the past two centuries, and those changes have accelerated in recent decades. Moreover, with increasing focus on sustainability factors from the marketplace (regulators, investors, financiers, and consumers), corporate sustainability disclosure is shifting from voluntary to vital. Corporate and public stewards are now responsible for their performance and services from cradle-to-grave: they must properly manage corporate social responsibility and integrate it into their global strategies, rather than consider it as merely a moral obligation or a risk/reputation management exercise. Sustainability analytics, the critical link between sustainability and business strategy, helps professionals track, trend, and transform sustainability information into actionable insights across the value chain and life cycle, to enhance their sustainability performance and its disclosure. This book, Introduction to Sustainability Analytics, provides corporate and public stewards with a comprehensive understanding of how to determine which sustainability metrics are material to them and relevant to their business, and how to incorporate them into corporate strategy, resource allocation, and prioritization. Focusing on practical decision-making needs, it explains how to value and prioritize initiatives, and how to best allocate necessary resources through several real case studies and practical examples. Features: Examines pressing issues such as climate change, water scarcity, and environmental justice Explains how to develop a business case and global strategy for social responsibility Includes both corporate and public policy perspectives on sustainability economics Covers emerging regulations on sustainability disclosure and responsible investing About the Author Dr. Ram Ramanan, a Fulbright Fellow, has over 40 years of academic, consulting and corporate experience in corporate social responsibility (CSR), sustainability, compliance, environmental risk mitigation, and ethics in over a dozen nations. He has a PhD in Environmental Science (Engineering) from the University of Texas at Dallas and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin. He also holds MS and BS degrees in chemical engineering from Bombay University and the Indian Institute of Technology, respectively. He received a US Department of State Fulbright Fellowship in 2006 to provide environmental and sustainability thought leadership in India where he spoke at over twenty major academic and professional forums. Ram has provided executive briefings, presented & published papers, and chaired sessions, panels and conferences worldwide over four decades. Ram is now Affiliate Research Professor at Desert Research Institute. He currently serves on the Board of World Institute for Scientific Exploration ‘Wise’, and the Editorial Review Boards of the ‘Vedic Journal’ and the International Journal of Risk & Contingency Management and has served on the International Board of Air &Waste Management Association from 2011-2013. As Chair of the Education Council at AWMA, Ram led a group of over fifty academics, including several tenured professors, all devoted to promoting environmental sustainability education globally. An educator at heart, in the 1990s, as industry board advisor to the Environmental Solutions Program at The University of Texas at Austin, Ram promoted the concept of risk based decision making that led to the establishment of the “Risk Management Center”. He recently retired from the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Stuart School of Business, where he was industry associate professor and interim director of the Center for Sustainable Enterprise.