The Sustainability Imperative

Ani Melkonyan-Gottschalk, Denis Daus, Lara Johannsdottir, and Daniel Goldmann introduce a framework in which physical infrastructure design, regional development strategies, and supply chain governance take place across society, industry, science, and policy. Best practices from around the world are showcased, highlighting places where society, industry, science, and policy have come together in multistakeholder partnerships to facilitate circular transformations. The authors draw attention to the role of finance and investment in the success of these initiatives.

Tien-Shih Hsieh and Zhihong Wang identify new sources of data and emerging technology that can be deployed to offer a more comprehensive understanding of circular investments and performance. The authors provide insights into how waste management companies and manufacturers can use the Internet of Things and blockchain to capture real-time data. The digital tools introduced can store data in a transparent manner to support decision-making and corporate governance. The authors also consider how to interpret news and social media data using sentiment analysis and how to employ artificial intelligence to analyze large amounts of ESG data in real time to inform investment decisions.

Subhasis Ray and Ritesh Kumar Dubey say organizations face several challenges when adapting circular accounting systems, including determining the traceability of products and materials, verifying the value of products and materials, recognizing revenue, and disclosing circular performance. Ray and Dubey say companies can address accounting complexities of the circular economy through lifecycle assessment, impact accounting, movement-based accounting, and new accounting standards. These approaches help drive activities that lead to successful organizational investment in CE and sustainability initiatives.

This issue of Amplify explores how businesses and public entities can manage investments in the circular economy in light of complex concerns that overlap many dimensions of social, technological, environmental, and economic systems.

Through a systematic literature review, Lihua Sun and Zhuowen Chen present a broad perspective of CE investment. Their review reveals six key aspects of CE investments: government, financial institutions and instruments, cooperation and collaboration, corporate governance, technology, and assessment tools.

In this Advisor, Sara Cook of the Wildlife Habitat Council offers imperatives for aligning corporate ambitions with place-based action that is both stakeholder-informed and fully resourced.

Proactive measurement and management of consumer product impacts can minimize the risks of running afoul of social expectations and enable analysis and decision-making alongside financial metrics by translating those impacts into units of currency we call “monetary impact accounts.” This Advisor takes a closer look at this new way of capturing a more complete view of corporate ESG activities.

How a company handles environmental concerns — or crises — is central to what it stands for, and it’s becoming increasingly divisive. Not surprisingly, it seems every major country is focused on how environmental information should be disclosed to stakeholders, with a focus on climate-related information. For many years, companies have been presented with a patchwork of conflicting rules and requirements, making it hard to compare them, even within an industry. Executives and boards have been calling for the multiple prevailing standard-setters to not only consolidate but to do so on a global scale. This Advisor examines the landscape of climate-related information disclosure.