Strategic Communication for Sustainable Organizations: Theory and Practice PDF
Preview Strategic Communication for Sustainable Organizations: Theory and Practice
CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance Series Editors: Samuel O. Idowu · René Schmidpeter Myria Allen Strategic Communication for Sustainable Organizations Theory and Practice CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance SeriesEditors SamuelO.Idowu,LondonMetropolitanUniversity,London,UnitedKingdom Rene´ Schmidpeter,CologneBusinessSchool,Germany More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11565 Myria Allen Strategic Communication for Sustainable Organizations Theory and Practice MyriaAllen DepartmentofCommunication UniversityofArkansas Fayetteville,AR USA ISSN2196-7075 ISSN2196-7083 (electronic) CSR,Sustainability,Ethics&Governance ISBN978-3-319-18004-5 ISBN978-3-319-18005-2 (eBook) DOI10.1007/978-3-319-18005-2 LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2015938585 SpringerChamHeidelbergNewYorkDordrechtLondon ©SpringerInternationalPublishingSwitzerland2016 Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsarereservedbythePublisher,whetherthewholeorpartof the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilarmethodologynowknownorhereafterdeveloped. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publicationdoesnotimply,evenintheabsenceofaspecificstatement,thatsuchnamesareexempt fromtherelevantprotectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreeforgeneraluse. Thepublisher,theauthorsandtheeditorsaresafetoassumethattheadviceandinformationinthis book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained hereinorforanyerrorsoromissionsthatmayhavebeenmade. Printedonacid-freepaper Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) To my grandson, Adjani, and all children everywhere. May the adults in your life embark quickly and boldly to ensure a more resilient and sustainable planet. ThiSisaFMBlankPage Foreword TheBrundtlandCommission(1987)oftheWorldCommissiononEnvironmentand Development—an arm of the United Nations—was asked to formulate a “global agenda for change.” In our own view, we believe that this change has since the reportcameoutcontinuedtoshowitsfacegloballyinallareasofhumanexistence. The report has successfully brought to our consciousness a number of issues on sustainabledevelopmentandtheconsequencesofpersistentirresponsibilityonthe partofglobalcorporateandindividualcitizens.Needlesstosay,nearly30yearson, alothashappenedinourworldwithregardto—OurCommonFuture.Forinstance, aseriesofUNConferencesontheEnvironmenthaveseenthelightoftheday.The Eight Millennium Development Goals had been set; with a few months to its end period, a number of versions of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) have been issued; the G4 being its latest version, the ISO 26000 is now in place; similarly researchstudies,scholarlyconferences,debates,workshops,andamassiveincrease inthenumberadditionstotheliteratureonsustainabilityareallnowpartofourlife; these are a few examples of what this change has brought to us. Myria Allen’s Strategic Communication for Sustainable Organizations: Theory and Practice is thelatestadditiontotheliteratureonsustainabilityandsustainabledevelopment. Allen’squesttowantingtounderstandhowsustainabilityinitiativeswerebeing enacted acrosstheUSAwasthemotivationforthisbook.Armedwiththeknowl- edge of the theories of different aspects of the field having taught Organizational Communication since the emergence of the Brundtland Report in 1987 and Envi- ronmentalCommunicationmorerecentlyandbeinginvolvedindifferentfacetsof sustainabilityinacademia,shewasdeterminedtoaddtoreaders’practicalknowl- edgeofhowsustainabilityhascontinuedtoevolveintheUSA.Allenembarkedon afewmonths’SustainablejourneyacrosstheUnitedStatesofAmerica—thisbook isanaccountofwhatshesaw! Havingspentsometimereadingsomesectionsofthebookandbearinginmind that our world is facing a series of environmental-related challenges including Global Warming, scarcity of many of our resources, etc., every citizen of the world both corporate and individual would have to learn to innovate in order to vii viii Foreword usesustainablyallourdepletableandevennondepletableresourcesandalsolearn to process sustainably all our ever increasingwastes. Our failure to do this would makelifeunbearableforboththisgenerationandfuturegenerationsofresidentsof planetEarth,afterallthisisallaboutourcommonfuture. WewishtotakethisopportunitytocongratulateMyriaAllenforthisinvaluable additiontobooksonsustainabilityandsustainabledevelopment.Wearedelighted torecommendthebookunreservedlytoallreadersworldwidebothinacademiaand inpractice.Inaddition,thebookisavaluableresourcewhichallundergraduateand graduate students of Corporate Social Responsibility CSR must have; remember, ourcommonfutureisinvolved! London,UK SamuelO.Idowu Cologne,Germany ReneSchmidpeter Preface Why Write This Book? Whenhewasalmost60,JohnSteinbeckspent3monthstravelingthroughAmerica with his standard poodle, Charlie. In Travels with Charley: In Search of America (1962) Steinbeck writes about setting out to rediscover his native land. He described himself as an American writer who had been writing from memory sincehehadnottraveledextensivelyinhishomecountryfor25years.Hewrote: IhadnotheardthespeechofAmerica,smelledthegrassandtreesandsewage,seenitshills and water, its color and quality of light. I knew the changes only from books and newspapers. In short, I was writing of something I did not know about,and it seems to methatinaso-calledwriterthisiscriminal(p.5). AsIapproached60,inthesummerof2013,IjourneyedWestwithmyhusband, A.J., and our standard poodle, Hector, in search of America. I wanted to see how sustainability initiatives were being played out in a variety of organizations. For almost 2.5 decades, I’ve taught about organizational communication and, more recently, environmental communication. I know the theories. I’ve taught future scholarsandpractitioners,conductedresearch,publishedscholarlyarticles,served onUniversitycommitteesaddressingsustainability-focusedresearchandcurricular design, andbuiltasmalleco-efficientEnergy Starcertifiedhome.Ilivedown the road from the Sustainability Consortium, a group Scientific American magazine identified as among the top 10 World Changing Ideas of 2012. This consortium includesbusinesses,universities, andnonprofitorganizations thattogetherseekto developscience-basedtoolstoadvancethemeasurementandreportingofconsumer product sustainability. You will learn more about them later. So, I’m aware of multiplesustainability-focusedinitiativesoccurringinmyownbackyard. ButIdidn’tknowwhatwasgoingoninLincoln,NE,Pierre,SD,Missoula,MT, Boardman, WA, Portland, OR, Boulder, CO, and other parts far distant from my home in Fayetteville, AR. I hadn’t recently driven past wind farms, or toured hydroelectric plants, seen the building of pipelines to transport oil from the ix
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