ASSOCIATING SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGIES WITH HIGHER MATURITY LEVELS. Proposed framework and actions for maturing and incorporating sustainability strategies

Abstract

The term sustainability has become a recurrent buzzword for organizations as organizations have realized the importance of sustainability as it can enhance an organization's competitive edge (Bateh et al., 2013). However, due to the complexity that the concept of sustainability entails, it is virtually impossible to standardize sustainability to a particular definition or for an organization to understand all its perspectives (Bateh et al., 2013). In order to assess these discussions, Baumgartner and Ebner (2010) propose distinct sustainability maturity levels of sustainability, which concern the extent to which firms address sustainability on organizational levels and in their operations. However, the maturity levels of sustainability are insufficient as an organization has to understand the importance of incorporating sustainability into business, becoming an integral part of the business strategy. However, the literature does not address how to associate a sustainability strategy with the higher levels of sustainability maturity levels, which led to the formulation of the first research question, How can a sustainability strategy be associated with a higher sustainability maturity level? Furthermore, conducting a literature review revealed the importance of incorporating the sustainability strategy into the business strategy and making it an integral part of the business strategy. Thus, the second research question was derived, How can a sustainability strategy with a higher sustainability maturity level be incorporated to become an integral part of the business strategy? In order to answer these research questions, the thesis conducted a case study research at Varsego Sweden AB, a Swedish wholesaler company operating primarily within sales and distribution of ice cream, providing the market-leading ice cream brand. As Varsego is mainly a distributor of products, it has to make its distribution sustainable on all accounts, as increased social awareness demands that. Thus, Varsego's big challenge is how to make their distribution sustainable within all three dimensions that sustainability encompasses. The data collection included sixteen interviews based on the semi-structured interview structure. All interviewees are associated with managerial positions within the organization. The analysis utilized a thematic analysis approach to identify repetition and patterns in the data. This thesis identified several findings based on the collection and analysis of data. In terms of the first research question, a framework is presented, which serves as guidance for managers to transform sustainability strategies to a higher level of sustainability maturity. The framework contains several steps, where the first step is to establish a central sustainability focus. Firms should incorporate this central focus into the three sustainability dimensions and the strategic views. Lastly, is decisions regarding the strategic approach, where it is beneficial to utilize the dynamic approach. This thesis further proposes three critical actions for incorporating the transformed sustainability strategy into business strategy to make it an integral part of the business strategy. The first action is to understand the relationship between the business strategy and sustainability strategy. The second action is to incorporate the transformed sustainability strategy into the business strategy in practice. The last action is to make sustainability an integral part of the business strategy.