The Oxford Handbook of Business and the Natural Environment

Environmental issues now loom large on the social political and business agenda. Over the past four decades corporate environmentalism has emerged and been constantly redefined from regulatory compliance to more recent management conceptions such as pollution prevention total quality environmental management industrial ecology life cycle analysis environmental strategy environmental justice and most recently sustainable development.As a result understanding the intersection of business activity and environmental protection has become increasingly complex and there has emerged a focus in academic research on business decision-making firm behavior and the protection of the natural environment. This handbook reviews the state of the field as it grows into a mature area of study within management science its achievements and its future avenues of research. It brings together original contributions in the field along several lines of enquiry. The first six focus on disciplines as delineated in contemporary business schools: business strategy; policy and non-market strategies; organizational theory and behavior; operations and technology; marketing; and accounting and finance. The seventh section reviews emergent and associated perspectives whilst a concluding section written by long-standing leaders in the field discusses the future outlook for research.