Posted: 27th October 2015
Lausanne, Switzerland, 24 September 2015…
Seven companies from around the world will be honored in recognition of their progress in embedding sustainability at the annual Business for Society Forum of Business School Lausanne taking place on September 26, 2015 in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The Sustainability Innovation Award will be received by:
The award ceremony will include a special forum discussion on key challenges for mainstream businesses to become sustainable with the participation of panelists Martin Rohner, CEO of Alternative Bank Schweiz, Sue Prince OBE DL, CEO of Beechenhill Farm Hotel, and Louise Pitcher representing the Lancaster London Hotel.
The award-winning companies have been selected based on the Business Sustainability Typology (BST) model which classifies companies to different types based on their efforts to move from „business-as-usual“ to „true business sustainability“. The typology was developed by Dr. Thomas Dyllick, University of St. Gallen, and Dr. Katrin Muff, Business School Lausanne, and aims to provide a framework for organizations to engage in the transformation of business by applying best practices in sustainability.
Three of the seven award recipients fall under the BST 3.0 category of „truly sustainable” organizations – Alternative Bank Schweiz, Lancaster London Hotel, and Pebbles PVT Ltd., while another two companies are classified as BST 2.0 “triple bottom line management” – Beechenhill Farm Hotel and Interloop Limited. Dynamic Sportswear Ltd. and ICI Pakistan Ltd. will receive the BST 1.0 “refined shareholder management” award.
The Sustainability Innovation Award winners are promoted as examples of best practices for sustainability, ranging from granting bank loans that generate societal or environmental value (Alternative Bank Schweiz, Switzerland) to establishing cross-sectorial collaborations in the area of educational hospitality (Lancaster London Hotel, UK), to using bio-degradable material for product packaging (ICI Pakistan Ltd., Pakistan), to addressing a broader societal challenge of illiteracy in developing countries by providing quality education to the underprivileged children (Interloop Ltd., Pakistan).
Each of the selected companies and their best practices towards sustainably-run businesses has been featured in a dedicated case study by Business School Lausanne’s doctoral candidates Frederic Narbel, Gülen Hashmi, Nazish Bukhari, and Shamaila Gull. The case studies will be published in a special issue of BSL’s sustainable journal for practitioners, Building Sustainable Legacies.
Sue Prince, Beechenhill Farm, +44 (0) 1335 310467 +44 7821 106006 sue@beechenhill.co.uk
