The Golden Circle of Sustainability: Aligning Why, How, and What
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Sustainability has become a buzz word and garners a lot of scholarly attention. To achieve business sustainability, sustainable development and sustainable performance play a vital role. However, frequent use of terms such as sustainability, sustainable development, and sustainable performance interchangeably leads to misunderstanding and lack of conceptual clarity. This conceptual paper provides a framework to conceptually clarify each term by using Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle framework based on why, how, and what. This study offers a framework which connects purpose with action and action with performance, along with the Quadruple Bottom Line (QBL) approach, that is, economic sustainability, social sustainability, environmental sustainability, and corporate spirituality. In addition, it shares the muti-stakeholder perspective which includes multiple players, namely individuals, companies and nations as important contributors. This study was conducted in light of the Golden Circle framework and it highlights sustainability as ‘why’ which comprises purpose, sustainable development as ‘how’ which comprises action, and sustainable performance as ‘what’ which comprises the outcome. This results into a clear concept and understanding of sustainability, sustainable development, and sustainable performance for individuals, companies, and countries, form purpose to action to performance.
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