Original Article/Research Potential benefits of developing and implementing environmental and sustainability rating systems: Making the case for the need of diversification

In this paper, we explore the potential benefits of implementing environmental and sustainability rating systems (ESRS) in industrial sectors other than the building industry. The increasing demand for natural resource exploration and exploitation has generated greater attention to the impact of such activity on both the organization and its stakeholders. One solution to mitigate the negative impacts is to regulate it through government agencies and legal requirements. While providing general guidelines, these processes often provide little practical help for firms to address triple bottom line goals in sustainability (i.e. social, economic, environment). More recently, a variety of environmental and sustainability rating tools have been developed to assist firms in making decisions that best fit these goals. While readily used and championed by the building industry, these rating tools have yet to be adopted by adjacent industries like mining, energy, oil & gas, and heavy industrial. This paper outlines potential benefits that these industries could realize in choosing to use such tools for the assessment of sustainability performance. 2014 The Gulf Organisation for Research and Development. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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