Managing Sustainability to be Sustainable: The Toyota Case

Attention to a company’s social and environmental commitment and the related (complex) performance is far from new in the literature, but the last years have pressed both Academic and Managers by urgent issues such as climate changes and disasters, poverty, economic and social crisis in many countries, human rights violations, health concerns and so on. At the same time, international law authorities have demonstrated an overall attention to the topic. Also, the end of 20th century saw unprecedented changes in corporate strategy and management towards sustainable thinking – the emergence of sustainability as corporate strategy, and making sustainability an integral part of a company’s business strategy in order to gain bottom-line benefits. In such a global, unstable, market, sustainability become an investable concept, crucial in driving interest and investments in sustainability to the mutual benefit of companies and investors. Toyota’s commitment for a sustainable management has been developed since decades ago and continues nowadays, representing a perfect example for the whole market, and witnessing the urgency of an integrated approach along the supply chain, in order to gain competitive advantage through ‘sustainability’.