Sus­taina­bi­li­ty

Brief descrip­ti­on of the field of com­pe­tence

The gui­ding prin­ci­ple of sus­tainable deve­lo­p­ment and its imple­men­ta­ti­on in busi­ness acti­vi­ties and at muni­ci­pal busi­ness loca­ti­ons are the focus of the work in the com­pe­tence field of sus­taina­bi­li­ty. In trans­di­sci­pli­na­ry rese­arch and con­sul­ting pro­jects, we sup­port orga­ni­sa­ti­ons in the deve­lo­p­ment and imple­men­ta­ti­on of approa­ches in the broad spec­trum of sus­taina­bi­li­ty issues: from the design of work sys­tems to the manage­ment of sup­pli­er rela­ti­onships and adapt­a­ti­on to the con­se­quen­ces of cli­ma­te chan­ge.

Cor­po­ra­te sus­taina­bi­li­ty

The con­cepts of sus­tainable cor­po­ra­te manage­ment and work sys­tem design as well as Cor­po­ra­te Social Respon­si­bi­li­ty (CSR) are beco­ming incre­asing­ly important — be it from a purely ope­ra­tio­nal ratio­na­li­ty or a cor­po­ra­te con­vic­tion, due to social pres­su­re or new legal regu­la­ti­ons. In order to act sus­taina­bi­li­ty-ori­en­ted, com­pa­nies often can­not stop at their inter­nal pro­ces­ses. As a result, the­re is also a gro­wing awa­re­ness of their respon­si­bi­li­ty in the sup­p­ly chain or value-added sys­tem for achie­ving sus­taina­bi­li­ty goals. The sus­tainable design of glo­bal­ly dis­tri­bu­ted work and pro­duc­tion sys­tems is a chal­len­ging task. This is becau­se com­pli­ance with social and envi­ron­men­tal stan­dards must be ensu­red in the con­text of diver­se stake­hol­der requi­re­ments in dif­fe­rent count­ries on the one hand and com­plex sup­p­ly chains and sup­pli­er rela­ti­onships on the other.

Against this back­ground we sup­port com­pa­nies pro­fes­sio­nal­ly and metho­di­cal­ly

• in the design and imple­men­ta­ti­on of stra­te­gies and mea­su­res for CSR and sus­tainable sup­p­ly chain manage­ment, e.g. in the defi­ni­ti­on of essen­ti­al social and envi­ron­men­tal stan­dards
• in working up the sta­te of the art and lear­ning from the com­pe­ti­tors,
• in crea­ting approa­ches to work sys­tem design, risk manage­ment, due dili­gence or sup­pli­er deve­lo­p­ment.

In doing so, ITA builds on expe­ri­ence from publicly fun­ded rese­arch pro­jects and long-term indus­tri­al coope­ra­ti­ons.

Sus­tainable muni­ci­pal busi­ness loca­ti­ons

The sus­tainable deve­lo­p­ment of cities, dis­tricts and muni­ci­pa­li­ties as busi­ness loca­ti­ons and cen­tres of life for citi­zens means mee­ting glo­bal chal­lenges whe­re their effects are felt: local­ly, on the ground, with the peo­p­le. In this con­text, sus­taina­bi­li­ty does not only mean the con­side­ra­ti­on of eco­lo­gi­cal goals, but also the inte­gra­ti­ve con­side­ra­ti­on of eco­no­mic, social and eco­lo­gi­cal effects and their inter­re­la­ti­onships in stra­te­gic decis­i­ons that can have an impact on the future of a com­mu­ni­ty. After all, the major chal­lenges of our time, such as demo­gra­phic chan­ge, cli­ma­te impact adapt­a­ti­on and cli­ma­te pro­tec­tion, regio­nal struc­tu­ral chan­ge, gene­ra­tio­nal equi­ty, inte­gra­ti­on and inclu­si­on, are ulti­m­ate­ly more cross-cut­ting issues and muni­ci­pal design tasks than the sub­ject of indi­vi­du­al mea­su­res of limi­t­ed dura­ti­on.

Howe­ver, the imple­men­ta­ti­on of sus­tainable and future-ori­en­ted stra­te­gies is not tri­vi­al and can only be con­cei­ved indi­vi­du­al­ly with the local peo­p­le invol­ved, becau­se each com­mu­ni­ty is as uni­que as the ide­as of the peo­p­le who live and work in it. It is often hel­pful to inte­gra­te alre­a­dy imple­men­ted or ongo­ing mea­su­res into an over­all stra­te­gic con­cept in order to be able to sel­ect and imple­ment future mea­su­res more effi­ci­ent­ly. Or the­re is a need for even bet­ter coor­di­na­ti­on of the many acti­ve vol­un­teers with the local govern­ment, so that ever­yo­ne pulls tog­e­ther and the resour­ces arri­ve direct­ly whe­re they are nee­ded.

News from the com­pe­tence field of sus­taina­bi­li­ty

Pro­jects in the com­pe­tence field of sus­taina­bi­li­ty