The Three Levels of Sustainability

Understanding the complexity of sustainability is crucial for the leadership of business organizations, national governments, and non-governmental organizations. This second edition of the bestselling book The Three Levels of Sustainability uses the same interdependent three-level and three-dimensional framework as the first edition, encompassing societal, organizational, and individual levels, to clearly demonstrate what sustainability means and how to implement it. This new edition incorporates important developments in reporting and measuring, corporate behaviors, the impact of COVID-19, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

More and more societies are becoming aware of their dependence on earth’s resources. However, there is still a deep-rooted lack of awareness of the connection between society’s ambitions for economic growth, earth’s limitations, and unequal distribution of wealth. Prominent institutions and organizations and their leaders rely on the conformable belief that "more quantity" equals "more quality" and that "more growth" equals "more development". Although some progress has been made since the publication of the first edition, the world is increasingly characterized by division, rising dissatisfaction, and growing inequality between countries, communities, and people. At the same time, it is anticipated that global warming will reach a point of no return between 2030 and 2052. The fundamental paradigm shift in the way the development process must be navigated is better served by a holistic and inclusive, multilevel and multidimensional approach meant to gradually align the critical institutional and individual factors essential to the pathway toward sustainable development.

The book has been established as an excellent primer to explain the complex issues around sustainability for postgraduate and undergraduate students, as well as busy professionals and those already in management and leadership positions in the private, public, or non-profit sectors.

Elena Cavagnaro is Professor of Sustainability in Hospitality and Tourism at NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences, and Associate Professor of Responsible Leadership Development and Sustainability in Tourism at the University of Groningen Campus Fryslân. She is Visiting Professor at the University of Derby and the University of Sunderland (UK), and the University of Bergamo (Italy). Following her understanding of sustainability as a multidimensional and multilayered concept, her research focuses on issues where the organizational level meets the society level or the individual the organizational.

George H. Curiel earned his BSc in business administration at the University of the Netherlands Antilles in Curaçao and a master’s degree in economics at Yale University. During his working life, he often played an advisory or guiding role with a focus on (sustainable) development. He served as Director of the Department of Development Cooperation for the government of the Netherlands Antilles and as National Authorizing Officer for the European Development Fund. After his retirement, he worked as part-time lecturer and advisor at the Stenden (now NHL Stenden) School of Graduate Studies, then returned to Curaçao, where he consulted as an advisor with governments and organizations in search of strategies for a more sustainable development path. George H. Curiel passed away after a short illness on his beloved island of Curaçao on March 2, 2020.