The sustainability onion: a panoramic view of a parent concept, its paths, and progeny

Abstract

This study presents a comprehensive sustainability framework, showing the concept's different sides or perspectives and its derivatives based on extensive literature and industry experience. A common and broad concept of sustainability, its origin, drivers, agenda, benefits, risks, and how it meandered its way through various fields of study and industry is still patchy in extant literature. Consequently, a complete framework like this, which illustrates all sides of sustainability, is essential. This provides valuable information for business managers and broadens sustainability (and its derivatives) research. This study systematically discovered and validated the various components of sustainability with the aid of literature and sustainability experts. The result is a comprehensive framework termed “sustainability onion.” This model gives practitioners and scholars a holistic or panoramic perspective of sustainability's various sides or components. To the best of the researcher's knowledge, this “sustainability onion” is the first attempt by a single study to comprehensively structure the various components of sustainability and derivatives in an integrated framework.