Where Are We On Our Sustainability Journey? An Exploratory Research On Sample Companies From Different Industries

The concept of sustainability has a great attention and widely recognition from different sectors and corporations by all means. Regardless of the area of activity, a company should have sustainability philosophy when accessing to the resources needed for an enterprise, using of these resources and the environmental impacts of the products produced. Main elements of sustainability, which are economic, social and environmental sustainability, have an important role for current resources in order to maintain them for the next generations. This study is carried out to present 8 large-scale companies’ point of view about sustainability which have production operations in various fields in Turkey. The sample of this study constituted from 8 separate companies that produce and/or process radiator, furniture, white goods, paint, glassware, food, automobile and agricultural goods. Executives from these companies answered 13 open-ended questions and with these answers a qualitative research is performed. Common and differentiated points were defined as using data of companies. The meaning of sustainability, focused areas, planned and realized projects, expectations, the obstacles, the successful implementations and reflections of these applications on their products were explained. On the other hand, society, market, customer and employee based effects were questioned. The obtained data were analyzed by a qualitative research program and current status was determined. It is thought that, with this research, current point of view of Turkish companies is defined in terms of sustainability perception and applications and it will be useful for future academicians who intend to make a research about assessment of sustainability in companies