Business action on sustainability and resilience in the context of COVID-19

• Main Authors: Mariana Nicolletti, Gabriela Alem, Marta Blazek, Paola Fillippi, Luis Felipe Bismarchi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Fundação Getulio Vargas 2020-12-01
• Series: RAE: Revista de Administração de Empresas
• Subjects: resilience; sustainability; ecological economics; covid-19; business management
• Online Access: http://www.scielo.br/pdf/rae/v60n6/en_0034-7590-rae-60-06-0413.pdf

Facing up to the COVID-19 crisis has emphasized the importance of taking a critical and systemic look at business action for sustainability. The aims of this article are: to discuss sustainability, through the theoretical lenses of ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ sustainability and its relationship with economic paradigms; to present the theory of resilience as an alternative to the current challenges; and, based on the concepts presented, to analyze the indications of how organizations are reacting to the crisis. To this end, semi-structured interviews were conducted with companies operating in Brazil. As a result it was found that signs of the realignment of the companies’ initial purpose of creating value for society coexist alongside signs of continued investment in market-based solutions and the search for infinite growth on a planet with limited resources.