Prelims

Half Title Page

Attaining the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal of Sustainable Cities and Communities

Series Title Page

Family Businesses on a Mission

Series Editors:

Naomi Birdthistle

Rob Hales

The Family Businesses on Mission series examines how the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) can be applied in family businesses around the world, providing insights into cultural and societal differences and displaying innovative approaches to complex environmental and societal issues

Title Page

Attaining the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal of Sustainable Cities and Communities

Edited by

Naomi Birdthistle

Griffith University, Australia

And

Rob Hales

Griffith University, Australia

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Emerald Publishing, Floor 5, Northspring, 21-23 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4DL

First edition 2024

Editorial matter and selection © 2024 Naomi Birdthistle and Rob Hales.

Individual chapters © 2024 The Authors.

Published by Emerald Publishing Limited.

These works are published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence.

Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of these works (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode.

Open Access

The ebook edition of this title is Open Access and is freely available to read online

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-80455-839-3 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-80455-836-2 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-80455-838-6 (Epub)

List of Figures

List of Tables

About the Editors

Professor Naomi Birdthistle has entrepreneurship and family business running through her veins. She tried to work in her family business when she was four but was told she was too small. She came back year after year asking to work and eventually her grandmother capitulated and left her work in the family business when she was seven. After years of working in the family business part-time and having completed her studies at Stirling University, Babson College, Harvard University, and the University of Limerick, Naomi established her own consulting business, consulting family businesses in her hometown. She is now a Professor of Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation at Griffith University, teaching future family business leaders and researching family business issues as well. Naomi is an award-winning academic having received numerous awards for her teaching and her research.

Associate Professor Robert Hales is the discipline leader for Sustainable Business and Management in the Department of Business Strategy and Innovation. His research interests focus on the governance issues around the grand challenges of our time. Furthermore, his research focuses on SDGs in business and government, a business case for climate change, climate change policy, carbon management, sustainable tourism and working with First Peoples on consent processes and climate change. He was the first programme Director of Griffith University's Master of Global Development. He teaches in the Department of Business Strategy and Innovation and has convened master’s level courses such as Leadership for Sustainable Business, Research Methods for Policy Makers and Sustainability and Systems Thinking. He supervises PhD students in the areas of collaborative governance, sustainability transitions and climate change.

About the Contributors

Dr Jacinta Dsilva is currently the Research Director at SEE Institute for Sustainability and Climate Action – located in the Sustainable City, Dubai, UAE. Her PhD is from Coventry University, UK, in Marketing and Service Quality, and she holds two master's degrees. Her academic and industry experience spans over 20 years at the middle management level. She has worked at prestigious universities in Dubai such as the Higher Colleges of Technology and has organised entrepreneurship competitions at various campuses. She was also involved in the world-class project ‘EXPO 2020’ in the capacity of researcher and reviewer. She has published several books such as ‘Business Communication’ and ‘Surviving COVID-19 Pandemic’ in 2020. She has also published book chapters and books in sustainability, such as ‘SDG-5: Gender Equality & Female Empowerment Policy for Sustainable Development’ in 2021, and recently published a book on ‘Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility in the 21st Century’. She comes from a family business background, and she has worked with her father in running their family business for two decades.

Dr Kelli Fuery is an Associate Professor of Film and Media at Chapman University, California. She is the author of five books and numerous chapters and articles. Her most recent book is Ambiguous Cinema: From Simone de Beauvoir to Feminist Film Phenomenology (University of Edinburgh Press). She has previously held posts in visual cultures and film at the University of London and Monash University, Melbourne.

Dr Patrick Fuery is a Professor and Director of the Centre for Creative and Cultural Industries, Chapman University, California. He is the author of nine books and numerous chapters and articles; his most recent book is Intimacy and the Anxieties of Cinematic Flesh: Between Phenomenology and Psychoanalysis (Bloomsbury). He was previously a Professor of Film and Cultural Theory, University of Sussex, and Reader in Film at the University of London.

Dr Jasmina Locke in her current role, as a Chief Executive Officer and Academic Head of SEE Institute, Dubai, looks after all business verticals and the overall strategic direction of this sustainability research and education hub. She holds an MBA and a Master's Degree in Tourism Management holder, with a PhD in Sustainable Economic Development and Destination Competitiveness. Dr Locke has a proven track record in driving research and education initiatives with a number of UAE government departments and international organizations, most notably the UN, UAE Ministry of Economy and Abu Dhabi DCT, to name a few. She was the main driver and instrumental in a groundbreaking sustainable tourism research project with EXPO 2020 and the UAE Tourism authorities. After a successful career in a range of industries, including aviation, tourism and education, Jasmina also provides advisory services that help other companies, government departments and executives to reach their full potential, create public policies, upskill their workforce and ultimately build human capital for a sustainable future. In her entrepreneurial journey, she has created some successful businesses.

Dr Poh Yen Ng is an Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Aberdeen Business School, Robert Gordon University. She holds a PhD in Management from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and is currently a Senior Fellow of Advance HE in the United Kingdom. Poh Yen grew up in a family business and ran an education franchise with her husband in Malaysia back in the 2000s. She then ventured into academia to pass on her business experiences to university students. This later motivated her into developing a research passion for entrepreneurship, particularly the family business. Her research outputs cover many areas within the entrepreneurship and family business discipline including the following: influence of socioemotional wealth in the family business, empowerment process and social network dynamics of women entrepreneurs and environmental practices of small and medium-sized enterprises.

Prof Markus Pillmayer is a Professor of Destination Management and Destination Development at the Department of Tourism at the Munich University of Applied Sciences. His research focuses on spatial development which he has explored in several contexts including citizen participation, health, and sustainability. In the context of his PhD – funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) – he dealt with the internationalisation processes of the tourism industry in the Arab World. He can draw on many years of experience in the international tourism industry and tourism policy, which also benefits him in the context of his scientific activities. In addition, he is a fellow of various scientific associations such as International Geographic Union (IGU) and the German Association for Tourism Research (DGT), and in the latter he serves on the board.

Dr Ivona Ravlikj is a Lecturer in entrepreneurship and innovation for the UniLink business diploma and convenor of Critical thinking for Master qualifying students at Swinburne College. She is also involved in Higher Education teaching delivery in entrepreneurship, management and business innovation. Ivona holds a PhD in intrapreneurship from Swinburne University and is actively involved in research projects. Her research interests are in the area of women entrepreneurs and sustainability; gender identity in entrepreneurship; intrapreneurship and knowledge intensity; as well as the development of students' networking and employability skills. As part of her research engagement, Ivona is involved in a new unit development at Swinburne College that aims to advance the student's skills in networking and career development.

Mark O'Sullivan was born and raised in Tralee, Co. Kerry, Ireland. Mark is the oldest of five children. Mark played Gaelic Football, Soccer, Basketball and Athletics. Mark completed a City & Guilds in Electronic Engineering and Mark's first Circular Economy role began in Dell Computers in 1994. This would form a very strong foundation in Returns Management. In this period, European Service & Logistics, Dell's EMEA Service centre was based in Limerick, Ireland. Mark started as a line operator and moved to ESL after a couple of months. In the years that followed, Mark would move into various roles in ESL, eventually running the operation until he took VSP (Voluntary Separation Programme) from Dell. In September 2000, Mark would finish service with a 3-month notice period. Mark and Teresa (his now wife) took 6 months off and travelled the world, visiting Thailand, Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. In 2001, Mark would take the first step towards self-employment and started working at Aaron PCB. In this same period Mark was brought into several large-scale product re-calls and it was in this period Mark started to create the first iteration of what would become IQUTECH. During these years, Mark first met with John Kennedy and his father Jack Kennedy, and they worked together on several projects. In 2009, John and Mark started working together eventually merging their two businesses to form IQUTECH. Since then, John's wife Kay, three of their sons and two of Mark's daughters have started working in IQUTECH.

Foreword From Professor Walter Leal Filho

Prof. Walter Leal Filho (PhD, DSc, DPhil, DTech, DEd)

Chair, Inter-University Sustainable Development Research Programme

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015 provide a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that by 2030 all people enjoy peace and prosperity.

They also entail elements of importance towards a strategic business engagement with sustainability issues. These offer a framework which provides businesses with a systematic approach to identify new business opportunities while contributing to the solution of the grand sustainability challenges facing the world today, including climate change. Each SDG, if achieved, will have a direct and significant positive impact on millions of people's lives around the world and the environment in which they live. Businesses have an opportunity to widen the purpose of business through adopting the SDGs as targets for their operations. Thus, they can make a meaningful contribution to the greater good through achieving their operational objectives.

Family businesses are uniquely placed to contribute to SDGs for many reasons. Firstly, because family business models have longer time perspectives, and this allows the family business to link with the longer term SDG time frame – 2030. Second, family businesses often focus on aspects of business operation which do not have an immediate return on investment such as relationship building with stakeholder groups. Thirdly, family businesses tend to rate the importance of ethics higher than standard businesses and thus align well with the social dimensions of the SDGs. Lastly, family businesses have intergenerational perspectives which is a core principle of sustainability.

This book provides insights into how family business operationalises SDG#11: Sustainable Cities and Communities. This book uses a rigorous case study approach for family businesses to detail aspects of their business which help to advocate for sustainable cities and communities. The cases provided here are living proof that the family business that operate for the greater good actually work! Non-family businesses can take a leaf out of the family businesses portrayed in this book as they can provide different perspectives on how businesses can successfully align SDGs and business strategy.

Despite many businesses having adopted environmental social governance strategies and environmental management systems, the effect of this activity has not been reflected in a healthier planet. Many ‘state of the environment’ reports indicate that planetary health is decreasing, and planetary boundaries are being crossed or are about to be crossed. While the cause of this decline is not entirely the fault of business, there still needs to be a greater effort to address the decline. The challenge for family businesses is to use their unique characteristics and set ambitious programs of work that make a meaningful contribution to achieving global goals. This book provides insights into how family businesses can achieve such a mission and how non-family businesses can be inspired to do the same.

Acknowledgements

The Editors would like to thank the contributors of this book for providing insights and sharing learnings from their business practice. We acknowledge that writing up cases in the format required considerable time and effort. The quality of the cases presented is testament to their efforts.

The Editors would also like to thank Emerald Publishing for supporting the publication of this book and the mission for deeper sustainability through utilising the SDGs.

The author of Germany: Dinzler, would like to thank Jan Czerny, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), for his time, support and valuable insights into the DINZLER Kaffeerösterei AG. In addition, they would like to thank their student assistant Patrizia Pluskota (Bachelor Tourism Management), who gave them extraordinary support in the preparation of this case study and thus also contributed the students' perspective.

The authors of USA: Wolf Connections and Inclusive, Safe Spaces for All would like to take this opportunity to thank Ree Merrill, Director of Development at Wolf Connections for her generous help in working with them on the case study. Also, the authors would like to thank Ali Davenport who is a journalism and creative and cultural industries student at Chapman University and Sophia Mall who is a psychology and creative and cultural industries student at Chapman University, who assisted with gathering research for the case.