Sylmara Lopes Francelino Dias

O Brasil apresenta uma das legislações ambientais mais modernas do mundo, sobretudo no contexto da gestão de resíduos sólidos urbanos. A
Política Nacional de Resíduos Sólidos (PNRS), fruto de lutas e demandas da sociedade civil e de intenso debate entre legisladores, órgãos governamentais, grupos empresariais envolvidos nas atividades de limpeza urbana e coletivos de catadores, foi aprovada em 2010 e estabeleceu metas arrojadas para o equacionamento dos problemas ambientais e sociais relacionados aos resíduos urbanos. Dentre essas metas, duas se destacam: a extinção dos chamados “lixões” e a inclusão dos catadores na cadeia reversa dos materiais recicláveis em todos os municípios do país.

Despite nearly three decades of intense debate around the sustainability theme, remain a different kind of uncertainties on this subject, which raise questions about its boundaries, its defining traits, its innovation potential, its interdisciplinary compass/dialogue? and its ability to engage its interfaces with other fields of knowledge and practices. In this context, this paper aims to analyze the challenges (and dilemmas) faced by a Higher Education Institution in a insertion of  “Sustainability” as a subject in the course of Business Administration. This is reflected in the strategies and practices for both scope of business management, such as regarding the design and pedagogical practices of teaching and learning used to train future managers. Thus, the construction of this article is based on literature review, documentary interviews and experience of the authors as professors at Business School of Administration selected by convenience. The authors organized the data and information experience through a case study in the context of exploratory research. Different introduction variables from sustainability subject were analyzed, even from the disciplines that refer the educational project and its contents to the analysis of pedagogical didactic strategies adopted. In this way, the experiment revealed that analyzed remain challenges for implementation educational projects which should focus on new teaching and learning models and especially it requires new teacher education skills.
Thus, changes in the direction of sustainability, require more than just rethink the education curricula contents or sign international educational agreements.
Institutions feel the necessity for hold deeper commitments to become communities apprentices and work toward sustainability. The undertaken analysis here shows that it is necessary to create an institutional agenda for ‘learning for sustainability’ as IES to teach, to learn and to act. It also shows that the university,
especially business schools, is a prime location, which may contribute to the development practical, innovative and behaviors attitudes in all environments where the future administrator may be involved.

This paper discusses theoretical and conceptual innovations regarding the environment developed by organizations. From the theoretical framework of institutional theory it explores the different motivations and strategies that can lead companies to take a speech and an attitude of environmental responsibility which is legitimized by society as well as the challenges that lie before the different interpretative frameworks about the phenomenon of the "Corporate Environmentalism." Through the notion of markets as socially constructed institutions, one arrives at a theoretical understanding of environmental innovations-business. In this theoretical model we present four major areas that can be deducted from the environmental innovation developed by firms (1) Capture, (2) Construction of Bridge, (3) Establishment of a New Field and (4) Defense. The phenomena involving the entrepreneurial toward some of these quadrants are understood through the concepts of social capital, political and economic actors in operation when the market, civil society and the sphere of state are in interaction. The analysis points out a number of challenges that present themselves facing the need to build innovation strategies in environmental management more attuned to the recent advances in the discussion and the contemporary social and environmental struggles. Issues that may be subject to further investigation and even competitors comprehensive models of the above in the article.

The existing model of development creates social exclusion and poverty in one side and, consumerism,
opulence and waste on the other. It is based on increasing production and, as a result, intensification of
consumption. The importance on discussing sustainable consumption hails from the symbiotic relationship
amongst production, consumption and environmental protection. In the context of “green consumption”,
the consumer is the main agent of change since his demands stimulate the adoption of ecological measures
in the industrial sector. In the prospect of “sustainable consumption”, this question becomes more
complex. It is understood that modifications in production and consumption patterns involve increasing
level of information and awareness of the population, waste avoidance, technology development, shared
responsibilities and recycling. And beyond that, they also involve individual and collective behavioural
change. In Brazil, researches about the impacts from production and consumption are mainly focusing
on how corporations are dealing in regard to the environment or on trying to identify the consumers’
vision and sensibility towards this issue. The literature review points to a concept still under construction,
even though there are few studies that address directly the dilemmas for the elaboration of a sustainable
consumption notion. This study aims to show a method to structure the main conceptions for sustainable
consumption, not only through the existing literature, but also highlighting two dichotomous facades from
its (i) supporters and (ii) opponents. In order to fill the research gap of this topic in Brazil, the purpose here
is to analyse this subject by extending the boundaries of knowledge.

This article provides a reference frame of concepts in Supply Chain Sustainability Management (SCSM), helping future
research in the attempt to integrate intra and interorganizational choices based on the aspects of sustainability in
supply chains. It is a theoretical study and the methodological procedure adopted was the desk research, organized in
two steps. Firstly, the theme study was analyzed in six international journals, totaling 53 articles between 1954 and
2009. This step generated an evolution of the area, helping to pinpoint trends. Secondly, six domestic journals were
reviewed and 11 articles were selected between 1961 and 2009, resulting in an overview of the theme in the Brazilian
academic context. The concept of GSCS appeared only in 2007, which shows the relevance of the topic; although
this is a gathering of topics previously studied separately.