Social Entrepreneurship in Hospitality

Principles and Strategies for Change

Willy Legrand, Miguel Angel Gardetti, Robert Schønrock Nielsen, Colin Johnson, Mehmet Ergul

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781351739870
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Retail Industry
• Index: Business

This innovative book is the first to explore social entrepreneurship in the field of hospitality, introducing students to the principles of social entrepreneurship motivation, finance, sustainability, issues and challenges, and how these can be successfully implemented in a range of hospitality settings.

The hospitality industry offers a particularly fruitful framework for social entrepreneurs, partly due to the low barriers of entry and opportunities to enhance social and environmental wealth. A variety of international case studies are integrated throughout to showcase the challenges and successes of social entrepreneurship in the hospitality industry in a wide range of settings. Discussion questions, further reading suggestions and exercises at the end of each chapter help the student to explore these concepts further. Insights into the industry's role during and potentially beyond the COVID-19 crisis are offered in the concluding chapter.

The is a timely addition to the literature, written by a team of highly regarded professionals and academics, and will be essential reading for all current and future entrepreneurs in the field of Hospitality Management.

Chapter 1

The evolution of sustainable development in the hospitality industry

In the last thirty years, the concept of sustainable development has received great attention from the academic, political and corporate sectors. However, the ambiguity of the sustainability definition has resulted in a wide range of interpretations and new definitions.

This chapter explains how sustainability integrates both the short and long term. And although sustainable development could be actually defined as a paradigm that includes actions, attitudes, thoughts and projects based on values – which have a social, economic and environmental impact – a long evolution was necessary to approach this concept that started in academia back in the early 1970s. This evolution in thinking and approaches is reviewed also within this chapter incorporating concepts such as the planetary boundaries, sustainable development goals and the impact and responsibilities of businesses. The chapter discusses the hospitality industry’s approaches towards environmental, social and economic challenges.

The chapter concludes with a case reviewing the role and responsibility of the hospitality industry towards global challenges using examples of current best practices. A set of exercises is provided at the end of the chapter, which are based on individual or group research and discussions.

Sustainable development: concept & characteristics

“An important motivation behind the sustainable development discussion is that of a just bequest to future generations” (Costanza & Daly, 1992, p. 39). Written three decades ago, these words from Costanza and Daly still resonate today when the global community is faced with probably its greatest once-in-a-generation trial – that of mitigating climate change and biodiversity collapse. Historically speaking, the concern for the environment has been approached from various perspectives, with the purpose of reaching an agreement on how to make improvements. This may be due to the fact that, from a conservative point of view, the economic interests of various sectors are in competition with the objectives of sustainable development. This is connected to the remarks of Gardetti (2005), who argues that due to the “needs and aspirations” of these groups, organisations and individuals, there is quite a variety of definitions of sustainable development that can be categorised by their constituents. Sustainable development is a responsibility and a challenge to be tackled at multiple levels – those of the individual, family, community, institutions and businesses.

Defining the concept

The Report of the World Commission of Environment and Development (WCED), Our Common Future, also recognised as Brundtland Report,¹ was released in 1987.

This report presented – but did not define² – the concept of sustainable development as that which satisfies the needs of present generations without compromising the abilities of future ones to satisfy their own needs.

Since then, several authors have explored and (re)defined sustainable development. For instance, John R. Ehrenfeld, Professor Emeritus at the MIT, in a paper called “Cultural Structure and the Challenge of Sustainability,” stated,

Sustainability is a possible way of living, of being in which individuals, firms, governments, and other institutions are responsible for taking care of the future as if it belonged to them today, for equitably sharing the ecological resources on which the survival of human and other species depends, and for assuring that all who live today and in the future will be able to satisfy their needs and human aspirations.

(Ehrenfeld, 1999, p. 230)

It can be noticed that this definition has a more detailed, hands-on approach compared to the one provided by the WCED.

Some authors (e.g., During, 1992; Marcuse, 1964; Redclift, 1996; Robertson, 1990) contest the emphasis around the concept of ‘growth,’ pointing out that growth (as a qualitative increase in production) is not the same as ‘development’ (as a qualitative improvement in the lives of people). It is also argued that, in many cases, growth has not led to development, but instead to a significant decrease in the quality of life. In contrast, Daly (1996) argues that if sustainable development is to be meaningful, we need to conceive the economy as part of the ecosystem and, as a consequence, to abandon the ideal of economic growth (Gardetti, 2005). Finally, sustainable development is not only related to intergenerational equity (equality between generations), but also with intergenerational equity (equality between members of certain generations) (Schaltegger, Burritt, & Petersen, 2003).

As Elliot points out, “The idea of sustainable development is not new but has a substantial history” (Elliot, 1999, p. 32). The concept of sustainable development is defined on a contextual basis. In fact, it is estimated that there are more than seventy definitions of ‘sustainable development.’ At the same time, this sets out guidelines for the appropriate behaviour with regard to, for example, the environment, water, energy, and animal and human rights.

The evolution of the concept of sustainable development

In his book titled In Earth’s Company, Carl Frankel (1998) explores the evolution of the concept of sustainable development and concludes that sustainability is characterised by the harmony of three elements: the economy, environment and social equity.

Throughout history, discussions have been based on a process of definition. Instead, it can be suggested that we should understand how to have a healthy relationship with our environment. Academics’ discussions about this subject can have a constructive approach as long as they try to comprehend what sustainable development is all about and, even further, how to apply it. Indeed, a priority is to agree on an approach based on sustainable development, and have it reflected in awareness-raising actions and concrete actions. Furthermore, to change our paradigm we should bear in mind that the attitude taken until now towards social, environmental and economic developments has not entirely worked out to build a better life experience or higher levels of happiness (Helliwell, Layard, Sachs, & De Neve, 2020).

Most of the literature on sustainability and sustainable development agrees on limiting reductionism (scientific thinking for understanding and managing the environmental crisis). As an alternative to this limitation, a significant number of authors have based their arguments on ethical considerations. Nevertheless, in recent years another group of authors has begun to recognise the complementarity between reductionism and holistic thinking.

Nonetheless, and although the research goes back two decades, Paul Gilding argues in his paper “Sustainability – Doing It” (Gilding, 2000, p. 42) that by just revising social and environmental aspects, a great deal of sustainability complexity is lost. He also affirms that global trends should be considered within the decision process – for instance, the evolution of the environmental movement, rampant capitalism, role changes in governments, the evolution of civil society’s role in developing regulations and policies, globalisation, technological development and the communications revolution (Gardetti, 2005). In the paper “Tomorrow’s Markets – Global Trends and Their Implications for Business,” the World Resources Institute (WRI), in alliance with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and World Business Council for Sustainable Development (2002), argues that these trends have consequences in business. According to Allen, Bonazzi, and Gee (2001), sustainable development is a controversial expression, on whose significance few people can generally agree. It is a “conservative” notion crossing over social, environmental and economic considerations. These authors go on to explain that everyone can take the term and “reinvent” it by looking at their needs.

Finally, it should be stressed that an inherent characteristic of sustainable development is flexibility, as it needs to adapt to circumstances, events, societies and behaviours throughout its implementation. It can be argued that describing and understanding, rather than defining, sustainable development is more effective. Notwithstanding that, the Brundtland Report can be considered the baseline for discussions about sustainable development, whereby it constitutes a major political change (Gardetti, 2005).

Brief historical perspective

The discussion about the consequences of human activities on the environment dates back to Greek and Roman philosophers who “already reflected on the diverse and sometimes complex relationships between humans, and in particular human activities, and ecosystems in which those activities take place” (Legrand, Sloan, & Chen, 2017, p. 20).

However, an in-depth discussion on ‘sustainable development,’ a term used in the management of forests in Europe during the 18th century, is considered to have begun in the 1970s, when the Club of Rome³ used the term “Global Problem” to refer to the dynamic connections and interactions between several aspects of the then environmental crisis and its consequences worldwide (Reid, 1995; Rockstrom et al., 2009).

The social, political and economic dimensions and the associated cultural, spiritual, psychological and intellectual implications of such crisis could have originated in the rise of capitalist economics from the scientific and industrial revolutions in 19th-century England (Carley & Christie, 1992; Merchant, 1980; Spretnak & Capra, 1985). Springett and Redclift also argue that the new scientific paradigm at the centre of the Enlightenment that transformed the relationship between humans and nature, besides the capitalist model of production and consumption, created such a degree of change and scale of degradation that had not been possible until then (Merchant, 1980). To this we can add the process of North-South domination through colonisation, in search of resources, markets and lands – and later extended through the globalisation of trade, technological experience, money markets and communications (The Ecologist, 1993).

Warhust (2001), quoting Bansal and Howard, explains that sustainable development can be described as a process to reach equal, connected, prudential and safe development. Connectivity embraces ecological, social and economic interdependence. ‘Equality’ suggests justice, within and beyond generations and species. ‘Prudence’ means duty of care and caution in a technological, scientific and political way. ‘Safety’ implies the care of everyday threats and damages, because, to a certain extent, sustainability is about social and environmental justice.⁴

Since the 17th century, several thinkers including Bacon, Malthus, Marx, Shelley, Stuart Mill, Leopold, Carson and Anne and Paul Ehrlich, among others, have addressed the consequences of economic growth on natural resources and the environment (Dresner, 2002). But it was only in the period between 1977 and 1981 that the then-US President Jimmy Carter, concerned about the ‘energy crisis,’ ordered an investigation that concluded in a report called “Global 2000 Study,” which projected environmental until the year 2000 and concluded the following:

If present trends continue, the world in 2000 will be more crowded, more polluted, less stable ecologically and more vulnerable to disruption. Serious stresses involving population, resources, and environment are clearly visible ahead. Despite greater material output, the world’s people will be poorer in many ways than they are today.

(Barney, 1981, p. 1)

Today, the planet is crowded and the use of natural resources is beyond its capacity. This means that the availability of resources is not sufficient to meet the needs of all of us who live on it. This has negative social and environmental consequences. However, some sections of the population are more affected than others. In many cases, those with fewer resources are more affected by environmental pollution (Agyeman, Bullard, & Evans, 2003; Dobson, 1998; Faber & O’Connor, 1989; Martinez-Alier, 2003). In fact, it is argued that Earth has several ‘boundaries,’ as presented by Johan Rockstrom and colleagues at the Stockholm Resilience Centre i...