Contributions from the Brazilian industrial sector to sustainable development

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Abstract

This paper aims to evaluate the perception of experts on the contribution of the Brazilian industrial sector in terms of sustainable development, focusing in particular on three of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) presented by United Nations (UN). A survey was conducted with professionals from Brazilian industry in order to identify their perceptions. It obtained sixty one answers and the collected data was evaluated technically and descriptively by TOPSIS analysis. It was found that Brazil has been carrying out some relevant actions, both sporadic and planned, with significant opportunities for improvement. Comparatively, the most cited contributions are those related to increasing productivity and technological modernization, which contributes to the inclusion of young people in the labor market, improving resource efficiency and the minimization of environmental degradation. Conversely, the least cited contributions are those related to the stimulation of sustainable consumption and negotiation with small companies. Therefore, the authors believe that the findings of this research could be useful for professionals and academics as guidance. It is also important to mention that no similar paper was found with an academic basis, which reinforces the originality and the contribution of this paper.

Introduction

Over the last number of decades, companies are increasingly being demanded to take greater responsibility for their actions (Arruda et al., 2013; Barata et al., 2014; Chams and García-Blandón, 2019; Maruyama et al., 2019b). It is no longer just economic and competitive considerations that are driving organizations: ethical, environmental and social subjects are also affecting organizations’ behavior (Chams and García-Blandón, 2019; Maruyama et al., 2019a; Virakul and Russ-Eft, 2019). Concepts such as Corporate Social Responsibility, Green Supply Chain Management, Sustainable Manufacturing and Cleaner Production have gradually taken over a representative function in the strategic aspects of an organization (Cazeri et al., 2017; Chams and García-Blandón, 2019; Matos et al., 2018; Nikolaou et al., 2019).

This scenario is linked to the definition of sustainable development presented in the Brundtland report (Ashrafi et al., 2018; Poltronieri et al., 2019; Sinakou et al., 2018; Singh et al., 2018). According to this document, sustainable development is defined as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Brundtland, 1987, p. 16). Based on this definition, it can be inferred that organizations must not stop their growth in order to prevent negative impacts over the planet. Therefore, organizations can grow in a sustainable way based on the best use of resources that enables a good quality of life for future generations.

Focusing on corporate sustainability, Satyro et al. (2017) consider this issue as rarely implemented in an organizational context, although there are companies that properly implement aspects of sustainability in their activities. Sustainable actions must be considered at all levels of an organization to be effective. More specifically, these actions should be inserted at the strategic, technological, managerial, organizational and behavioral levels (Blok et al., 2015; Virakul and Russ-Eft, 2019). Arbolino et al. (2018) highlight the importance of government policies in order to direct organizations towards sustainable management.

The scenario mentioned by Satyro et al. (2017) corresponds with the reality in Brazil. Most of the organizations in Brazil are underdeveloped regarding sustainability issues, but a few of them do demonstrate excellence when it comes to sustainable development. This consideration is based on studies by Anholon et al. (2016) and Cazeri et al. (2018). Anholon et al. (2016) evaluated one specific Brazilian aerospace company and confirmed that the development of its environmental and social projects fully integrated with its management systems and strategies. On the opposite side, Cazeri et al. (2018) found that Brazilian companies, in general, do not properly integrate sustainable practices within their management systems and little attention is given to the planning of sustainability practices in the Brazilian context.

When it comes to industrial activities, it is observed that its negative impacts on the environment and society have grown considerably in the last two centuries (Dias, 2011). Due to these impacts, industrial sustainability has been a focus for researchers, policy-makers and decision-makers (Cagno et al., 2019). Evidently, the industrial sector plays a fundamental role in the search for a better future. Sustainability has been shown to positively influence industrial performance, even when taking into account the barriers to its implementation and its low adoption rates in some countries (Neri et al., 2018; Trianni et al., 2017).

The publication of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) by the United Nations (UN) has greatly contributed to the broadening of debates related to the insertion of sustainability in industrial activities, although this is a not recent theme (Gutowski et al., 2005; Monteiro et al., 2019). In September 2015, world leaders met in New York and formulated an action plan to eradicate poverty, protect the planet and ensure that people achieve peace and prosperity (Ipea, 2018; Spaiser et al., 2019; UN, 2019). The action plan resulted in 17 SDGs that aim to direct countries towards a better future for all citizens. These SDGs constitute an ambitious list of tasks for all parties to accomplish by 2030. Achieving these goals ensures the eradication of extreme poverty and saves future generations from adverse effects such as climate change (Ipea, 2018; Spaiser et al., 2019; UN, 2019). Despite the relevance of the SGDs for the industrial sector, there is little research addressing this issue.

For Govindan et al. (2019), an important method for the industrial sector to contribute to the SDGs is through the sharing economy. In order to contribute to this field of research, the authors identified the main barriers to the sharing economy in the Indian industrial sector. In their study, the most influential barrier was related to the lack of trust while the least influential barrier was the cost of capital.

Focusing on chemistry industry, Makarova et al. (2019) highlight the negative impacts of its activities on the environment, largely because of the pollutants generated. In this sense, the SDGs are a relevant driver for this industry, demonstrating the need to change both consumption and production patterns (SDG 12), as well as the need to mitigate climate change (SDG 13). To contribute to these goals, Makarova et al. (2019) developed an algorithm to evaluate the environmental key performance indicators of companies from this sector that participate in the global voluntary Responsible Care® Program (RCP). According to their findings, although several direct environmental impacts (e.g. pollution of water and soil) of these companies decreased, their greenhouse gas emissions are still increasing.

Mancini and Sala (2018) highlight the negative social and environmental impacts generated by the mining sector and the consequent role of this sector for the SDGs. As well as the SDGs, the authors used Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), EU Better Regulation policy, and the Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA) as frameworks to compare the impacts collected from the literature and to evaluate the results. Their findings highlighted the difference between frameworks to represent problems related to local scales, since, for example, GRI provides a better understanding of these issues than SLCA and the SDGs.

Since the SDGs focus on sustainable development, all 17 of the goals can be addressed by companies. However, since the focus of this research is the industrial sector, a selection was made to study the most relevant goals for these companies. When analyzing the SDGs, it is possible to note that industrial activities, in general, are directly related to three of the SDGs. Namely, they are related to: Decent Work and Economic Growth (SDG number 8); Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure (SDG number 9); and Responsible Consumption and Production (SDG number 12). SDG number 8 focuses on the pursuit of self-respecting economic growth that improves organizational competence and provides better living conditions for people aligned with economic growth. Although the targets of SDG number 8 mention the importance of innovation and technological advances, it is SDG number 9 that gives these topics more prominence. In addition to innovation, SDG number 9 underlines the importance of establishing adequate infrastructure and of sustainable industrialization maximizing the use of clean processes and technologies that positively contribute to economic growth, job creation and the efficient use of natural resources. The efficient use and management of natural resources are also mentioned in SDG number 12, which emphasizes the importance of seeking sustainable standards not only in production but also in consumption (UN, 2019).

Considering that companies are increasingly demanded by society to act towards sustainable development (Chams and García-Blandón, 2019; Rampasso et al., 2020; Virakul and Russ-Eft, 2019) and that since 2015, the SDGs have been important drivers for sustainability in several spheres, including industry (Nobrega et al., 2019), it is important to understand how different countries’ companies are dealing with these challenges. Therefore, studies on a national scale are necessary and can be identified as a research gap. In this sense, the following question arises as a scientific research objective: “how has the Brazilian industrial sector contributed to the achievement of SDG number 8, SDG number 9 and SDG number 12?”. This paper focuses specifically on the industrial sector and considers the SDGs as an analysis framework. This represents a fundamental difference between the evaluation performed by Cazeri et al. (2018). The next section presents the methodological procedures conducted in this research.

Section snippets

Methodological procedures

As previously mentioned, this research aims to verify the contributions of the Brazilian industrial sector in relation to SDGs 8, 9 and 12. To achieve this, a survey with experts was used to collect data used in a descriptive analysis via the TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) technique. TOPSIS enables one to rank items according to different criteria and weight the criteria according to a pre-defined degree of importance (Rampasso et al., 2019; Singh

Results and discussions

Fig. 5 presents the averages assigned by each group of respondents for each of the 10 items studied. These averages are used in the next steps presented.

Considering the averages resulting from the grades awarded by the specialists with the longest experience in the Brazilian industrial context (over 20 years), only two of the ten items analyzed presented averages higher than 5.0. These items are related to sectoral performance and the achievement of higher levels of productivity and

Conclusions

Through the presented results it is possible to observe that the proposed objective for the research was reached. The objective was to analyze the perception of experts in relation to the contributions of the Brazilian industrial sector to sustainable development, and more specifically, regarding the SDGs 8, 9 and 12, as presented by the UN (2019). The main conclusion from this research is that, in general, Brazil has been carrying out some actions, some of them sporadically and others in a

CRediT authorship contribution statement

V.W.B. Martins: Conceptualization, Data curation, Writing - original draft. I.S. Rampasso: Methodology, Writing - original draft. P.F.S. Siltori: Formal analysis, Writing - original draft. G.T. Cazeri: Investigation, Writing - original draft. R. Anholon: Methodology, Supervision, Writing - original draft. O.L.G. Quelhas: Investigation, Writing - original draft. W. Leal Filho: Writing - original draft, Validation, Writing - review & editing.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Brasil (CAPES) - Finance Code 001; processes 88882.435248/2019–01; and 88887.464433/2019–00; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) under Grants 307536/2018–1 and 305442/2018–0; the Universidade do Estado do Pará (UEPA) under Grant 626/18.

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