Social Sustainability of Water and Waste Management Companies in Portugal

Abstract

The Sustainable Development Goals aim at balancing economic, social and environmental development. In this framework, social sustainability is key to tackle current challenges that hinder the maximization of social satisfaction. Yet, for many years, scholars have negleted the social dimension. A possible explanation may be the difficulty to measure social concepts such as well-being and prosperity. Thus, we argue that, to evaluate sectoral performance, the concept of social sustainability should be translated into metrics, by focusing on the indicators that impact on those social concepts. Consequently, time-series data from Quadros do Pessoal, PORDATA and SABI databases for the sector of Water Collection, Treatment and Distribution, Sanitation, Waste Management and Depollution, are consulted to analyze the evolution of those indicators and evaluate corporate performance concerning social sustainability in 2008–2019. In line with previous literature, we use average wages and employment as proxies for social sustainability. However, we introduce a new indicator, the average term for receipts to carry out an analysis from the stakeholders’ perspective. The results suggest that, especially as of 2017, sectoral firms appear to have reagained their momentum concerning social sustainability performance. This study provides the opportunity to uncover average sectoral trends on social sustainability and paves the way for future research exploring firms’ heterogeneity.

Outward investment of Portuguese small and medium enterprises in the Central and Eastern European countries: motivations and challenges

“…Results suggest that investments were market-oriented aiming at expansion and profit. This requires firms' competitiveness, which involves preserving the economic sustainability of firms (Santos & Moreira, 2022). In this context, the vast Polish market was the one that most attracted Portuguese investors.…”

A Sustainable Everyday Life for Counterurbanising Swedish Families

“…The way that the informants negotiate a sustainable everyday life does not suggest that they, as a group, are more socially sustainable than others in society, but it highlights how social sustainability and learning are influenced by the place-specific conditions that these informants negotiate and re-negotiate in their new lives outside of the big city. Social sustainability is envisioned to be important in striving for sustainability as it provides balance for economic and environmental development as well as aiding in determining efforts relating to justice and the climate [14]. Exploring how counterurbanising young families make sense of social sustainability brings into being a deeper meaning of how counterurbanisation embeds the families' everyday lives in larger discussions of the complex dimensions of social, economic, and environmental sustainability, such as work, commuting, rural development, education, community and long-term commitment, including, but not limited to, how people perceive and understand sustainability structures [13].…”

“…Sustainability, made plain, is a way of planning for the future while balancing environmental, economic, and social considerations in the pursuit of an improved quality of life for all of humanity [20,21]. Social sustainability is a crucial part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals [22]-aimed at tackling large scale problems of unsustainability, such as climate change and poverty, and upholding and achieving a balanced approach to environmental, economic, and social development [14]. Social sustainability and its subsequent social dimension are rudimentary for sustainability, not only as a means of attending to social problems, but also to mitigate and balance endeavours primarily directed at the economic and/or environmental dimensions of long-term sustainability.…”

“…Having gone through significant periods of perceived stress, the access to extended families appeared as a very sweet treat connected to the place-based condition of their new homes. Santos and Moreira [14] discussed the importance of social sustainability in terms of generating balance for environmental, economic, and social development. Our informants gave answers that put even more emphasis on the importance of balance for a everyday life.…”

“…Social sustainability is interlinked by notions and practices that are socially oriented and have specific traits that influence how people perceive sustainability structures [13]. Social sustainability is crucial in working towards sustainability, in determined efforts to deal with the problems of climate change and poverty by balancing environmental, economic, and social development [14]. Maintaining balance is important for larger societal or global structural changes, as well as for individuals, as behavioural changes in small steps help fuse together humble advances toward structural changes and the changing premises that structural changes bring about.…”