Fifteenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

We may have entered a new period in geological history when humans dominate the Earth with uncertain consequences—the “Anthropocene” (Crutzen & Stoermer, 2000). Efforts to mitigate our environmental indiscretions are confounded by the lack of shared vision as to how humans and their organizations can co-exist within the natural environment. Nature-Centered Leaders (Stober, 2013) explore ways to promote dialogue among organizational stakeholders in an effort to find common ground for a shared vision—an “aspirational narrative” for the future (Stober, Brown, & Cullen, 2013). Earlier perspectives on Nature-Centered Leadership focused on the organization. This paper expands upon Nature-Centered Leadership with modern Stakeholder Theory as a framework to better understand the importance of the institutional perspective. Institutions provide the “rules of the game” by which organizations play (North, 1990). Nature-Centered Leaders promote dialogue around norms and values (the rules of the game) for environmental sustainability. Organizations need to be responsive to their stakeholders and the norms and values held by the larger community, particularly within the institutional space where organizations operate. We may aspire to protect Nature, but organizations are by people for people and it may be all too easy for us to allow those organizations to protect our human interests at the expense of our sister and brother species. This paper uses an analytic framework (Scott, 2014) to identify nature-centered norms and values among organizational stakeholders who are also actors in their many communities where the “rules of the game” evolve. Empowering these actors will challenge social barriers to environmental justice.