Sustainable development and corporate strategies: The case of Russian metals enterprises

The uncertainty promotes the transformation of corporate strategies in accordance with the principles of sustainable development. Metals industry is among the most important ones for the Russian economy since the management of economic development at industrial, regional and national levels significantly depends on the sustainability of metals enterprises. The paper aims to assess the sustainability of Russia’s leading metals companies and the alignment of their corporate strategies with the principles of sustainable development. The concepts of sustainable development and ecosystems constitute the methodological basis of the study. To determine whether the companies’ strategies correspond to the said principles the authors applied the own set of tools and methods. The evidence is the information about the activities of seven Russian ferrous and non-ferrous metals enterprises. Along with economic, social and environmental pillars of sustainable development, the paper considers an investment and technological one. The paper justifies the choice of indicators for measuring these pillars and proposes a composite index that reflects the total level of sustainable development of enterprises. The ratio of this index to its standard deviation allowed empirically establishing the quantitative borders for classifying the level of sustainable development of Russia’s largest metals enterprises and distinguish between four types of these enterprises. The value of the research lies in detecting the trends in the creation of strategies by Russia’s leading metals companies according to the sustainable development principles.