Sustainability and the European Waste Management Industry

Waste raises a range of environmental problems within Europe and sustainability has become an increasingly important challenge for the waste management industry. The aim of this paper is to offer an exploratory review of the approaches to sustainability within the European waste management industry. The paper begins with brief outlines of waste and the waste management industry in Europe and the growing interest in sustainability reporting. This is followed by a review of the sustainability reporting by some of the leading waste management companies operating within Europe and the paper concludes by offering some reflections on current approaches to sustainability within the industry. The findings reveal that the sustainability reports included details of a wide range of environmental, social and economic issues but more generally, the reports had a number of weaknesses that undermined their transparency and credibility. The authors also argue that the selected companies’ definitions of, and commitments to, sustainability are principally driven as much by business imperatives as by any fundamental concern to maintain the viability and integrity of natural and social capital.