Retrospective, perspective, and prospective: introduction to the Oxford Handbook on Business and the Natural Environment

This article addresses what is distinct about existing business and the natural environment (B&NE) research and provides the multiple directions in which the field is going. It first describes in broad terms the history of B&NE. It also introduces the central themes in the field as they exist today. Then, it reports what are found to be common and overarching themes and, therefore, fruitful areas of future research. The waves of corporate environmentalism recognize that corporate environmental issues were a problem necessitating regulatory controls, treat the environmental protection as a strategic concern, and concentrate on sustainability. A shift to a systems view of the B&NE relationship offers greater opportunities for optimizing social and environmental systems, but also greater complexities and challenges in managing them to predictable ends. B&NE research forces the kind of problem-based, temporally relevant research that critics and business practitioners demand from business schools.