A Change Agent: “Is any individual or group that initiates and/or facilitates change” (Duncan 1978, p. 1022).
Attributes: Characteristics, character or personality, competence, qualities, attitudes, beliefs, convictions, and values.
Environmental Champion: “Someone who can attractively express a personal vision about environmental protection that is in tune with both industry’s needs and wider public concern.” (Menon and Menon 1997, p. 61).
Environmental Sustainability: “The use of business practices to reduce a company’s impact on the natural, physical environment” (Wheelen and Hunger 2011, p. 56).
Leadership Style: “Refers to how an individual gathers input, presents ideas, and mobilizes people, whether they are employees, suppliers, customers, or the community” (Dutra, Everaert, Fust, and Millen 2011, p. 2).
Leadership: “A process of influence that occurs within the context of relationships between leaders and their collaborators that involves: establishing direction (shared vision); aligning resources; and generating motivation and providing inspiration.” (Taylor 2011, p. 5).
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA): “Is a tool for the systematic evaluation of the environmental aspects of a product or service system through all stages of its life cycle. LCA provides an adequate instrument for environmental decision support. Reliable LCA performance is crucial to achieve a life-cycle economy.” (United Nations Environment Program; p. 1).
Management: “Refers to the set of activities, and often the group of people, involved in four general functions, including planning, organizing, leading and coordinating activities.” (Note that the four functions recur throughout the organization and are highly integrated.). (McNamara 1997).
Organization, Firm, Company, and Corporation: These terms are used in this study to mean a company.
Organizational Culture: “Pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, which has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way you perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems” (Schein 1993, p. 20).
SMEs (The Small and Medium Enterprises): The definition of SMEs is different from one country to another and according to Yu and Bell (2007) “there is no universally accepted definition of a SME” (p. 20).
Social Responsibility: “Proposes that a private corporation has responsibilities to society that extend beyond making a profit” (Wheelen and Hunger 2011, p. 120).
Sustainability Leader: “Someone who inspires and supports action towards a better world” (Visser and Courtice 2011, p. 2).
In this research particularly, the sustainability leader is a person who focuses on the environmental aspects of sustainability and can lead his company to achieve its objectives with security for the environment or cares about avoiding damage to the surrounding environment. “Leader” in this study refers to top management, represented by a Company Owner, President in charge or CEO and does not, for the sake of this research, include leaders in general terms.
Sustainability Performance: “Can be defined as the performance of a company in all dimensions and for all drivers of corporate sustainability” (Schaltegger and Wagner 2006, p. 2).
Sustainability: “Organizational approaches aimed at achieving a balance be- tween short-term organizational goals and long-term enterprise and social responsibility” (Pearce, Manz, and Akanno 2013, p. 248).
Sustainable Development: “Development which takes care of not only the present but also future generations to meet their needs” (Godfrey and Manikas 2012, p. 1).
Sustainable Future: “Is the idea that sits business system which sustains natural and human resources” (Andreas et al. 2011, p. 3).
Sustainable system: Is one that “fulfills present and future needs while using, and not harming, renewable resources and unique human environmental resources of a site: air, land, water, energy, mineral resources, and human ecology and/or those of other (off-site) sustainable systems” (Andreas et al. 2011, p. 3).
Dr. Amr Sukkar