Strategic Implications of the Differentiation between Sustainable Development and Sustainability-Oriented Development in Corporate Environmental Governance: A Critical Review from the SDGs, the ISO 14001 Standard and Latin American Environmental Thought

Abstract

In recent decades, the concepts of sustainable development and sustainability-oriented development have gained centrality in debates about sustainability, especially in corporate decision-making settings. This article critically examines this distinction through a systematic literatura review, aiming to understand how each approach influences environmental governance with in the corporate sphere. To this end, academic sources, international frameworks such as ISO 14001:2015, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and contributions from Latin American environmental thought were integrated.
The findings show that, while sustainable development has been widely adopted as a global operating model, its implementation tends to be framed within functional and technically manageable frameworks. In contrast, sustainability-oriented development is presented as a more critical proposal, questioning the foundations of the traditional economic model and championing bio-cultural diversity, ecological justice, and eco system regeneration.
Far from being a terminological debate, this differentiation directly impacts the way organizations design their environmental strategies. Incorporating sustainability-oriented development principles not only represents a regulatory ortechnical adjustment, but a transformation in the way we conceive corporate responsibility toward the land and life. The article argues that moving in this direction opens up real possibilities for building more ethical, resilient organizational models rooted in their social and ecological contexts.