Cuyahoga River - the River That Caught Fire

The Cuyahoga River has a name for itself; "The River That Caught Fire". In the earlier half of the 20th century, the Cuyahoga River was so polluted that it actually caught fire several times. Time magazine described it as being a "chocolate-brown, oily, bubbling with subsurface gases, it oozes rather than flows". Citizens of Cleveland used to joke that anyone who fell into this river wouldn't drown but rather decay. On June 22, 1969, an oil slick and debris in the Cuyahoga River actually caught fire in Cleveland, Ohio, drawing national attention to environmental problems in Ohio and elsewhere in the United States. This example while disturbing is an example of the forthcoming pressures for responsible and accountable actions of corporate sustainability.

A more recent example was the BP oil issues in the Gulf of Mexico. How can a company this large with unlimited resources in the area of money and manpower allow such a disaster to hit North America? was the beginning of corporate sustainability. In this paper we will explore the ideas of corporate behind corporate sustainability, how organizations effectively manage to consumer expectation, and how the use of an ERP can help facilitate the goal of corporate sustainability. along with how it's being integrated into ERP systems.

From the early 1960s through the 1970s many leading companies were preoccupied with pollution control and bolt-on solutions as a means of managing environmental issues. During the mid-1980s and through the 1990s some companies began to see the potential cost savings in their environmental management practices. Activities in this era became dominated by the search for efficiency and competitive advantage, the so-called ‘win–win' solutions that minimized resource consumption and wastes. The idea of doing more with less appealed to the mindset of business leaders. Eco-efficiency was perceived as a win-win solution, enabling the twin goals of economic growth and environmental protection to be maintained; sustainable development could be achieved by business, or so it was thought, until the voices of eco-effectiveness grew louder and louder. Toward the end of the 20th century thinking in the environmental management arena began to change for a third time, with the introduction of eco-effectiveness as a guiding maxim to corporate sustainability, the idea being that business practices should go beyond pollution control and eco-efficiency toward a way of doing business that restores and enhances the environment.

Corporate sustainability today is defined as "the adoption of business strategies and activities that meet the needs of the enterprise and its stakeholders today while protecting, sustaining and enhancing the human and natural resources that will be needed in the future". Corporations today approach sustainable business management (SBM) on a broad range of the spectrum which includes the "responsibility