Cecilia Mark-Herbert

By Anna Larsson, Ronald Muyingo, Dmytro Serebrennikov, Shohana Ahmed and Cecilia Mark-Herbert

Part of the book: Sustainable Development

By Cecilia Mark-Herbert and Brita Prejer

Business’s role in society is expanding; they are held accountable not only for their (traditional) business conduct but also for institutional development that leads to alleviation of poverty as well as institutional development. The aim of the case study is to identify critical factors for the implementation of an inclusive business model. These factors are contextualized at a regional and local level as a part of an ongoing agro-food project. The forestry company’s operations in Lao PDR, offers an understanding of challenges related to political, social and financial sourcing conditions in needs of an inclusive business model. Creating the shared values relates to creating job opportunities, embracing gender aspects and engaging in institutional development in marginalized communities. A key factor in the development is a social entrepreneur, who re-creates a new community of practice by coordinating corporate strategies with local and regional needs. This case study offers a narrative of the development of a new context bound business model that positively influences the development of a multinational enterprise, an industry, a local community and academic understanding of what might become a dominant discourse for industrial upgrade and sustainable development.

Part of the book: Entrepreneurship

By Cecilia Mark-Herbert, Elin Kvennefeldt and Anders Roos

Climate changes point to the needs to find sustainable materials for residential multistorey housing as a growing proportion of populations across the world live in urban areas. Despite positive environmental effects, wood has a limited use in multistorey constructions even in countries with a strong tradition to use wood in residential housing, such as Sweden. As new materials, techniques were developed and studies of properties of wood as a construction material were communicated, and legislation was altered in Sweden in the mid-1990s, allowing for the use of wood in multistorey housing. The expected market growth was slow and uneven even when incentivizing programs were developed. This chapter explains consumer perspectives in a town, Växjö, where the tradition of using wood in multistorey construction is strong. It points to the needs of knowing more about consumers’ perspectives—in order to communicate added values, that is, environmental benefits, in suitable market channels.

Part of the book: Timber Buildings and Sustainability