The multifaceted world of sustainability. An analysis of about 30 years of studies

The concept of sustainability has emerged as a response to the most stringent problems of humanity. Initially defined in the Brundtland report published by the World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987 as the “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (United Nations, 1987:43), sustainable development constituted the main topic of the Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The conference distinguished itself in the world of academia by establishing the principles of sustainable development and the indisputable relation between three fundamental pillars: environmental protection, social equity and economic development (Scrobota and Vosylius, 2013). This dissertation is composed of three essays. Essay 1, “Sustainability: The State of the Art and Emerging Perspectives”, analyzes the current academic literature on sustainability, first, with elaborative documentation and, second, using bibliometric analysis supported by the Science Mapping Analysis Software Tool (SciMat) open source software (Cobo, Lòpez-Herrera, Herrera and Herrera-Viedma, 2012b) to gain insight on this body of knowledge and to investigate which topics are associated with this subject and considered to be the most relevant. Essay 2, “What Happens to Well-Being and Happiness by Combining with Sustainability?”, originates from the results of Essay 1 and develops an analysis of the relationship between sustainability, well-being and happiness. Indeed, as outlined in Essay 1, a considerable amount of literature has focused on environmental and economic dimensions, but there is little systematic research on how sustainability can interact with these factors as new paradigms for individuals, communities, and organizations. Essay 2 contributes to extending the existing theories on the three pillars of sustainability and identifies well-being and happiness as new driving factors. Essay 3, “Sustainability as a Matrix of Experiential Marketing”, examines the current role of sustainability as a matrix of experiential marketing to understand how a memorable, emotional and responsible connection between consumers and sustainable brand can generate customer loyalty and affect the purchase decision through a case study (Yin, 1984; Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007; Siggelkow, 2007; Yin, 2009) that analyzes an ecological campaign called “The Fun Theory”. This work contributes to strengthening this new theory, according to which “fun” is best for changing the bad habits of people in a responsible and sustainable manner. Collectively, the three essays provide a general picture for a more holistic understanding of sustainability that creates new possibilities for more focused and effective sustainable development policies. A broader perspective on sustainability can maintain or improve the well-being and happiness of human beings. Reaching this objective is possible if the restrictions of individual freedoms, resource use and the ability to undergo experiences are compensated by improvements in the other determinants of wellness, and such improvements can be an effective motivator for sustainable behavior.