Holistic Quality Excellence: Being Best for the World

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to show several inconsistencies in the current measurements of sustainability and to propose a thought leadership model (Holistic Quality Excellence) that offers a new route for our future, having care for Earth’s biosphere at its core.
Methodology / approach: By examining the current sustainability measurement systems and their results, inconsistencies are observed between the measurement results and actual planetary status. By evaluating the causes for these inconsistencies, a new way of thinking emerges, putting doubt on our current definition of sustainable development.
Findings: The People, Planet, Profit thinking that is present in most sustainability systems, is unsustainable for Earth’s biosphere and a recipe for ecosystem disaster. A new definition for sustainability is proposed in which long term (generational) and preventive thinking play a major part. Quality management offers an approach to create the needed change.
Research limitations: The number of systems that claim to evaluate the sustainability of an organization makes it near impossible to take them all into account. Focus has been on the best known systems.
Practical & Social Implications: The findings cast doubt on the validity of well-established systems. Economic growth, triple P and the United Nations Sustainability Development Goals (UN SDG) are not supporting environmental sustainability and even contribute to the rapid destruction of Earth’s biosphere.
Originality/value: The contradiction between measurement and reality has been studied before, but we offer a possibility for action through quality management.

Sustainability, Quality, Leadership, Holistic Thinking