Global Journal of Science Frontier Research, H: Environment & Earth Science, Volume 23 Issue 5

agricultural food industry. There is no doubt that ten years after this acclamation, stakeholders of the industry have worked towards this endeavour, by incorporating social and environmental measures in addition to economic ones. But how far has this initiative been successful, even more so for a country like Mauritius, where the food industry is one of the economic pillars. This research aims to bring answers by assessing the sustainability performance of food processing industries in Mauritius and propose sustainable practices for food processing industries. In addition, the interactions and relationships between the important parameters of the sustainability dimensions, through system dynamics modelling are also probed. II. L iterature R eview a) What Is Sustainability? Sustainability has become an important issue in all spheres of life. This will be the case for many years to come, or at least until an as yet unknown solution is developed. Sustainability is and will be very crucial for the present generations. How do we define Sustainability? Sustainability remains an elusive concept. It means different things to different people and is difficult to define. Elkington (1998) developed the concept of Triple Bottom Line, which simultaneously considers and balances economic, environmental and social issues from a micro economic point of view. The triple bottom line suggests that firms not only need to engage in socially and environmentally responsible behavior, but also that positive gains can be made in the process (Gimenez et al., 2012). Sustainability is a widely accepted idea with little guidance about its practical implementation. Semantically, sustainability is a quality that allows preserving, keeping, or maintaining something. In fact, when something is sustainable, it is able to endure or to be kept. It is a common mistake made by many people who believe that the term sustainability is more oriented towards the environment. Sustainability focuses on safeguarding natural resources against exploitation, in the name of productivity and competitiveness in the industrial world. It is a major concern in many countries and is leading to strict regulations regarding the impact of products during their manufacture, use and end of life (Gunasekaran & Spalanzani, 2012). This is indicative of the attitude of businessmen towards sustainability at that time. For most of the business executives, even though they know how sustainability issues can affect business risk, reputation, sales and efficiency, they still believe money is their number one priority. In other words, as long as their customers are happy, they see no meaningful way how sustainability can help achieve and exceeds those ends. Since the 1980’s,Sustainable Development - concerned with economic, social and environmental development- was considered to be very important and also contemplated as the goal of a desired new industrial revolution, involving advanced as well as new emerging countries (Jovane et al.,2008). Although some people mind-set towards Sustainable Development and the triple bottom line might have changed, there is still probably a big portion of the world’s population that today are not bothered about this concept. Clearly many people still have a long way to go in grasping the value of this illusive concept to their organisations and their day to day lives. Hence there is a need to come up with a proper definition of the term Sustainable Development so that the frame of mind of those not yet convinced and still thinking that the term is just a fad, can be shuffled. Over the years, researchers in the field of sustainability and sustainable development have come up with various connotations to the term as shown in Table 1 below. However each of the definitions of sustainability referred in the table are debatable and can be seen to have often been contextualized, based on the situation where it was used. © 2023 Global Journals 1 Year 2023 2 Global Journal of Science Frontier Research Volume XXIII Issue ersion I VV ( H ) Assessing the Sustainability Performance, the Food-Processing Industry through Causal Loop: A Mauritian Case Study Table 1: Some Selected Definition of Sustainable Development from Existing Literature 2.2 Systems Thinking Author(s) Sustainability Definitions and Sustainable Development Bruntland G.H (1987) The development that meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs. U.S. National Research Council (1999) “ The level of human consumption and activity, which can continue into the foreseeable future, so that the system that provides goods and services to the humans persists indefinitely .” Diesendorf (2000) The goal of sustainable development and this is described as ‘‘types of economic and social development that protect and enhance the natural environment and social equity” Hanley et al.(2001) A requirement to our generation to manage the resourcebase such that the average quality of life we ensure ourselves can potentially be shared by all future generations. McMicheal, et al., 2003 “Transforming ways of living to maximize the chances that environmental and social conditions will indefinitely support human security, well-being and health.”