Gestão pela sustentabilidade: um estudo de caso na empresa Mercur S.A.

Abstract

This study intends to understand what are the conditions for a company to develop a sustainability driven strategy of management, and, in this process, explain what comes in the way of this new strategy. With that goal, it was developed a case study analyzing the adoption of such strategy by Mercur S.A., a company based in Santa Cruz do Sul, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil).The company adopted a new matrix for its business, which models its business model as a whole: the sustainability management. This change of focus implied radical changes in company’s hierarchy, in the way decisions are made and in its relationship with its collaborators, its suppliers and clients.This research presents the way these changes were implemented and the way they affected the company’s different stakeholders: the employees, the managers, the suppliers and the clients. Such impacts were listed and analyzed through interviews with people that represent all these different stakeholders: employees, managers, suppliers and clients, as well as with specialists in business administration. The research shows that the strategy adopted by Mercur S.A. overcomes the “sustainable” attitude of many companies, which are moved much more by marketing results than by the real impacts of its businesses. In this case study, the option that the company makes for being sustainable is based in a wider view, that approaches education (of employees and other stakeholders) and the social and economic impacts of the company’s businesses. The exposure and analysis of these impacts show how the strategy adopted by Mercur S.A. is a rare and innovative case, which will certainly serve as an example and inspiration for other companies interested in this kind of strategy.