Nayanee Silva
Academic and research departments
Social research on sustainability, Centre for Environment and Sustainability.My research project
Materials management, Sustainabililty Strategies and Corporate Social Responsibility in the Private Sector: A Comparative Study
The purpose of this research is to investigate materials management, sustainability strategies and the related impacts on corporate social responsibility (CSR) through a comparison of firms in the private sector. The analysis will include comparisons of firms in a developed economy (the UK) and in a developing economy (Sri Lanka) where little investigation has been carried out on sustainable materials manufacturing and related CSR impacts. The study will cover three industry sectors in the two countries, with analysis of SDGs and community engagement.
The aim is to create a sustainability index of economic, environmental and social impacts of manufacturing, for the organisations taking part which will measure financial sustainability, carbon emissions, materials management , energy consumption, waste, circular economy of input materials and industrial ecology. CSR strategy, employee well-being and community engagement will also be analysed for the participating organisations. The outputs from this study will provide a three-dimensional sustainability measure to assess the impact of production activities, improve knowledge of sustainability towards making potential savings, implementing sustainability into profitable product strategy, make greener choices in materials, reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions and consider the social impacts of business activities alongside actions to align with national carbon net zero policies. It will also help compare the sustainability performance of organisations within sectors and within a national context.
Supervisors
Affiliations and memberships
Biography
Nayanee Silva is a business professional with over 25 years of finance, management and consulting experience. Following a corporate career in the management consulting industry, she has provided coaching, mentoring and business consulting services for over 20 years. She is a certified finance professional and life coach. She is also the founder and President of The Aspire Community Foundation, a non-profit foundation working with other NGOs to support community projects in welfare, education, vocational training and sustainable development projects in Sri Lanka.
Nayanee has experience in the private sector and higher education. Her experience working with businesses and clients in the UK and internationally has developed a keen interest in the implementation of sustainability in organisations and CSR strategy. Nayanee's research interests include sustainability in organisations, materials management, sustainable development, Corporate Social Responsibility, Life Cycle Assessment, renewable energy technologies and the Circular Economy. Her aim through research is to support organisations and communities with improving their understanding of sustainability, incorporate materials management and sustainability successfully into business strategy and learn from global frameworks to implement best practices.
Research
Research interests
- Comparison of Sustainable Materials Management (SMM) in private sector industry from developed to developing countries. What gives rise to differences in practices and attitudes to sustainability within firms
- Corporate Social Responsibility and Community engagement
- Circular Economy and its implementation in the manufacturing sector
- Life Cycle Analysis for organisations and Social LCA
- Industrial ecology within organisational networks
- Renewable Energy Technologies and access
- Carbon Emissions measurement and strategy
- Intrinsic and extrinsic CSR in the private sector
- Green finance and promoting green investment
- SDGs measurement framework
- Sustainable development - impacts of interventions through microfinance, training and education to empower rural and disadvantaged communities.