**1. Introduction**

Given the broad economic, environmental, and social challenges in the modern competitive environment, it is not surprising that effective sustainability management has emerged as an important variable in the strategic management process [1, 2]. Increasingly, firms are finding it necessary and beneficial to build sustainability principles into their strategic planning, and the extant research has shown that effective strategic management of sustainability can have a variety of positive outcomes for the firm such as improved economic [3, 4], improved human resource factors [5, 6], and reputational benefits [7, 8]. Historically, strategic sustainability management has had an 'outputs' focus [9, 10], such as, the focus on reporting sustainability outcomes fundamental to the triple-bottom line (TBL) framework. However, scholars have recently noted the shortcomings of the TBL (and similar) frameworks that emphasise the outputs of sustainability management rather than the antecedent resources and capabilities [11]. Recently, there has been a push to reassess the research approach to researching effective sustainability management processes by refocusing on the application and nature of strategic inputs [12]. Over the past 30 years, the focus on strategic antecedents has been evident in other disciplines (e.g., human resource management, accounting and finance, and marketing) that have been elevated to operate as integral aspects of the strategic management process.

The most popular theoretical strategic management lens for the exploration of strategic inputs is the resource-based view of the firm (RBV) [13, 14]. As RBV literature developed, scholars increasingly focussed on the nature of intangible assets, as research showed that it was these assets that were the most integral to establishing a sustainable competitive advantage [15]. One such asset that has received increasing attention is the knowledge capabilities that exist within a firm, and how that knowledge can be accessed and applied to strategic decision making [16]. This has led to the establishment of the knowledge management (KM) field of strategic management research, an extension of the RBV focussing exclusively on the application and nature of knowledge in a competitive context [17, 18]. The concept of knowledge management (KM) has become the key theoretical framework through which knowledge is examined and researched [19, 20].

Insofar as there has been research seeking to align principles of KM and sustainability, these have been retrospective in nature rather than deliberate and systematic [21]. Frameworks such as those by [22] have sought to improve the sustainability of the KMs themselves. Whilst this is a valuable pursuit that has the potential to benefit firm processes, it does not offer solutions to the effective management of sustainability. Other frameworks, such as, the one devised by [23] sought to reconfigure sustainability at the conceptual level so as to fit it into extant finance/ HRM/marketing KM structures. These have ultimately been proven to be insufficient for the challenges facing modern firms operating in today's competitive landscape [21, 24]. There is a notable absence in the literature of a KM that actually provides insight into the effective strategic management of sustainability [24]. Given its demonstrable importance to the strategic management process, and the noted absence of a knowledge management process dedicated to the sustainability concept, this chapter seeks to address the broad research opportunity to explore what elements comprise a sustainability knowledge management system.
