I have come to know that sustainability or sustainable development is originated from the economic and social development that satisfies the need of the present generation and without affecting the ability of the future generations in meeting their own needs. The main origin of sustainable development according to me is the three important pillars stated as economic development, ecological development and social development.
Some activities of human induce some chain reactions and collapse the ecological niche. One of them is the climate change due to emission of greenhouse gases. The economic limit is the equality of marginal cost and marginal benefit. The worst can be that the ecological limit may coincide with the economic limit. I have come to know that there are two indicators for sustainable development growth. One of them is a management tool that provides assistance to nations in developing implementation and monitoring strategies to accomplish the goals of growth and monitoring the progress. Other one is a report card that helps in measuring the progress towards achieving the goal. As far as I know that policy goals of sustainability development are zero hunger, good health, gender equality, no poverty, affordable and clean energy, decent work and economic growth, industry and infrastructure, reduction of inequalities, sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption and production, partnerships for the goals and peace, justice and institutions.
There are certain forces that help in the sustainability of a business. They are advancement in technology, focus on sustainability and the environment, emerging markets and cultural and religious ideologies (Servaes, 2016).
Economic development helps to analyze the various effects on a business and on employability and different types of jobs (Leigh & Blakely, 2016). This includes the act of providing the incentives for the different organizations to adhere to the sustainability guidelines. Environmental involves protection of the environment through recycling and reduction of the power consumption by switching the power supplies (Epstein & Buhovac, 2014). Social development takes into account the awareness of the people about the harmful effects of pollution (Weingaertner & Moberg, 2014).
The benefits of reorientation are utilization of the window of opportunity that has been created by financial crisis, promotion of shift in the attitude of climate change and regional cooperation of technology transfer and financing (Karpouzoglou & Barron, 2014). I have realized the importance of sustainability management for the corporate and the society.
Stakeholder theory is a part of organizational management that puts forward the morals and values of an organization (Bridoux & Stoelhorst, 2014). It gives stress on the interconnected relationships between an organization, its suppliers, investors, customers, employees and communities who are having a stake in the company.
The stakeholder theory helps the different stakeholders of a company to understand the values and ethics of the organization (Crane & Matten, 2016). The importance of this theory lies in the fact that it integrates both a market-based and a resource-based view and includes a socio-political level to it. The theory also helps to know the specific stakeholders of an organization and help in examining the conditions where they are treated as stakeholders. The different approaches of stakeholder theory like descriptive, normative and instrumental help to understand different aspects of a business.
The internal business factors that have impacts on sustainability implementation are coordination, responsibility distribution and commitment. These factors help a company to sustain in the market. External business factors may be transparency, external dependencies, technical protection mechanisms, customer base, laws, trends and infrastructure.
The changes required in the transformation of business sustainability are to make changes in the dominant controlling mind set of an organization, make rearrangements in some parts of the organization, and correct the mechanisms of feedback, restructuring the engagement rules, shifting of the flow of information for all the employees and adjustments in the parameters of the company to make alignment with the employee performance criteria, reward systems, incentive and policies to attain sustainability.
The universal framework for supporting business sustainability includes three interconnected elements. They include the means of mapping the core values of an organization, creating a set of knowledge areas to guide the continual improvement and some result-driven methodologies to plan, measure, implement and improve the program of the organization (Li & Mauerhofer, 2016).
Some of the business indices are leadership, people, process management, customer focus and strategy that focus on the sustainability.
The key features of an ethical business are leadership, values, integrity, loyalty, respect and concern (Lawton & Páez, 2015). Leaders help in the demonstration of the ethical practices. It facilitates decision-making and creation of ethical culture. Every ethical business has a core statement that explains a mission. An ethical business keeps adherence to policies and regulations to accomplish the goals. Loyalty in relationships is significant in running an ethical business. An ethical business always has concerns about the employees and customers.
The five principles of good governance in an organization are leading the organization, exercising control over the organization, being transparent and accountable, working effectively and behaving with integrity (Tricker & Tricker, 2015). Leading an organization means complying with its vision, values and purpose. Developing, monitoring, resourcing and evaluating plans help to ensure that the company can accomplish the goals. Exercising control means proper identification and complying with the regulatory requirements. It helps to identify and comply with the legal requirements. The organization needs to identify the employees who have legitimate interests to work in the company and maintaining regular communication with everyone. Working effectively makes sure that the individual board members, staff, volunteers, governing body and volunteers have a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities for decision-making. Maintaining integrity helps the employees to become independent, fair and honest that can assist in managing conflicts of loyalties and interests. This helps in protecting the reputation of an organization.
The key elements of CSR are business-based social purpose, clear theory of change, quality and depth of information, concentrated information and collaborating with experts (Hunt & Mattson, 2016). CSR programs at the leadership level have a direct reflection on the operational activities of a business. An innovative CSR activity helps to leverage the operational competencies. The leaders of the company develop proprietary approaches to implement social changes. These programs also help young people to engage themselves through national partnerships with the non-profit organizations. Proper leadership originates from employees, external stakeholders and customers with a depth of information about the social issues.
Industrial ecology deals with the study of material and flows of energy through the systems of industry. The industrial economy is thought of as a network of various industrial processes that helps to extract resources from the Earth and transformation of those resources into valuable commodities. Interface Global is always concerned about the industrial ecology and environment.
I want to mention that the sustainable capitalism model is based on the different sustainable practices that help to preserve the human beings and the planet as a whole by reducing the externalities and having a capitalist economic policy (Tietenberg & Lewis, 2016). This type of economy must need expansions and finding of new markets to facilitate the expansion. The Natural Edge Sustainability model is basically an independent think tank for the sake of sustainability (Spruell, 2016). This model provides tools, strategies and policies to achieve the sustainability development across the businesses.
I have gone through the video and came to know that Interface Global has reached the sustainability milestone by manufacturing socially responsible and sustainable modular carpet by achieving 90% carbon reduction. The company according to me has tried to reduce the carbon footprint all over the world. It has used science based process to make a comparison of the environmental effects by quantifying all inputs and outputs. As far as I have realized, the carbon footprint of the carpets of the company has reduced in the year 2016 by about 35% from 2008. Interface has a commitment to sustainability and trying to find out ways to reduce its impact on the environment.
I have learnt from the case study that Fuji Xerox is a leader in the development as well as application of operational activities of sustainability management. Organizational strategy refers to how an organization shall evolve over time and meet the objectives and making a detailed assessment of what is to be done in future (Cassidy, 2016). The important step of the strategy is to make a comparison of the present state with the targeted one and assess the differences and the required changes that need to be implemented. Fuji Xerox has an important organizational strategy of ground-breaking development of remanufacturing. They are the leader in this technology and I have gone through the case study to know that they have contributed enough to the society for sustainable development. The company faced some problems initially and tried to roll out a trial manufacturing project. Later they went into waste management. They developed technological capabilities
The four levels of business strategies are cost leadership, differentiation, competitive advantage and focused differentiation. The cost leadership strategy helps the companies to attract customers through price. Differentiation strategy helps a company to offer products and services to the customers with distinctive features that will provide competitive advantage. Competitive advantage is the one that a company enjoys over its competitors in the market. It includes increasing the benefits or reducing the costs. The focus strategy assists a company in concentrating on a particular product line, target customer or geographical area. There will be minimal waste and enhancement of recycling processes. I have inferred that Fuji Xerox had adopted business strategies that worked well and the project was properly executed.
The two approaches can be performing a stakeholder analysis and setting sustainable policies and objectives. Stakeholder analysis begins through the identification of various groups that have been affected by the business activities. Next approach is to communicate the basic values which the employees need to abide by for the sake of sustainable development.
As the world’s economy is drifting towards recession, the companies are focusing to manage the cost in order to sustain on the competition. They are trying to control the operating expenses with time. The differentiation strategies have an impact on the performance of the company. This strategy is also important for the companies to differentiate its products from the competitors for the sake of sustainability. Sustainability has an impact on the competitive advantage of a company. It helps to foster the sustainable practices all through the product lifecycle, from the raw materials to the supply chain. Companies building sustainable products are able to gain more competitive advantage. Sustainability helps a company to focus on important strategies to sustain for long period in the market. It helps to maintain transparency, waste reduction, quality control and materials reuse. Fuji Xerox was successful in sustainable development.
The major categories of indicators of ANZ that the company report against are the environmental, social and governance aspects.
The guidelines which ANZ determines and follows are that they should offer services to the customers that will be easy for them to make out and competitively priced, They will also design them to meet the needs of the customers. Whenever they are in problems, the bank will help them immediately. The bank should rectify the mistakes they will commit. The decisions that they will take need to be clarified to the customers. They must also ensure that the culture and the systems are aligned with that of the customers and produce good results.
Through responsible banking, the company wants to earn trust of the stakeholders and the customers as well. This can be done by keeping pace with the changing expectations of the stakeholders of the company, trying to maintain high standards of conduct and understanding the environmental and social impact of the business decisions. They offer services to the customers that are easy to understand for them and priced competitively and also designed to meet their needs. When customers are in problems, they help them immediately and try to fix any issues on the company’s part. The company is transparent about deciding on the prices of the products and services. The company has also ensued that the culture and systems of the company are aligned with the interests of the customers and produce good results for them. Customer want to interact with the bank in person or over phone. ANZ protects the privacy of the customers and responds to the changes in technology and disruptive business models.
The major factors that are responsible for the climate changes and environmental degradation are the greenhouse gases, hot cars and some human activities. All these are affecting the society and the environment at large. The factories and the industries are emanating harmful chemicals and gases that are mixing with the air and polluting the environment. This is a part of the human induced pollution. Tropical deforestation, cement production and fossil fuel burning are mainly responsible for the greenhouse gases. They give out hot and harmful gases into the air that are making harmful gases and pollutants and affecting the health of others. They trap the heat radiating from the Earth’s surface and the temperature of the Earth is going up every year by a certain percentage. The cars are billowing out smokes that are affecting the health of the human beings and other animals as well. The hot car and the greenhouse warm up by trapping the hot air.
The ozone layer is also responsible for the environmental degradation. The ozone formed by human activities is very toxic and corrosive as well (Zhang et al., 2014). People are damaging their lungs after the inhalation of this toxic gas. The people who spend most of the time outside are prone to this gas. The ground-level ozone affects the plants and the animals as well. The carbon present in the atmosphere is also toxic as it forms carbon-di-oxide and carbon monoxide. The concentration of carbon is increasing in the atmosphere. It is affecting the plants and human beings.
The important expectations from the supermarkets are environmental preservation, protection of public health, sustaining vibrant communities and upholding animal welfare. These are evolving at a faster pace and the companies are taking care of these to remain sustainable. The supermarkets in my area are selling food products which have values of different ranges but as per I feel, the quality of the products are not good. They are telling upon ours’ health. The groceries are also not in exception. These supermarkets are also promoting about these junk foods on a large scale which are attracting a lot of consumers. Many consumers are aware about it but still these foods are attracting all of us. Actually, we are not at all concerned about these foods and take them as they are made quickly. The markets in my area are full of these products and the consumers need to be aware of this. I shall promote this through social marketing campaigns and social media like Facebook. I would like to promote more about eco-efficiency as it helps to measure the required integration into the environmental and management plans, strategies and policies. It also helps in the reduction of energy and water usage, pollution levels, incorporation of principles regarding the life cycle, extend the product or service life and their recyclability that increases the service intensity.
I feel that the successful strategies for the promotion of eco-efficiency are making companies more proactive, improving the sustainability assessment which are done by the companies and the customers, the usage of market-based instruments, targeted policies for eco-efficiencies, policy integration and improving the systems for increasing the eco-efficiency (Räty et al., 2014).
References
Bridoux, F., & Stoelhorst, J. W. (2014). Microfoundations for stakeholder theory: Managing stakeholders with heterogeneous motives. Strategic Management Journal, 35(1), 107-125.
Cassidy, A. (2016). A practical guide to information systems strategic planning. CRC press.
Crane, A., & Matten, D. (2016). Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and sustainability in the age of globalization. Oxford University Press.
Epstein, M. J., & Buhovac, A. R. (2014). Making sustainability work: Best practices in managing and measuring corporate social, environmental, and economic impacts. Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Hoekstra, A. Y., & Wiedmann, T. O. (2014). Humanity’s unsustainable environmental footprint. Science, 344(6188), 1114-1117.
Hunt, S., & Mattson, J. (2016). Compassionate capitalism, the workplace, and social capital. In Social Capital and Community Well-Being (pp. 119-139). Springer International Publishing.
Karpouzoglou, T., & Barron, J. (2014). A global and regional perspective of rainwater harvesting in sub-Saharan Africa’s rainfed farming systems. Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, Parts A/B/C, 72, 43-53.
Lawton, A., & Páez, I. (2015). Developing a framework for ethical leadership. Journal of Business Ethics, 130(3), 639-649.
Leigh, N. G., & Blakely, E. J. (2016). Planning local economic development: Theory and practice. SAGE publications.
Li, W., & Mauerhofer, V. (2016). Behavioral patterns of environmental performance evaluation programs. Journal of environmental management, 182, 429-435.
Räty, T., Toppinen, A., Roos, A., Riala, M., & Nyrud, A. Q. (2014). Environmental policy in the Nordic wood product industry: Insights into firms’ strategies and communication. Business Strategy and the Environment.
Servaes, J. (Ed.). (2016). Sustainable Development Goals in the Asian Context (Vol. 2). Springer.
Spruell, M. N. (2016). An Examination of the Ecological and Social Problems Caused by the Predominant Economic System and Possible Alternative Business Models for a More Sustainable and Equitable Future.
Tietenberg, T. H., & Lewis, L. (2016). Environmental and natural resource economics. Routledge.
Tricker, R. B., & Tricker, R. I. (2015). Corporate governance: Principles, policies, and practices. Oxford University Press, USA.
Valadkhani, A., Babacan, A., & Dabir-Alai, P. (2014). The impacts of rising energy prices on non-energy sectors in Australia. Economic Analysis and Policy, 44(4), 386-395.
Weingaertner, C., & Moberg, Å. (2014). Exploring social sustainability: learning from perspectives on urban development and companies and products. Sustainable Development, 22(2), 122-133.
Zhang, W., Feng, Z., Wang, X., & Niu, J. (2014). Elevated ozone negatively affects photosynthesis of current-year leaves but not previous-year leaves in evergreen Cyclobalanopsis glauca seedlings. Environmental Pollution, 184, 676-681.
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