Analysing a Sustainable Business

Running head: ANALYSING A SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS
Assignment A – Analysing a Sustainable Business
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ANALYSING A SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS1
The “clean growth” strategy as adopted by the UK government is an approach towards
ensuring economic growth while also being able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This means
an increased environment and sustainability responsibility for UK businesses. They apart from
ensuring their financial growth will also be required to constantly monitor and reduce their
adverse environmental impact (Zailani et al. 2015). The purpose of this essay is to discuss and
understand a few terms related to business sustainability.
The Triple Bottom Line approach is about meeting the needs of each of the elements of
the TBL. A few companies seem like taking responsibility for one aspect of the TBL at the
expense of others (McWilliams et al. 2016). For example, if they have been responsible enough
for meeting their financial and human needs, they are not so good with controlling their negative
environmental impact. While there are few companies putting the systematic effort in all three
dimensions of the TBL, they are still in their growing stage. A more robust integration of TBL
happens when the organisational size is bigger (Joyce and Paquin 2016).
The Five Capitals consist of ‘Natural’, ‘Human’, ‘Social’, ‘Manufactured’ and
‘Financial’ (Crane and Matten 2016). This is like an expanded version of TBL. This should be
suitable for conducting "Clean Growth". Natural capital is related to using natural energy
resources, promoting climate regulation and recycling wastes. Natural resources are one of the
essentials of the clean growth approach. Human capital fosters knowledge, health and skills.
Without having these features in the companies it is pretty difficult to attain sustainability. Social
capital is about helping the community, working with trade unions and more. An effective
relationship with trade unions will help to avoid potential protesting campaigns. Manufactured
capital ensures selecting best in quality materials. Without using quality materials it is difficult

ANALYSING A SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS2
for businesses to practice clean growth. To attain sustainability it is important for the
organisations to manage financial capital assets sustainably (Crane and Matten 2016).
Natural Capitalism means the interdependency between the global economy, and
ecosystem services and natural resources. This means the global economy cannot reach to
sustainability if it is not being incorporated into natural resources (Evans et al. 2017).
Nevertheless, the clean growth strategy of the UK government requires businesses to use a
variety of resources such as natural resources.
Cradle to Cradle is very much applicable to the clean growth objective of the United
Kingdom. Cradle to Cradle means using wastes from one process to use it in another. In this
way, it helps to attain a state where nothing is wasted. Minimising wastes is one of the activities
involved in the clean growth approach (Toxopeus, De Koeijer and Meij 2015).
The Circular Economy is an alternative to the traditional linear economy. The circular
economy is about minimising wastes by the following make, use, reuse, remake and recycle
process (Geissdoerfer et al. 2017). The circular economy is being perceived to reduce the wastes
while not hampering the quality of life for the consumers. The model does not encourage to lose
the revenue and costs extra to the manufacturers. Instead, it is being perceived to provide a cost-
effective approach towards reducing the waste impact of a business (Geissdoerfer et al. 2017).
This is absolutely in line with the clean growth strategy as adopted by the United Kingdom
government.
The Balanced Scorecard is not directly related to the clean growth objective of the UK
government. The balanced scorecard is about identifying areas of improvement in regards to four
organisational processes and thereafter setting goals to facilitate improvement processes along