Sustainability in Business Practices

This assignment requires a critical review of scholarly journal articles focusing on the topic of sustainability in business practices. The provided list comprises 21 research papers covering diverse facets of corporate sustainability, such as workshop design for professional development, integrating sustainability into business school curricula, establishing trade-offs in performance measurement systems, and the role of corporate social responsibility. The review should delve into the key themes, methodologies, and findings presented in these articles, offering a comprehensive understanding of current scholarly discourse on sustainable business practices.

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Business: Sustainable Business Practices Report for Kmart Corporation Company
Name
Institution

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Executive summary
With the increase in global business activities business has become competitive and
shifted their focus on the economic bottom line of the business in making profits or achieving
business growth. However, there has been an increasing need to develop business sustainable
development strategies by most business organizations. Sustainable development through
sustainable business practices should be a core principle in all government policies in any given
country. Many nations and in particular New Zealand have been advocating becoming truly
sustainable in their business practices. Sustainable business practices imply that business
organizations should participate in environmentally friendly or green activities so that the
organizational processes, products, and their manufacturing activities adequately address the
current environmental concerns.
The fight for sustainable business practices or sustainability literature in New Zealand
dates back to a report developed by the World Commission on environment and development in
1985 which was commonly referred to as New Zealand Common future and this report was seen
to be the impetus for the sustainability movement. Since the development of that report
businesses has made a great milestone of playing an active role in the business community to
advance the sustainability agenda. The idea behind the success has been the fact that for a
business enterprise to become sustainable then it means that the business has to become more
than an economic bottom line business but rather to adopt a triple bottom line of economic,
social/cultural and environmental performance. And therefore this means that sustainable
business practices make good economic sense as compared to those who are only concerned with
business growth alone. Such engagements for businesses to adopt sustainable business practices

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had been due to the criticisms of the ability of businesses to contribute to sustainability goals in
the modern corporate world because of their continued focus on growth and economic bottom
line business practices. Therefore it holds that sustainability goals will not be successful unless
business organizations with their resources and global impact are integrated into sustainable
practices.
Introduction
An organization sustainable business development usually involves the application of
sustainability principles to a company or organization business operations. A sustainable
business, therefore, is any company or organization that participates in environmentally friendly
or green activities with the aim of ensuring that all the business processes, products, and
manufacturing activities adequately address the current environmental concerns (Goralski &
Luoma, 2016). Sustainability in most cases can be seen in three different categories including
ecological sustainability, social sustainability, and sustained economic growth. Sustainable
business movements have been developed as a major component of the broader movement
towards greater corporate social responsibility. Eco-efficiency is a term used in understanding
sustainability in business organizations and has been used to describe an organizational goal with
respect to the environment. This concept of eco-efficiency is therefore achieved by companies or
organizations by delivery of competitively priced goods and services that satisfy human needs
and bring quality of life while on the other hand reducing the possible ecological impacts and
resource intensity through the business life cycle to make them become in line with the earth
estimated carrying capacity (Painter-Morland et al. 2016). This report, therefore, seeks to provide
an understanding of the overview of Kmart Corporation Company in New Zealand in terms of its

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sustainability practices and the available sustainability concepts and models in the current
corporate world.
Overview of the Kmart Corporation Company
The Kmart Corporation Company has been largely recognized as the best shopping
company in New Zealand. The company was established in 1899 as a joint venture between G.J
Coles and S.S. Kresge Company and runs over 240 grocery and shopping stores across the
Australia and 20 stores in New Zealand. The company has been striving towards sustainable
operations an idea that has formed a big part of the organization thinking ((Schuler et al. 2017).
The company has a nationwide network of supermarkets, four distribution centers, three
processing plants and to support offices and therefore the goal of the company towards
sustainability has been reducing environmental impact during the process of business growth and
this initiative has meant concerted efforts across all areas of the business. The company
introduced more energy by reducing electricity consumption and green house emission and aims
to increase this effort to see a 30 percent reduction by the year 2020. The company has therefore
won the 2015 Energy Star Partner Award of the year for their work in increasing energy
efficiency and reducing carbon emissions (Farias & Farias, 2016). However, the company has
great opportunities for even improving their business sustainability and achieves business growth
as well.
Kmart Corporation Company Sustainable Practices
Increase in Energy savings and Carbon Emission goal

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One of the sustainable practices that the company has been practicing has been through
the Carbon emission reduction and energy savings goal. The Energy Star Awardin which the
company won in 2015 or was recognized for seeks to recognize the outstanding contributions
made by various individuals, organizations, businesses and communities to protect and enhance
New Zealand environment (Kortmann & Piller, 2016). The company was therefore awarded due
to its efforts in reducing carbon emissions despite the increase in the company production
activities as well as sales. This reduction as mentioned earlier was achieved through an energy
management focus to drive operational excellence the introduction of energy efficient systems in
the market. This move has seen the company work towards increased resource productivity. This
refers to getting more goods or services from less material or energy or energy. The company
had been relying on the traditional green business of recycling and waste management. The
method of increased resource productivity helps the company save money because the less the
energy and materials used, the lower their operating cost (Nambiar & Chitty, 2014).
Waste reduction, diversion and management
Waste from the company business operations can be problematic in several ways. In most
cases, waste disposal has been said to be very costly to the business while some of the waste
materials are hazardous if an industrial process is wasteful by extension it also means that the
company input costs will equally be high (Pryshlakivsky & Searcy, 2017). The company has
therefore committed itself to a waste diversion goal of 75 percent. It has also established
remanufacturing strategy in which the remanufacturing is said to be the process whereby several
businesses are using the technique to reduce waste management and obtain more productivity
from what they produce. Therefore waste reduction in the company through efficient material

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use and waste management has helped the company or their business practices become more
sustainable (Sacco et al. 2014).
Recycling waste materials or products
Recycling has been one of the outstanding sustainability practices conducted by Kmart
Corporation Company. The company has been recycling a variety of material used throughout
the company operations (Herremans et al. 2016). The company recycling cardboard as well as
their plastic wrap has increased over the years by 4 percent to around 152 000 tonnes of wastes
which shows that the company recycling tonnage is currently at 26 percent as provided in a
report of 2015 by the company and has also developed. The company is also developing more
sustainable and suitable packaging options for their products. Due to this fact, the company in
2015 introduced new recyclable plastic containers which can be used by their shoppers in all
their stores (Yadava & Sinha, 2016). The developed packaging trays are made from food-grade
recycled PET commonly referred to as RPET (recycled polyethylene terephthalate). Therefore
the company’s continued efforts to improve its recycling capacity have led to the development of
sustainable business by the company.
Reduction in use of plastic bags
Plastic bags have been one of the most pollutants of the environment and have been
hindering the development of sustainable business practices. Kmart Corporation Company has
therefore developed a strong stack record on taking action on plastic in a way that works for the

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company customers and also minimize the impact on the environment (Rego et al. 2017). The
company through the corporate responsibility and sustainability report has increased its efforts
by continuously working towards social and environmental sustainability by encouraging their
customers to reduce the use of plastic bags by bringing their own reusable bags or purchasing
reusable bags in the company store. The company has reported an increase of 130 percent on the
sale of reusable bags which shows that their customers are choosing to use less plastic bags. The
company has also developed some soft plastic recycling bags which are available in 130 of the
company 184 stores in New Zealand.
The implementation of ISO 14001 By Kmart Corporation Company
The management of the company has decided to implement ISO standards in their bid to
improve on their business sustainability practices. ISO 14001 are the internationally standards
that have been set and agreed upon as requirements for an effective environmental management
system(Rajput & Jhawar, 2015). These standards are designed to help improve the organizational
environmental sustainable practices or management through facilitating a more efficient use of
resources and waste reduction which enables the organizations to gain a competitive advantage
over her competitors and gain the trust of their stakeholders. The ISO 14001 standards are
considered to be suitable for all organizations and require the organization to consider all
environmental issues relevant to its operations.
Kmart Corporation Company had been engaging in sustainability mechanisms which were not
certified such as through their company recycling policies and waste management policies.
These were only instituted company policies and were not in accordance with the international
sustainability and environmental management standards(Haffar & Searcy, 2017. The company

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practices of carbon reduction efforts as well energy consumption reduction mechanisms as well
the most effective company sustainable practice of waste diversion all were certified and
therefore the practices could not be measured and compared with other those of other
international companies in which they could have helped the company gain a competitive
advantage and even receive more awards. Therefore the practices of waste management,
reduction of carbon emission as well as the energy consumption were great ideas of business
sustainability however they were against the standards of the ISO 14001 as the practices were
not certified and had no basis or standards of measurements which could have been used to
determine the organization compliance with the current statutory and regulatory requirements
(Sacco et al., 2014).
Suitable practices based on models of sustainability
Transition to renewable energy by the company
One of the greatest and most hazardous elements of environmental degradation is the
emission of carbon from fossil fuel. The effects don not only affect the business growth but also
bear significant impact on the environment and the people living in it (Bradshaw & Zwick,
2016). Therefore there has been a growing need for businesses in the modern corporate world to
transition to the use of renewable energy due to the inability of the current energy supply to meet
the increasing business demands and also due to the fact that the world has begun to experience
the end of the fossil fuel era. Many businesses including the Kmart Corporation Company can
respond to this effect by reducing their dependence on fossil fuel and increased the use of solar

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energy, wind and any other renewable source of energy that will be environmentally conscious
and friendly.
The extended producer responsibility sustainability initiative
There have been profound changes in the corporate world and our case study company
has not been left behind on how businesses provide goods and services through the current
extension of the producer responsibility beyond the sale of the product (Marques, 2017). This has
helped the company improve on their product production decisions as they look into the future
impact of the manufactured product. The extended producer responsibility has helped the
company therefore to become much more interested in the design of their goods because once
the useful life of the good is over, the goods come back to the producer and therefore increases
the producer interest in designing goods that are either biodegradable or recyclable and hence
promote sustainability and business growth. This has influenced the company in designing
special packaging trays for certain products which then come back and are recycled for other
uses in the company and has resulted in improved waste management and business sustainability
(Borland et al. 2016).
Accountability for the environment
Business organizations and companies are been called to be accountable for their
practices towards the environment. This is because sustainable business development is one
aspect of the growing interest in the corporate social responsibility (Rajput & Jhawar, 2015). The
company can, therefore, develop its unique triple bottom line or supplementary environmental
report formats which includes or covers the financial, environmental and social performance of a

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business. Such reporting framework help in environmental and sustainability assessment of a
business and therefore it establishes important explicit standards of performance measurements
which can be through a single business entity or through an agreement with different businesses
to use specific standards in measuring business sustainability. However future actions are needed
to attain sustainable business development in the company towards a sustainable economy
(Shank &Shockey, 2016). The company has however obtained green certification through
engaging in green programs which aim at creating sustainable businesses and platforms for
economic growth. The green certification is an important step in moving to a more sustainable
economy. However vigorous standards are needed with respect to sustainable ecological scale.
The certification standards need to become the culture or the norm of the company either through
the established legislation or through a social or market incentives.
Maori perspective of sustainability
The Maori perspective is a myth used to explain the relationship between people and their
surrounding environments. The ideology behind his school of thought is that environmental
resources should be conserved as they act as gifts or treasures for the current and future
generations (Yang & Lin, (2014). He argues that it is important for the Maori leaders of
tomorrow to be aware of their unique relationships with the environment and of the ways in
which the long-term sustainability of the environment, society, the economy as well as cultural
values. In his perspective the conservation and protection which is a culturally sustainable
management mechanism he argues that conserving and protecting the natural environment
promotes community awareness of inherent values within the environment. He is also of the
view that everything in the world is connected to sea, land, and air whereby the relationships

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between people and the environment are all part of this larger whole and argues that a healthy
environment equally translates to a healthy people (Thomas, 2016).
In an example, mauri provides that a positive relationship between humans and a river
would be evidenced by human land management practices that enable the river to maintain and
enhance its mauri which would result in its life generating capacities being maintained
(Goralski&Luoma, 2016). The mauri people are also maintained through the provision of food
and other resources to the humans from the river. Through maintaining the mauri the river, the
mana and dignity of the river are seen to be maintained as well as that of the people. Such
analogy of perspective is therefore very important to understanding the relationship between the
environment, business activities and even human and therefore the relationship existing between
the people and the environment is ensuring sustainability of business practices (Frauman, 2017).
The company can, therefore, imply this perspective with the understanding that when one goal
either of sustainable environment it translates to equal goals in the growth of the business.
Critical analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the sustainable
practices used by Kmart Corporation
Strengths- the use of the carbon foot goal strategy of ensuring sustainable business
practices ensures that the company can control all the carbon emissions from the business and
therefore promotes the growth of a carbon-free environment which improves not only the
economic life but the social lives of people. The reduction in the use of plastic bags helps in
maintaining a conducive environment and provides a platform for innovation for the company to
come up with reusable bags (Frauman, 2017). The reusable bags help in reducing costs to
consumers of certain products and helps the businesses generate more revenue through sales

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hence growth. Through waste management, the company can reduce costs due to
remanufacturing of products as the output of one process can be used as material in another
process. When the company also transitions to use of renewable energy the company can reduce
the effects of fossil fuel to the environment which are hazardous to human life.
Weaknesses – the sustainability practices adopted by the company, however, have major
weaknesses in that the implementation of the carbon emission reduction goal as well as the
production of reusable bags and transitioning to use of renewable energy may bring additional
cost effects to the company. This will, in turn, affect the financial growth of the company yet for
sustainability in business practices the company should make sure that the triple bottom line of
the business is achieved which seeks to address the financial, environmental and social
sustainability.
Opportunities- the development of sustainability initiatives in the company presents
more opportunities for business growth through improved business social responsibility which
improves the business corporate image. It also provides the company to become more innovative
in coming up with sustainability mechanisms such as the development of the reusable bags or the
soft plastic bags which are used for packaging some products like the summer fruits such
innovations help the company to grow in terms of being a problem solver through the provision
of effective solutions. The opportunities open up the business and therefore create an avenue for
business growth.
Threats – the company strives to achieve sustainability in its operations may also
encounter threats resulting from different bodies in the society. Some of these threats may
include the government legislation rules and taxes governing the environmental policies. There

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may be a restriction on development of soft plastic bags by the government or even total ban of
the use fossil fuel which the company is still using and therefore may encounter the risk of
adopting renewable energy which may increase their financial costs. Transition to renewable
sources due to the increasing demand and the shortage of supply of the renewable sources of may
affect the growth strategy of the company as well as its ability to meet the demands and
expectations of their customers.
Recommendations
The Kmart Corporation Company has been doing great in the development of sustainable
business practices. However, other than the usual tradition green practices of recycling and waste
management through waste diversion it should seek to develop other mechanisms which will
help the company achieve its objective been truly sustainable (Cranmer, 2015). The
recommended initiatives include the discussed suitable sustainability practices such as the
transition to renewable energy in their production and operational activities, it is also important
to extend the company producer responsibility, adopt the being green buy green strategy as well
as being accountable to the environment. These together with the existing strategies and
initiatives can help the company achieve its sustainability goals.
Conclusion
The development of business sustainability is therefore very important in ensuring that
the business growth and meets it’s environmental as well as social obligations. The growth
motive where business would only focus on their profitability is outdated and the in the modern

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corporate world where competition has become the order of the day businesses need to develop
effective sustainable practices to create that unique feature of the business that will help them
retain their customers and grow confident with their stakeholders (Zeidan et al. 2015).
Businesses, however, need to get over the traditional sustainability practices of recycling and
waste management to more innovative practices which will bring value creation to the company
as well to their clients and the society at large (Haffar& Searcy, 2017). It is therefore important
or the business organizations to make sustainable development as their key policies in their
organizations and lay down an effective framework to implement the strategies and initiatives.
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