Sustainable Business Management: Case Study of Patagonia

This report discusses sustainable business practices adopted by Patagonia, key sustainability challenges faced by the company, and waste hierarchy to deliver sustainability. The report highlights the importance of sustainable business management and the triple bottom line approach. It also discusses different sustainability issues faced by companies and how waste hierarchy can be applied to improve efficiency and resource utilization.

Sustainable Business
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
TASK...............................................................................................................................................3
Background of case of company and key sustainable challenges ..............................................3
Waste hierarchy to deliver sustainability in case company .......................................................5
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Sustainability can be described as meeting needs of present without making any
compromise to ability to meet to needs of future generation. It consist natural resource, economic
and social resources of a person (Buffa, Franch and Rizio, 2018). Sustainability in company is
not related to reducible environmentalism and consist different business practices which consist
impact of business on environment, consist and contribute towards development of positive
impacts on different areas. Waste hierarchy can be describe as priority of company for making
efficient use of different resources. It consist different stages like avoidance, resource recovery
and disposal. Avoidance is a stage that consist action that helps for reduction of among of waste
that can be regenerated by different household, industry and level of government. Resource
recovery can be describe as stage that consist action for reusing, reprocessing, recycling as well
as energy recovery consistency that assist for make use of recovered resources. It also consist
disposal that helps for management of different disposal operation in an environmentally
responsible manner. This project report aim at background of case of study of company along
with different sustainable challenges faced by them. It also consist waste hierarchy for delivering
of sustainability in case of company.
TASK
Background of case of company and key sustainable challenges
Case of company: Patagonia is an organisation which is an American company that was
established by Yvon Chouinard in the year 1973 in California. It is a company that markets as
well as sells outdoor clothing (Ch’ng, Cheah and Amran, 2021). This organisation is providing
its hundreds of stores in different countries which are presents across in 5 continent and also in
factories which are present in 16 countries. It is an organisation which adopting different
sustainability practices in their organisation. It is integrate core values, belief of different product
that is known for different innovation designs, environmental ingenuity as well as exceptional
quality.
Sustainable practices of company: Adoption of sustainability practices provide
significant impact over business. It helps them for all types of companies whether it is a small
organisation or multinational company. It allow companies for meeting present needs without
making any compromise with ability of future generation for meeting their needs. There are

different types of sustainability practices to be adopted by managers of Patagonia as it is
providing environmental products to their customers. Their clothes can be sustainable and can be
reused and recycles. It is adopting procedure for production of clothes which does not affect
environment.
Approach of sustainability: There are different approaches of sustainability in company
that can be adopted by Patagonia. Triple bottom line is a business concept which is adopted by
Patagonia that posit company to be commit for measuring their environmental and social impact
and also improve their financial performance instead of solely focusing on generating profit and
also standard bottom line (Dressler and Paunović, 2019). It consist mainly three P's like profit,
planet and people in which success of a company is depended on financial performance of a
person or profit that can be generated for shareholder of company. People is another components
in triple bottom line that focusing of societal impact of business and also its commitment towards
people. Planet is a component that consist development of positive impact of business over
planet.
Sustainability issues: There are different types of sustainable issues to be faced by companies
over their business. In order to be successful in market and also to get growth business managers
of Patagonia needs to identify these issues. These issues in context of company Patagonia is
mentioned below:
 Social Issues: Social sustainability can be described as understanding of impact of
corporation over people as well as society (Tura, Keränen and Patala, 2019). In a triple
bottom line approach, social sustainability is consider a least quantifiable part for purpose
of sustainability. There are different issues to be face by companies related to this like
equity issues, diversity issues, social cohesion and also create impact over quality of life
of people.
 Environmental issues: Environmental sustainability is one that focus on whether
environmental resources can be maintained and protection for purpose of future
generation (Khan and Naeem, 2018). There are different environmental issues occur like
long term health of ecosystem, renewable resources, intergenerational decision making,
prevent the consequences of man made global warming and others.
 Economic Issues: Economic sustainability issues can be described as practices that
provide support to long term economic development that assist for protecting different

cultural, environmental and social elements. There are different economic sustainability
issues to be faced by companies like government policy, current GDP of a country and its
national income.
Waste hierarchy to deliver sustainability in case company
Waste hierarchy pyramid can be described as set of priorities that are used for purpose of
efficient use of different resources and also helps for underpinning objectives of waste avoidance
and resources recovery (Singh, 2018). It consist different stages like avoidance, disposal and
resource recovery.
 First stage of it, is avoiding and reducing waste which encourage community,
government and industry for purpose of reduction of amount of virgin materials that are
extracted and used (Lüdeke-Freund and Dembek, 2017). Main goal of it is used for
purpose of maximizing efficiency and also for avoiding unnecessary consumption
through behavior.
 It is another stage which is related to resource recovery and also for maximizing options
for reusing it and recycling reprocessing and energy recovery. It helps for avoiding and
reducing waste and also preferred option to reusing its materials without further
processing and avoiding the cost of energy.
 It is last stage of this hierarchy which recognized different types of waste like hazardous
chemicals as well asbestos that cannot be safely recycled or direct treatment or disposal
to management options.
This approach can be applied to organization of Patagonia as they are using organic
cotton for purpose of production of their products and service and also ensuring recycling, and
reusing of their clothes in order to protect environment. It can be costlier affair for company but
still they are avoiding conventional cotton growing and staying with organic cotton. They are
also adopting different environmental friendly fibers for purpose of production of their products
and service like recycle polyester, chlorine free wool hemp, nylon and organic cotton. These
approaches helps company for improving their efficiency and also allow efficient use of
resources.

CONCLUSION
From above mentioned project report, it can be concluded that sustainable business
management is important for a business as it allow them to satisfy needs to customers without
masking any compromise with ability of meeting needs of future generation. It is an important
practices in business as it allow them for purpose of getting positive image in minds of
consumer. There are different issues occur in business related to suitability like social impact,
economic and environmental impact. There are also a triple bottom approaches for suitability to
be adopted by company in business. In order to overcome of these issues, company can adopt
waste hierarchy which is important in order to control impact of these issues. These approaches
is used by companies in order to improve their image and also to saves cost of company by
effectively utilising resources in company. It helps them to ensure minimum wastage of
resources in company.

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