Sustainable Business: People, Profits, and Planet

Running head: SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS 1
Sustainable Business
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Sustainable Business
We are living in a competitive world of business and therefore, companies have to adjust
their way of operations to continue in existence. Managing the financial, environmental and
social risk and responsibilities are what entails business sustainability. The sustainability of
business involves three factors including people, profits, and the planet. One of the major
structures adopted by the contemporary businesses is the triple bottom line structure which is
meant to evaluate the income generated (Martinez-Alier et al., 2014). This technique requires
one to evaluate the profits that one’s business generates economically, socially as well as
environmentally other than concentrating on the old way of focusing on profits only. The triple
bottom line is a good way to evaluate the profit made and the sustainability of your business.
Social sustainability measures how the business income influences human capital. It
helps to understand how the business provides benefits to the city either through supporting local
activities or community health. The employees of the business should also be well informed in
terms of financial stability and health issues. The social bottom line helps to promote a good
working environment for the employees as well as goodwill from the community at large. Where
the business is not cultivating good relations with the community, the customers, and its
employees, it starts shrinking. The social bottom line assesses the long-term sustainability of the
business (Ortiz & Bansal, 2016). The social bottom line structure states that the corporate and
labor interests are interdependent. With a desirable workplace, employees under social bottom-
line structure will make every effort to be part of the business.
Environmental sustainability means observing, controlling and reporting to the
responsible authorities about business depletions, wastes, and the discharges. The business
environmental resources may include the water sources used, gases and renewable energy. If the

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business is less involved with negative environmental issues, it has a longer sustainability period.
The business ought to establish a sustainability committee meant to enable a smooth flow of the
business and intervening for viable solutions whenever sustainability issues arise. Such solution
should include recycling of the waste products to reduce pollution.
Measuring economic sustainability should entail checking the impact of the business on
the suppliers, employees and the community as a whole (Boons et al., 2013). A business that
focusses on empowering the economy is the one that will continue to excel in the future.
Business owners should evaluate whether the business promotes the local supplier for him to stay
in the market if it embraces innovation if employees are getting better salaries and if the
materials used are economically acceptable. By practicing the triple bottom line method, the
business is able to recognize its current place in the economy and understand its ability to be a
going concern (Savitz, 2013). However, none of the bottom lines can sustain a business on its
own.
There are several kinds of capital in a business. The most common form of capital is
finance. Finance may take the form of a debt or equity. Finance plays a vital role in the
operations of a business by meeting all financial obligations that are required. Sometimes
businesses acquire loans to fund their operations whenever they are financially constrained. be.
Skills, knowledge, health and experience are what comprises of human capital (Robb &
Robinson, 2014). Employees are the most important and incorporated assets of a business. High
costs are involved in hiring, placement, training as well as resigning of the workers. The period
during which new employees have to adapt to their job can have some effect to the production