Reflective Journal on Sustainable Business Practice

This reflective journal discusses the importance of sustainable business practices and the three pillars of sustainability: social, economic, and environmental. It also explores the different phases of sustainability and how companies like Siemens and Ford Motor are implementing sustainable practices. The author emphasizes the need for corporate ethics and responsibility towards the community and ecological regeneration.

Running head: BUSINESS, SOCIETY AND PLANET
Business, Society and Planet
Assessment 1: Reflective Journal- Sustainable Business Practice
Student’s Name:
Name of the university:
Author’s note:

1BUSINESS, SOCIETY AND PLANET
Business sustainability is the coordination and management of social, environmental and
financial concerns and demands to ensure the ethical, responsible and ongoing success. In our
class, we were taught about a goal of sustainability which requires time for Return on
Investment. The organisations make initial investment and sustainability lead to the increased
profitability. Sustainability has three pillars in a broader context which are social, economic and
environmental demands. Triple Bottom Line makes the business organisations assess the
organisational profits and which makes business to lead corporate sustainability solutions. Social
bottom line mainly takes account of business profits made through human capital (Elkington,
2013). I think that social sustainability can be increased through beneficial labour and fair work
culture. If the business organisations do not nurture good relations with the community; the
client based of the business may shrink. I always feel that a desirable workplace helps the
organisation to operate into the future and it may make workforce striving. In addition,
environmental sustainability is about measuring the smaller impact on the environment on fewer
natural resources. I worked as an apprentice in an organisation; where I noticed that controlling
the environmental bottom line means monitoring, managing and reporting about the
organisation's consumption of energy, managing waste and emission. As stated by Hussain,
Rigoni & Orji (2018), the sustainability committee communicates the sustainability solution as it
drives across the entire department. Finally, economic sustainability measures the impact of
business on the economic environment. I personally think that companies should contribute to
the economic environment as it makes aware of traditional profit of the organisation. We have
been taught Carroll's Sustainability Pyramid where I learnt about philanthropic, ethical, legal and
economic responsibilities of the organisation.

2BUSINESS, SOCIETY AND PLANET
When the businesses grow in complexity, the organisations feel pressure to communicate
results along with a strategy to a wider range of external stakeholders. Financial capital is
needed for the business and financial capital provides the traditional strength to the
organisations. Financial capital provides an opportunity for development and growth of the
organisation. The manufactured capital of an organisation is an integral part of the success of the
organisation. Manufactured capital is associated with the products, physical distribution
networks and services. When I was a part of an organisation; I used to check how the
organisations maintained the services delivery process to the customers. The organisations need
to analyse the returns and cost of the additional investment. The organisations need to maintain
the capital spending, operational efficiency, regard to energy and it is involved in the financial
review of the organisation. In addition, intellectual capitals are intangible assets as these are
associated with the patents, trademarks and brand equity of the organisations. For example,
Google made acquisition of Motorola and the Google used exclusively the patent of Motorola
which put a value to the selling of the products. As stated by Beatti & Smith (2013), ideas of
organisational strategies developed through intellectual capital can provide valuable insights into
the operations of the organisation. Employees are the human capital of an organisation as
employees are the most integrated and expensive assets of an organisation which present
opportunities. I read on the internet that advanced technology companies also depend on human
capital as the companies have to take care of the turnover, retaining and motivation of the
companies. Social and relational capital is also an intangible asset as brand equity can increase
the total asset, relationship with stakeholders and productions. Social and relational capital leads
to the growth of the companies (Benn, Edwards & Williams, 2014). Finally, natural capital is

3BUSINESS, SOCIETY AND PLANET
associated with the extractive industry like oil and gas sector or mining industry. Extraction of
the natural capital can lead to the disrupting business community.
Comprehensive sustainability discusses the developmental phase through which the
companies can check the progress towards the ecological and human sustainability (Dunphy,
Benn & Griffiths, 2006). Rejection is the first phase and it involves in the part that organisational
managers decide that all the resources like community infrastructure, employees and ecological
environment must be gathered by the organisations for the immediate profit and economic gain.
Non-responsiveness of the organisations comes from lack of ignorance rather than the active
opposition (De Visscher, 2016). The organisations must follow the corporate ethic which is
better than financial gain and I saw that organisations concentrate on business and it can ignore
the sustainability. Compliance mainly focuses on maintaining the minimum standards and the
management needs to reduce the risk of the meeting the organisational standards. Another phase
of sustainability is efficiency as it reflects the awareness among the managers gains the advantage
of sustainable practices. I think that these practices of sustainability can reduce the cost of the
organisation along with increasing the efficiency. As stated by Dunphy, Benn & Griffiths (2006),
strategic proactivity develops is utilised to stop emerging opportunities by improving the
competitive advantage of the organisation. British Petroleum started the campaign of Beyond
Petroleum to make itself a leader in the sustainable practices. BP makes the sustainable practices
as part of the organisational goal repositioning itself. Sustaining corporation mainly shows the
internalisation of active promotions and sustainability. Our supervisor discussed contributing to
being equitable, just and democratic and human fulfilment. I have researched on sustainability
and I found that emerging innovative firms are implementing the sustainability habits in their

4BUSINESS, SOCIETY AND PLANET
operations on daily basis. This process brings the stakeholders and sustainability can bring
reputational capital and contribute to the community and ecological regeneration.
Siemens, the German company is the most energy efficient company and it produces
more revenue per kilowatt used. Siemens scores high in every metric of the sustainability and the
carbon footprint is also low for Siemens. This organisation dedicates towards making
environment-friendly infrastructure with the products like green air conditioning and green
heating machine. I found on the internet that Ford Motor follows the best supply chain
management as Ford Motor started the amplified Partnership for A Cleaner Environment
(PACE) Programme. Heifer International is another famous firm which has given 20.7 million
families with training along with animals so that they can care and feed for themselves.

5BUSINESS, SOCIETY AND PLANET
Reference List
Beattie, V., & Smith, S. J. (2013). Value creation and business models: refocusing the
intellectual capital debate. The British Accounting Review, 45(4), 243-254.
Benn, S., Edwards, M., & Williams, T. (2014). Organizational change for corporate
sustainability. Abingdon: Routledge.
De Visscher, F. M. (2016). Financing Transitions: Managing capital and liquidity in the family
business. Berlin: Springer.
Dunphy, D., Benn, S., & Griffiths, A., (2006). Enabling change for corporate sustainability: An
integrated perspective. Australasian Journal of Environmental Management, 13(3), 156-
165.
Elkington, J. (2013). Enter the triple bottom line. The triple bottom line. Abingdon: Routledge.
Hussain, N., Rigoni, U. & Orij, R.P., (2018). Corporate governance and sustainability
performance: Analysis of triple bottom line performance. Journal of Business
Ethics, 149(2), 411-432.