Reflective Journal on Sustainable Business Practice

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