Sustainable Business Strategies and CSR Approaches: Challenges and Solutions

This report discusses sustainable business strategies and CSR approaches, with examples from Business Waste, Luton and Biffa Waste Management, and Crawley St Albans. It covers approaches such as low input working, matching enterprise with land capabilities, integrated management, biodynamic system, and setting ethical standards. It also discusses challenges faced by businesses in fulfilling CSR responsibilities.

Business management
including strategy
plans and CSR
challenges

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Part 1................................................................................................................................................3
Sustainable approach to business strategy..................................................................................3
Approaches of Corporate social responsibility..........................................................................6
Part 2................................................................................................................................................9
Reflective report on key skills development ..............................................................................9
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................11
REFERNCES:................................................................................................................................12
Books and Journals:..................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
The report is going to present the areas of sustainable business strategies and by focusing
on ethics, morals and values. Ethics and sustainability is necessary for every business which
indicate what is right and wrong in a business working environment. Ethical responsibilities
ensure to provide beneficial value, healthy, safe and legal to protect the environment, people and
every creature of planet. Working sustainably increase the chances of business success due to
ensuring well-being of planet, people believes and their culture before formulating management
approach. Therefore, this report is going to discuss about the approaches in relation to strategic
planning and performing corporate social responsibilities (Mahajan, and Bose, 2018). Different
organisation indulge into different strategic planning and try to cope up with challenges forming
innovative strategies. So, it could be discuss through undertaking examples of three different
organisation i.e. Business waste, Luton and Biffa waste management and Crawley St Albans.
These three organisation are very well known for ascertaining business waste and responsible for
managing resources in a sustainable manner. These organisation provide support to business in
UK to enable waste free practices and promote sustainability towards environment and people.
MAIN BODY
Part 1
Sustainable approach to business strategy
Sustainability is one of the major concern of every business. It defines as operations
which produce value and ethicality into the work. It includes welfare of society and economy by
regulating business practices. Business organisation not only work for self profit maximisation
but need to look for the betterment of society and community. Businesses are the broader
concept of society that covers almost 80% of areas into the world, this shows that business has
great impact on society which could be positive or negative as it depends on how they work and
for whom they work. Therefore, sustainable management approaches are meant to provide
certain values regarding business responsibility and how they could be engage in others welfare.
Corporate responsibilities include keeping growth of market and environment in such a way that
provide long term value and existence (Breitbarth, Schaltegger, and Mahon, 2018). These
approaches include all the areas of social economical, environmental and legal areas of
development which operate control over organisation and its practices. It provides competitive

advantage into the market as people will believe and purchase with organisation who look for
society's growth. These operations include recycling, minimising waste, reduce carbon
consumption, save future resources, enable great supply chain, organic product development and
minimising footprints. A business strategy needs to adopt sustainable approach while making
strategies and plans for management. A sustainable business strategy must be look in following
manner:
Low input working: This approach is necessarily meant of reduction in cost. When
business acquire less input and resources into production it will automatically lead down to low
cost production and that will save the resources for future use and avoid wastage which would be
a loss for company as well as society. Business waste UK provide great services to the business
by giving expert advices to lowers down cost and waste solutions by putting low input into
production. as it is the major issue that faced by every organisation somehow. Also, the company
provide great support to collect wastage and dispose it to create recycling and re-usage by
charging a low cost for it. On the other hand, Biffa waste management provides similarly
services of collecting and reducing wastage but with more advanced technology and waste
treatment.
Matching enterprise with land capabilities: in the farming or manufacturing concerns,
organisations may face many issues about climatic conditions, land that are not suitable to
acquire resources in an effective way, inappropriate sewage lines and n connection to eliminate
m wastage from internal extractions. Therefore, business strategies must include an appropriate
decision before undertaking land for production of goods and services. Business management
and Cawleys are organisation provide support for sustainable operations (Sanclemente-Téllez,
2017). Therefore, in order to check the efficiency of land, these organisation significantly helps
to provide trustable solutions which will be beneficial for the companies to save time and
money.
Integrated management: It is another approach of sustainable business strategy. As
management is the vital function of organisation which includes all the planning, organisation
and monitoring over each department. Therefore, sustainable business practices also require
proper control so that, organisation will not cross their legal boundaries and all the work will be
carry out within the factor of society and environment. This process require control of production
accumulation to check inventory usage, waste management, procurement of resources and

carbon emissions. Controlling and creating balance between these activities are necessary to
ascertain effective business management that promotes great success and competitive advantage
into market. Biffa waste management provide services by taking contracts of sustainable
solutions, as large companies works on broader level which makes them unable to put focus on
environmental protection and creating strategical control over recycling and reusing. So that,
Biffa manage to put supervision by checking activities of production once in a weak and solving
waste and polluting issues to overcome with the challenges.
Biodynamic system: Under this system, a business could maintain sustainable operations
to support environment well being through which pollution, hazardous gases, animal
procurement would be minimised as these comes in ethical considerations of business conduct
to support animal, planet and people in an equal way (Murcia, Panwar, and Tarzijan, 2021).
Therefore, biodynamic system will formulate plans for Eco-friendly consumption and synthesize
working in an effective manner. Due to this the wildlife will also get protected and results in a
positive image of the companies working on large level.
Setting ethical standards: the organisation keeps appropriate standards that provide an
insight to employees about how to work and what will be right for the society and people. These
standards will conduct a flow of effective working due to which every industry works in set
rules and responsibilities and there will be lass chances for inappropriate work regulation. Ethics
are required to maintain in terms of customer satisfaction and promote culture. The organisations
such as Crawley, Business management and Biffa are all works on ethical standards to maintain
business confidentiality by not opening up any information of business and focus on working for
their betterment and not to provide harm to their existence.
Strategies for maintaining ethical culture: A businesses culture defines as business
structure, roles and responsibilities of employees, criteria of working and clear vision of attaining
goals and objectives. Therefore, ethical culture denotes about working in such a manner that
would not harm feeling and sentiments of any individual, promotes equity and affirmation,
provide support and create gap between right or wrong. These ethical strategies formulate a
sustainable operations in which employees are well about their roles for society and power
within organisation In organisation like Biffa, they have scattered across whole UK which carry
out operations and wastes management for the business. Every employee is acknowledge about
their duty to collect waste and the other will provide directions on how to get it recycle. There

will be no chaos by setting work standards as per person specialisation and every person get
treated equally.
It has evaluated that every organisation needs to use these sustainable approaches while
taking decisions for strategies in order to maintain ethical standards and promote sustainable
business growth.
Approaches of Corporate social responsibility
Corporate social responsibility is a kind of responsibility that a business holds towards
society and its people. By engaging into business which operates whether on large or small level
needs to fulfil their role in corporate sector to perform social and ethical performance during the
course of business actions (Sitnikov, and Bocean, 2017). The business require to develop
business practices in such manner that promotes to environmental friendly outcomes, create
welfare for others and look for society development. It is a kind of social work that
organisation perform by creating profits through selling goods and services. It creates a positive
impact on the image of organisation who perform social acts of kindness, humanity and provide
opportunities to the economy by giving employment, eliminate unfair practices, promotes a fair
working environment and serve society valuable product and service which does not harm the
environment and health of people. Creating awareness among people about right and wrong,
supporting social work events and donating is also considered in the acts of social corporate
responsibility. There are various practices that companies performs to reduce environmental
impurities such as launching renewable source to reduce carbon emissions, ascertain all the legal
for employees and labour welfare, promotes healthy production and supply chain. Basically, the
organisation need to be in favour of positive activities running in to society and do not support
any negative gestures to show their concerns and take action (Marquis, Yin,nd Yang, 2017).
There are various approaches of CSR that play important role for chosen organisations.
Classical: this approach is the most important aspect of CSR for any business. It defines
a traditional perspective to use companies resources and decision making with the participation
of stakeholders. These stakeholders are employees, investors, public, collaborators and
shareholders . Nothing must be done in an appropriate way which leads to any fraud or harmful
activities that ham the interest of shareholders. It is an act of social performed by Business waste,
Luton and Biffa waste management and Crawley St Albans these three organisation perform all
the acts sustainability as their business practices are in favour of societies growth ton look for

waste management and promote recycling and reuse through which shareholders remains
interested in their profits.
Social contract: Social responsibility is known as the act which business performs to
keep their public satisfied. As business works for society so they need to work as per the
expectation. Therefore, it is another approach for business to eventually perform act of kindness
and beneficial practices as their customers want satisfaction (Sarpong, 2017). Business waste
company mainly indulge in sustainable practices to enable profits through large business
organisation and reduce wastage form society. Whereas, Biffa waste management mainly works
for profit maximisation for which their business practices are sometimes lead to create harm for
society as they use giant mechanism to collect waste and found liquor on roads while transferring
it from one place to another.
Instrumental: This approaches states about the superior in corporate social
responsibility. As per this, CSR works as tool or technique in which stakeholders are the main
priority of company. Who must be satisfied with the working and decision of the company.
Biffa waste management satisfy their primary stakeholders that are business owners and
charitable trust and internal employee by ensuring every concern about heath and safety for
which company utilise technologies to gather wastes, plastics and recycle it in clean form.
Legitimacy: It is all about acquiring a positive image In the eyes of public in order to
start their operations by gaining trust and support of their customers (Palazzo, 2019). This could
be done through launching CSR campaigns, promotional events and take a step forward to
eliminate wrong acts from society through which people hold a believe over the organisation. In
context of Business waste Company, they provide dustbins and garbage packages through own
brands name also provide facilities to collect it which provide convenience to businesses. Also,
Crawley is working to not collect waste but giving a new life to the product which creates
utilisation of resources and results in positive response of public to take participation in making
environment clean.
Stakeholder: it is the last approach of CSR which put influence on fulfilling
stakeholders needs. Companies who promotes welfare of their employees, investors and
shareholders are found to be a great operator to market. It makes employees dedicated and attract
talented human workforce in the organisation. Biffa waste management is always putting their

employees first which is a great act of CSR. The Crawley and business waste are also putting
their employees first but their main targets are large companies to acquire great profits.
Therefore, all these approaches are significantly useful for the company to get access
over its stakeholders and promote CSR acts of responsibility. In order to attain effective
approaches of CSR, these companies needs to ascertain consumers as well as stakeholders
satisfaction.
The three companies works differently which make them vary into considering CSR approaches.
This could be understood by below mentioned classification:
CSR approach Business waste
company
Biffa waste
management company
Crawley
Classical The company ascertain
their prime
stakeholders and does
not work apart from
their interest.
This company works
beyond and on wide
level.
This company focus
on providing
satisfaction to both
stakeholders and
public in a sustainable
way.
Social contract It maintains social
contract as the
activities of recycling,
convenient service of
waste collection are a
need to society.
It does not work only
for society
satisfactions an focus
on profits which leads
to enable ineffective
sustainable business .
Crawley does not
mainly satisfy society
by minimising wastage
but provide recycling
facilities up to the best
concern.
Legitimacy The company has
great image into
market due to
reasonable price of
services and conduct
many social media
campaigns to make
environment clean.
The company has
attain greet value into
market by ensuring
technological
advancement that
makes operations
effective people could
take quick services in
The company does
not has much impact
on public as they face
challenges in
attracting audience due
to lack of promotional
activities and
promotional

no time. programmes.
Challenges of CSR:
There are various challenges faced by business in terms of fulfilling CSR responsibility. As it is
broader concept which require concentration and decision towards working for society. The
company need to ascertain all the challenges to sustain an effective growth into market and
keep a positive image in the eyes of customer. There are lost of challenges that all the three
companies needs to ascertain before making decisions regarding business strategy.
Lack of transparency: every individual who are connected with organisation require work
transparency which a major challenge faced by Business waste company. They require effective
way of manage business activity for understanding business practices
Neglection of business stakeholders: Organisation loose their pleasure form the main
stakeholders of company through which they could not expand business ad fulfil their aims of
great profitability.
Corporate culture: It is all about maintaining culture of ethics, moral and value into
organisation. A well mange cultural is a sign of effective profitability and unity within work
operations. Biffa waste and management company needs to maintain work culture to eliminate
chaos and every individuals must assign by specified roles and responsibility into the
organisation.
Part 2
Reflective report on key skills development
A business environment is a generous and complex in the dynamic world where trends,
customers taste gets change so often. Nowadays businesses require to get talented employees and
skilful workforce in order to achieve their long term goals and assure sustainability and
workplace ethics as a foremost priority of business. So that, in my personal experience which I
gained throughout the assessment is that an employee is the major care taker of organisation
existence and enable profit maximisation. Therefore these employability skills are the most
common which every organisation looks into an individual. The assessment has developed many
skills within me and provide an insight about the significance of those skills to be a great and

valuable employee for an organisation. Therefore, I have developed a set of skills such as
communication, presentation and ICT knowledge to present my thought and ideas in a clear
manner. These skills are necessary to work in any organisation as communication provides an
opportunities to communication with clients, business people to formulate strategies, analyse
what customer wants. So that, communication is the key skill which create a lot of importunities
in modern workplace. An effective speaker will lead to eliminate confusion from the working of
company whereas, ineffective communicator will create misunderstanding that will lead to
procrastination. Apart from this, problem solving skills are also must to acquire as in the modern
workplace, uncertainties, issues and risks are everywhere. An effective employees will solve
business problem and promote effectiveness of company. I developed this skills while working
into group of my friends to work on the assessment. There were several problems which we had
faced to analyse challenges and issues of the organisation but I try to get them all out of problem
through being patience and polite with my co-workers. I analyse that being calm will give useful
thoughts rather than working into pressure. I somehow managed to reduce complication form the
project by going through each and every topic. Therefore, problem solving skills will develop an
opportunity for me to become a leader into the organisation as I could handle people by
identifying their culture and behaviours of thinking which is a positive factor in me. These
skills will be beneficial into the future to be provide a great contribution of my skills within the
organisation. In addition to this, I haven acknowledges team building is necessary to complete a
task on time with unity. It developed coordination that boost area of creativeness and decide to
work in simpler manner. There is need to set goals to maintain coordination into groups by
increasing communication among peers to analyse issues or problems they face while doing a
project(Jamali, Samara, and Hossary, 2019). These issue will be solved with proper problem,
solving skills to get into the fact and analyse the cause from the roots so that, the team member
will not face the same into nearby future. Along with this, I also sense the need of regulating
thoughts freely as sometimes team members get unconfident to present their own ideas and this
create lack of communication amongst all. This in not effective to remain in confusion as it gets
converts into misunderstanding. Therefore, it is required to develop more accurate
communication power to bind them all together for smooth flow of working. In addition to this,
the skill which I found to be the most effective is technical and IT knowledge about software's
and computer system to keep records, provide presentation and create content in files. All these

skills are highly necessary in order to work into an organisation as business wants quick and
smart working In the era of technological advancement. So that, I developed these technical
skills thorough delivering projects in Ms-words, creating presentation to provide trainings in a
better way but also, I need to keep a catch on Ms- Outlook and other Microsoft programmes.
These skills are necessary to keep the data simple and for long time as they provide various
function and tools which is necessary at practical workplace. Therefore, I developed some of
IT knowledge which would help me in being a successful employee. I feel pleasure to carry out
the assessment as it will be beneficial for me to achieve my career goal (Yang, Liu, and Wang,
2020). I found it interesting as it provided experience of learning, educating, training and leading
to others. It is combination of all the skill set which is necessary for me to look forwards for a
better future. In order to gain a potential in the marketplace, organisation only look for skilful
employees who are indulge with great communication, IT and problem solving. My overall
experience was great as it provides me opportunities to learn new skills and provide me better
understanding of others behaviour and the role of specialisation which must be acquire before
judging others work. It is critical appraise that I developed problem solving skills in more
effective manner out of all due to having soft skills and patience behaviour which is my strength
to cope up with uncertainties and complex business situation. I need to more focus on IT skills
as it require more practices an expertise knowledge.
CONCLUSION
The report has concluded the significance of business strategy in the light of sustainability and
corporate social responsibility. These both terms are necessary for organisation to maintain in
order to undertake long term success and gain public trust. Therefore, it is required to operate
within the set rules of ethics and culture and provide social welfare which gives positive well-
being to both organisation and its customers. The report has also presented many challenges of
CSR that must be solve by keep focusing on societies expectation. Also, there is personal
experience on various skills must have to be a great employee.

REFERNCES:
Books and Journals:
Mahajan, R. and Bose, M., 2018. Business sustainability: Exploring the meaning and
significance. IMI Konnect, 7(2), pp.8-13.
Breitbarth, T., Schaltegger, S. and Mahon, J., 2018. The business case for sustainability in
retrospect: AS candinavian institutionalism perspective on the role of expert
conferences in shaping the emerging “CSR and corporate sustainability space”. Journal
of Public Affairs, 18(3), p.e1855.
Sanclemente-Téllez, J.C., 2017. Marketing and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Moving
between broadening the concept of marketing and social factors as a marketing
strategy. Spanish journal of marketing-ESIC, 21, pp.4-25.
Murcia, M.J., Panwar, R. and Tarzijan, J., 2021. Socially responsible firms outsource
less. Business & Society, 60(6), pp.1507-1545.
Sitnikov, C. and Bocean, C., 2017. Relationships between corporate social responsibility and
strategic planning. In Stages of Corporate Social Responsibility (pp. 121-137).
Springer, Cham.
Marquis, C., Yin, J. and Yang, D., 2017. State-mediated globalization processes and the adoption
of corporate social responsibility reporting in China. Management and Organization
Review, 13(1), pp.167-191.
Sarpong, S., 2017. Corporate social responsibility in Ghana: Issues and concerns. In Corporate
social responsibility in times of crisis (pp. 191-205). Springer, Cham.
Palazzo, M. ed., 2019. Linking Cultural Dimensions and CSR Communication: Emerging
Research and Opportunities: Emerging Research and Opportunities. IGI Global.
Jamali, D., Samara, G. and Hossary, M., 2019. Corporate social responsibility and development:
the case of international business firms in emerging economies. In Business and
Development Studies (pp. 286-309). Routledge.
Yang, A., Liu, W. and Wang, R., 2020. Cross‐sector alliances in the global refugee crisis: An
institutional theory approach. Business Ethics: A European Review, 29(3), pp.646-660.