THE SUSTAINABLE CORPORATIONS

Running head: SUSTAINABLE CORPORATIONS
Sustainable Corporations
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SUSTAINABLE CORPORATIONS1
Table of Contents
1. Introduction............................................................................................................................2
2. Discussion..............................................................................................................................3
Six characteristics of sustaining corporation and Alibaba.....................................................3
a) A new social contract..................................................................................................3
b) Human sustainability...................................................................................................3
c) Ecological sustainability..............................................................................................4
d) Reinventing the business models.................................................................................5
e) Purposive and value-based action...............................................................................6
f) Building strategy into culture......................................................................................7
3. Conclusion..............................................................................................................................7
4. References:.............................................................................................................................9

SUSTAINABLE CORPORATIONS2
1. Introduction
The concept of sustainability in businesses has achieved a wider recognition by
majority of the modern corporations. Today, near about every business operations are
conducted under the guidance of sustainability, which means- “satisfying your own needs
without compromising the chances of future generations” (Lorek and Spangenberg 2014).
However, it is also to mention that the concept of sustainability has also imposed some set of
new problems for the business activities. Any business that expects to gain long-term benefits
need to be responsible for ecosystems and environment and must operate in ethical manner.
In the modern sustainable era, more and more number of organisations are realising the
vitality of environmental practices and policies towards sustainability with an objective of
reducing their footprints on the environment. These organisations are known to be as
sustainable organisations. According to Zink (2014), sustainable organisations are the ones
that operate without avoiding its own as well as environmental, economic and societal well-
being now and in the future. Alibaba is one of such organisations that believe in acting and
operating in socially responsible manner. It is to note that founded in the year 1999, Alibaba
is the largest multinational conglomerate holding company of China and since its foundation,
the company has been committed towards the participation and support in socially
responsible and charitable projects that are aligned with its core mission and values. It is
specialised in technology, retail, e-commerce and internet. Its mission is “to make it easy to
do business anywhere” (Micklethwait and Dimond 2017). This paper shall elaborate on
identifying and discussing on the sustainability characteristics, with special emphasis on
Alibaba Group in order to assess whether it could be described as a sustaining corporation.
The paper shall place a special focus on the characteristics of a sustaining corporation
identified by Benn, Edwards and Williams (2018) and the United Nations (UN).

SUSTAINABLE CORPORATIONS3
2. Discussion
Six characteristics of sustaining corporation and Alibaba
a) A new social contract
The term “social” is all about people. Alibaba take into consideration the talented people
who work for it and the people in the society whom the company serves. The company is
driven by its core values and passion to make use of its technology for solving the problems
of the society. Its new social contract is based on the involvement of several stakeholders and
is also inspired by the complicatedness of the common pool issues. It is an institution of
public trust. Its stakeholders include the local and international governments where the
company operates, its customers, employees, investors, suppliers and the local communities
(Benn et al. 2018). The company believes in committing to the social causes at every levels.
It has its CSR agenda that takes the shape of a triangle borderland- the one that is resolute by
the domain of operation of the company, the requirements leading from the social
expectations and national constraints and lastly, the way in which these expectations and
constraints are translated into norms, policies, codes and standards of different types. It is
also to mention that feedback is very important for the company in order to build on the
policy based and principle based code of ethics.
b) Human sustainability
It is to mention that human sustainability is one of the many categories of sustainability
that involves some specific strategies, goals and methods that are implemented for conserving
and enhancing the quality of human life (Kramar 2014). The environmental, sociological and
the resource based factors aid to the category of human sustainability. It is to note that the
company is very serious regarding the decrease of carbon footprint and applying innovation
to the environmental sustainability issues. It provides day to day services to thousands of