Examining Sustainable Business: Strategic Roles, Ethics, and Dilemmas

This report provides an in-depth analysis of sustainable business practices, focusing on the roles and responsibilities of strategic managers like Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher in promoting sustainability. It covers key concepts and tools such as the Objectives and Key Results (OKR) framework and the Triple Bottom Line, which are essential for addressing sustainability challenges. The report also examines the economic and ethical dilemmas that strategic leaders face when balancing short-term and long-term goals, including issues related to cash flow, globalization, honesty, and ensuring justice within the organization. Ultimately, the report emphasizes the importance of integrating environmental factors and sustainable measures into business strategies to ensure long-term success and social responsibility.

Building sustainable
business analysis

Table of Content.
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
TASK1. Critically assess the roles and responsibilities of Christoph Gebald and Jan
Wurbacher as sustainable strategic managers. Cover the concepts and tools of strategic
business management which are applicable to problems of the sustainability............................1
TASK2. Discuss the economic and ethical dilemma which strategic leaders face in the process
of balancing long or short-term goals. ........................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Sustainable organisation is an organisational concept which aim is to adapt the
sustainable criteria and promotion action in order to achieve the sustainable goal. The sustainable
organisation ensure the growth in slow process but the growth are genuine as well as holistic.
The sustainable organisation not only promote corporate social responsibility and environment
but it also includes the other things as well like risk management, energy efficiency, social
development, employee protection and much more. In order to achieve the sustainability in the
organisation the company have to identifying certain factors which could impact the growth or
plan of the organisation. The company should have to integrate the sustainable plan to their
existing role and leaders as it should not include in new structured. This report study examination
is basically based on an entrepreneurial venture which was started by Christoph Gebald and Jan
Wurzbacher. It will assist in analysing the concept of sustainable organisation, their key roles as
well as the responsibilities of a leaders to focus sustainability and the tools. Their concept is used
to counter the problems of the sustainability. This report examination also highlighted the
dilemmas which is faced by the strategic managers in sustainability process.
MAIN BODY
TASK1. Critically assess the roles and responsibilities of Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurbacher
as sustainable strategic managers. Cover the concepts and tools of strategic business
management which are applicable to problems of the sustainability.
The sustainability is the vital components of any business organisation as it enhance
awareness, ideologies within the people of the organisation. The firm attain sustainability by
begin the development with strategic management level. As the sustainability strategic
management level may includes formulation, implementation as well as the analysis of strategic
business which are responsible socially, economically competitive as well as ensuring the
balance of natural cycle. The strategic management is not only a strategic plan for firm but it
includes the total sum of organisation's capabilities, plan or goals, resources as well as the
measures of leading results. The research may conclude that the firm which implement proper
strategic management plan into the practice had enhance their performance in comparison to
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other organisation who did not applied proper strategic management plan (Zolfaghari and et.al.,
2022).
A proper strategic management may provides:
 a clear or transparent direction for the firm
 main focus is on strategically important factors.
 An effective interpretation of rapidly changing environment.
The sustainability may become the main critical part of an organisation. The strategic manager
plays a very crucial part in order to achieve the sustainability objectives, the roles as well as the
responsibility. In their entrepreneurial venture the Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher were
acting as sustainable strategic manager. Through which they analyse that their product contain
carbon dioxide from the earth's atmosphere. By 2025 their vision is to reduced to remove 1% of
carbon emission from earth atmosphere. They are promoting the awareness towards the
environment and also highlighting the consequences of carbon dioxide emission on the earth
atmosphere (Gandhi and Raina., 2018). The main important role and responsibilities of
Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher may includes:
 Formulating strategies- the strategic managers of the organisation may need to create
some strategic in order to accomplish firm sustainability objectives. The formulating
strategic plan may includes data analysis, site visiting, creating objectives and many
more. The formulating strategies may also includes research of energy efficient or
advanced technologies to ease production or productivity (Koytsoumpa, Bergins and
Kakaras., 2018).
 Ensuring good health of employee and people living nearby- Christoph Gebald and Jan
Wurzbacher were targeting on the adoption of sustainability measures in order to capture
the carbon dioxide in their industrial process. This emit pollutants and can harm the
employees or the nearby living people. Therefore, the strategic managers duty is to
ensure the safety and health of people who are working within the organisation or who
are living very nearly.
 Creating Awareness- in order to practice the sustainability in an organisation, it is
important for the stakeholders to aware about the surrounding in both perspective like
positive or negative. It is also important to aware about the consequences of the
organisation production process within the environment. Hence, it is the responsibility of
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the strategic managers to operate as a point of contact for all sustainability related
questions (Secundo, Massaro, Dumay and Bagnoli., 2018).
In order to combat the problem of sustainability the sustainability strategic manager can apply
some tools and some concept which are discussed below:
Objectives and key results framework-
In 1970s, this framework was first introduced by Andy Grove but highlighted and
popularized by the efforts of John Doerr. This framework may follows some goal-setting
methodology in order to set ambition and challenging goal. This framework may assist Christoph
Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher to set or follow the measurable goals and objectives. The framework
may act as a bridge and pairs of the objectives in order to achieve the output which can be used
to measure the progress. The main components of the objectives and key results framework may
includes:
 OKR formula: the OKR objectives are at the top and there results are below it. It can be
written in specified formula. It can be written as “ I will (objectives) evaluated by ( key
results).
 Objectives- these are the goals which an organisation want to achieve for future in no
more or not less.
 Key results- these are the measures and output which can be measured in order to assess
the progress of an organisation towards the goal and objectives.
The OKR frameworks may includes the number of rules or set of orders that assist the employees
to prioritize or line up the efforts and measuring outcome. The OKR are mainly formulated by
leadership and are not linked with the remuneration or performance reviews. Hence, this
frameworks assist the business to design the objectives or goal-setting. Later this frameworks
may focus on achieving the desired outputs over the firm operation course (Jia and et.al., 2020).
Triple Bottom Line
The Triple Bottom Line is the prime system which can be used by the sustainable
strategic manager in order to evaluate the profits from which the organisation is making through
the corporations of sustainability solutions. The sustainable business strategy goal is to impact
the environment, economy and society in a optimistic manner. As this methods may measure the
profits which an organisation makes through economically, socially as well as environmentally.
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As by applying the Triple Bottom Line method, an organisation can identified their position
within the current economy and scope of the future survival. As this can be measured by
measuring the ability to the business for a very long time, based on the environmental impact,
relationship with the community as well as the contribution towards the economy.
Basically there are three components of Triple Bottom Line techniques:
 Social Sustainability(people)- this includes the organisation profit within the human
culture and the position of business in local society. It provide fair remuneration to the
employees, maintaining desirable workplace and work culture, ensuring fair hiring
processes as well as promoting volunteer at the workplace environment to serve the
society. Securing partnerships with non-profit organisation and promoting the corporate
social responsibilities activities can help the organisation to achieving the social goals
(Singh and El-Kassar., 2019).
 Environmental Sustainability(planet)- the economic capital of a company should have to
assessed from the impact to a business economic environment. When the organisation is
strengthening the economy then the chances of business survival or success for long
period of time can be increased. Hence, there is need to design the economic strategic
plan and business decision carefully in order to maximize the profit by reducing the cost
and risk.
TASK2. Discuss the economic and ethical dilemma which strategic leaders face in the process of
balancing long or short-term goals.
The strategic leaders may have a lot of responsibilities which are comes with a lot of dilemmas
and challenges. While formulating the strategic there are lot of problems are arisen which
ensuring require desired manner implementation. The strategic manager may struggle from the
challenges which are related to the leading team, objective setting and many more problems,
some problems are arise which are not even exist as well. Sometimes the manager may fail to
connect the planning efforts with critical processes. Having a great strategic plan may not ensure
the guarantee for organisation objective and goals achievement. It also not guarantees that
organisation had proper execution or implementation of strategy (Aleixo, Leal and Azeiteiro.,
2018). The economic dilemmas are arisen from the unpleasant or undesirable choice between the
economic factors like money, investment return and many more things. Whereas the ethical
dilemmas are related to the social factors like leadership styles, responsibilities, consumer
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satisfaction and many more. When an organisation does not stick to the social or ethical
responsibilities then it is very tough to be accepted by the society. It can lead to face some legal
issues and loss of goodwill. The strategic leader faces some economical and ethical dilemmas
are:
 Assessing and maintaining the cash flow- when an organisation has not sufficient
liquidity to neutralize its liabilities then the dilemmas related to cash flow is arisen. In
case the outflow of cash surpasses the inflow then an organisation may struggle to pay its
debts and in expenses management. When an organisation is not operating at large scale
then it could be the most difficult dilemmas for the strategic manager. The strategic
leader face most common dilemmas are to make choice of cash in hand and in bank
deposit ratio (Sabini, Muzio and Alderman., 2019) .
 Globalisation or Regionalism- the other dilemmas face by the strategic manager is make
choice between the target market and the designing strategic. The global choice may be
worthy but it involves with many other risk and challenges. Whereas the regionalism may
carry lower risk in comparison to globalisation but it may limit the growth of the
company. Therefore, it is very important for an organisation to concentrate on a market
and formulate strategies according to the market situation and environment.
 Honesty- it is very important for an organisation to maintain the honesty and
transparency within the operation activities. The consumer has the right to aware about
the manufacturing process as well as the ingredient of the products. Hence, the dilemmas
are arising in case of secrete process and the recipe which are required to be hidden as it
may be used by the competitors. In such condition, the strategic manager required to
formulate such strategy from which both the consumer and the organisational needs are
to be fulfilled.
 Ensuring Justice- in order to formulate the strategic plan, the management needs to
considered the policies regarding the fair practices, unbiased as well as the legal values.
There are various types of conflicts are arising between the employees within the
organisation which needs to be solved fairly and effectively. The strategic leader must
need to handle these types of conflicts in such manner that it can lead to create a positive
environment and the sense of security within the employees. The injustice or biasness
within the employee could lead to a dissatisfaction within the employees. This may affect
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the performance as well as the productivity of an organisation (Van Zanten and Van
Tulder., 2018).
CONCLUSION
From the above discussed report, it is concluded that there is need to considered the
environmental factors as well as require to practice the sustainable measures. As it play a very
crucial role in business operation. There are various factors which make a huge impact on the
firm so, it is important to adopt the strategic management plan sustainability. The report study
concluded that the role and responsibilities of the sustainable strategic manager play a very
critical parts in the organisation sustainability. Some theories are followed by the manager like
triple bottom line and OKR frameworks for effective strategy in order to attain sustainability as
well as to combat the problems related to the sustainability.
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REFERENCES
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capture and reuse technologies. The Journal of Supercritical Fluids, 132, pp.3-16.
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the fourth stage of IC research: A critical case study in university settings. Journal of
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Aleixo, A.M., Leal, S. and Azeiteiro, U.M., 2018. Conceptualization of sustainable higher
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constraints. Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research, 8(1), pp.1-13.
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