Evaluating Sustainability: Responsible Business Practice in Malaysia

This report provides a comprehensive business evaluation focusing on sustainability and responsible business practices, emphasizing the critical role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainable initiatives. It highlights the increasing importance of sustainability in light of global warming and the need for organizations to adopt sustainable strategies at both micro and macro levels. The report elucidates various factors influencing sustainability during business growth, with a specific focus on Malaysian companies requiring improvement. These factors include environmental, economic, political assistance, and community partnerships. It further explores sustainable development, reporting, and corporate governance, underscoring the necessity for business organizations to prioritize sustainability to foster economic development and support local communities. The report also touches upon supply chain management and the importance of human resources in promoting sustainability within organizations.

Running Head: APPLIED PRINCIPLE FOR RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS PRACTICE
APPLIED PRINCIPLE FOR RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS
PRACTICE
Students ID:
Name of the University
Authors note

APPLIED PRINCIPLE FOR RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS PRACTICE 14

APPLIED PRINCIPLE FOR RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS PRACTICE
Table of Contents
Task 1: Reflective journal on Sustainability..............................................................................3
Task 3: Report............................................................................................................................7
Introduction............................................................................................................................7
Factors influencing sustainability...........................................................................................7
Environmental factors.........................................................................................................8
Economic factors................................................................................................................8
Political assistance..............................................................................................................8
Wide base of community partners..........................................................................................8
Sustainable development........................................................................................................9
Sustainable reporting............................................................................................................10
Corporate governance...........................................................................................................10
Conclusion and recommendations........................................................................................11
Reference list............................................................................................................................12
14

APPLIED PRINCIPLE FOR RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS PRACTICE
Task 1: Reflective journal on Sustainability
Sustainability is not a new idea for me but for me it is associated with current
development in Malaysia. After beginning this course, I realised that my horizon required to
be widened to international level. I have seen that sustainability can be associated with
several aspects not just urban establishment but also business and daily lifestyle. This is
because the way in which people leave can have a severe impact on the sustainability of the
planer and can affect our successor (Ng et al. 2017). As a student of business communication
and management, I have recently become aware of the fact, that there are several designers
and workers who works with materials such as packaging of products, flyers, and advertising
mail, promotional booklets and paper posters. However, these products are often discarded
after they have been used once and I believe being professional workers, they have a
complete responsibility in understanding the impact of this product in our environment
(Snelson-Powell, Grosvold & Millington, 2016). This is due to the fact, we are all living in a
world that has turned dependent on the consumption of the natural resources for our
convenience, and still we are not establishing ways to tackle the ecological influence, which
can be reduced. Being concerned workers, we always have the capability to recycle papers,
and buy vegetables other than chemical based products; we can be aware of consumption of
energy and be aware of minimum printing of papers. However, being communicators we can
also spread the awareness to the people by informing them about the matter of sustainability
and its impact. Along with the use of eco-friendly methods and design there is an opportunity
to influence the customers by making them with their own methods of sustainability (Gast,
Gundolf & Cesinger, 2017).
However, in this study we have aimed to recognise the factors that allow the business
owners to manage their business in a sustainable way. The existing argument in this context
focusing on the economic and social factor of business along with physiological as well as
14

APPLIED PRINCIPLE FOR RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS PRACTICE
motivational factors (Gholami et al., 2016). From my best knowledge, the various types of
factors that can be associated with the sustainable ownership, have not been studies in a
proper way and these factors have not as well been ranked for the determining the
consequences. The factors that may affect the business are environmental factors, economic,
human relations, and psychological factors that can have greatest influence on business.
Sustainable ownership is a multidimensional idea that encompasses the economic
factors associated with the preservation of the environment as well as the surroundings
(Kweh et al., 2017). At the same time, the objective of enhancing the environment and
emerging toward the social wellbeing, sustainable ownership may influence structural
formation of society and help in promoting sustainable technologies related with the
sustainable approaches.
Owing to an existing project based on Consumerists, I got the opportunity to research
on a topic of excessive consumption of things and its influence on the world and business. By
doing so, I came across several interesting facts around the way in which western society has
increased its method on an international scale (Chin, Tat & Sulaiman, 2015).
On the contrary, sustainability can have a positive impact on the organisation by
eliminating waste and by promoting a responsible viewpoint in the eyes of the customers and
employees by leading them to green initiates that can limit the cost of products and can
enhance products. For instance, hotel business can promote themselves as green by
motivating the visitors to utilise towels more than one day for reducing pollution ushered
from the laundry soap and the energy used from the washing and drying (Taib et al., 2015).
The activities that the hotel business do not highlight is the reduction in cost and expansion of
profit. The supermarkets are also reducing their use of shopping plastic bags.
14

APPLIED PRINCIPLE FOR RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS PRACTICE
However, people have various viewpoints on sustainability; it is evident that people
are becoming more and aware of these, through television advertisement and other forms of
media. In the existing ears, there are several shopping platforms in Malaysia, where the
product that are shown on internet comes with an attractive prices, some clothes can be
purchased by 10 to 15 Malaysian dollars with an procurement cist that cost only about 20
Malaysian dollars (Lim & Biswas, 2015).
In Malaysia, sustainable development is at a stage of growth as the companies in
Malaysia have been too quick in jumping in to the issues of sustainable management,
specifically in association with corporate social responsibility approaches. However, from my
courses I have learned that sustainable development in Malaysia has for long been interpreted
from a strict Western oriented value process (Basri, Ramli & Aliyu, 2015). These may as well
pose threat for the Malaysian companies as they tend to implement sustainable practices in to
the process, in this for major issues can be highlighted in relation to the factors that affect the
sustainable development of business such as socio economic development.
Sustainable development is an idea that came in to mainstream international agenda
followed by a report published by the world commission on environment and development.
Followed by this it has been observed that all the companies in Malaysia located at
international location and domestic location are embracing sustainable development based on
the requirement of corporate sustainable responsibility approaches (Jamali & Karam, 2015).
Sustainable development shows the impact of the factors such as economic, social and
political factors. According to my knowledge of learning sustainable development of business
is the requirement that meets the requirement of the existing situation without compromising
the capability of upcoming generations.
14

APPLIED PRINCIPLE FOR RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS PRACTICE
Although at an initial period of operation within a macro level, sustainable
development has found its way down at the corporate stage. However, I would say that
existing managers of the organisation considers sustainable development as the important
component of corporate strategy while formulating the programs of CSR. In this case, the
social and environmental issues often influence when the organisations are under high
pressure from social NGOS and media activities as well as government, their business. These
issues influence the business so much so that, which both the concept of sustainability are
often, used interchangeability. In Malaysia, Bursa Malaysia utilizes the term sustainability,
for the sake of its corporate site, to provide its report for the CSR. According to my learning,
I have seen that, in order to incorporate, sustainable development within the business; there
are various calls from the accounting and finance section that helps in expansion of overall
net profit of business.
However, the critical issues of sustainable growth that is needed to taken in to
consideration is that the developing economy of Malaysia is comprised of Muslim majority
population along with other ethnic population (Koe, Omar & Sa’ari, 2015). In this context,
the very issues of CSR is to focus on the issue that arise out of the conception in between
various firms and the society.
I have seen that every time I purchase a new phone from the nee launched ones,
despite the fact that the old one is not broken down. I have realised that if I try to change my
bad habit, I will be able to save some more of my money and will be able to protect the
planet. Although established planets are now misusing the resources of third world but they
are claiming that they are using it to develop and grow their economy. According to my
notion these, are just frauds to cheat the third world, since most of the factories belong to the
third world economies where the cost of labour are relatively low (Basri, Ramli & Aliyu,
2015). The rules and regulation are to loosen so that the countries are able to do many things
14

APPLIED PRINCIPLE FOR RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS PRACTICE
that helps to deplete the natural capital in the third world such as consumption if energy and
utilisation of raw materials.
14

APPLIED PRINCIPLE FOR RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS PRACTICE 14

APPLIED PRINCIPLE FOR RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS PRACTICE
Task 3: Report
Executive summary
The report highlights an business evaluation report on sustainability and principles used for
corporate business. The study is based on the idea that business organisations are needed to
address corporate social responsibility and sustainable initiatives. However, since the global
warming is at a sharp rise, it is necessary for the organisation to follow the strategies of
sustainability at all the stages of the growth such as Micro and Macro level. Based on this
factors, the study have elucidated factors that influences sustainability during the growth of
business. This has been presented in the report with a brief presentation of Malaysian
companies that needs improvement. Therefore, business organisation needs to obtain
sustainability for increasing the development of the economy and to assist the local people.
Introduction
There is an increasing evidence of an unsustainable future with an existing rate of
consumption of natural resources and its impact on the environment. Recent disasters around
the globe are catastrophic in nature and very adverse due to the increase of global warming.
Influences of global warming are quite evident and can be seen in changes in the availability
of water, security of food that may affect large number of people. Sustainability of the
organisation also required to act in International footprint defines the concept of sustainability
as the improvement that can be done for addressing the issues of the present age and the
existing time without doing off the creativity of the upcoming age for satisfying their own
specific requirement. Sustainability is the need to avoid depletion of the natural resources for
sustaining an ecological balance in the environment. However, there are millions of human
beings and different types of living beings, which are highly influenced by pollution.
14

APPLIED PRINCIPLE FOR RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS PRACTICE
Factors influencing sustainability
Business organisations have an important role to play in the accomplishment of
sustainability. From the period of industrialisation, business organisations have contributed
highly towards the development of the economy, to the growth of environment and society in
a positive as well as negative way. It is the influence of macro factors, which people
experiences in today’s world. As stated by Richards and Zen (2016), the issues are seen in the
form of big business scandals and many environmental accidents. In this context, the
stakeholders realised that it is necessary to educate the society and business to treat the
society in a proper way. In Malaysia, Bursa Malaysia Company is moving ahead within
agenda to bring corporate governance in accordance to the sustainable growth. In the year
2007, they had developed a company that is mandatorily listed in Bursa Malaysia for
reporting to Corporate Social Responsibility. In the year 2010, the company also launched
their sustainability framework that intends to educate and promote the Malaysian business
organisations with sustainable growth of business activities (Gong et al., 2018). The
movement has been set up by the companies to provide a positive impact on the
establishment of corporate social responsibility activities in Malaysia. The approaches has
also been set up to increase the awareness of the stakeholders in accordance to the benefits of
sustainable activities’.
Supply Chain Management
However, supply chain management sustainability is highly used in the business that
influences the supply chain of the organisation in relation to environmental and waste of cost.
This is because there is an increasing need for incorporating with the environmental choice of
supply chain management. Government pressure can influence the organisation by creating
pressure on the suppliers and vendors; therefore, they are required to operate in a sustainable
way in order to meet the future issues.
14

APPLIED PRINCIPLE FOR RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS PRACTICE
Human resource Management
Again, sustainable human resource management path will help the companies and the
HR managers to understand the operational elements for fostering high performance of CSR
within organisation. Therefore, the human resource employees have the major role to play in
helping the company in achieving the sustainable CSR objectives through employee
engagement and motivation.
Environmental factors
While building business and functioning business, sustainability needs to be taken in
to consideration. The variables antagonistically affect upon the nature. This are needed to be
dealt with and is required to be polished for the betterment of the society.
Economic factors
In order to develop a nation, industrialisation is one of the major factors that is
required to be emphasised on. However, the factors of industrialisation is needed to be carried
out and the factors of sustainability is needed to be taken in to consideration.
Political assistance
No matter how much the internal factors of the components functions, the overall
economic and political climate may influence the sustainability of business and the business
capacity to get things done, whether at federal state, and local region. Therefore, Aras, Aras,
and Ingley (2016) stated that highs and lows within the political support for the project and
their factors of funding could increase the stress on the projects. This may make things
difficult to offer consistent standards of services.
Wide base of community partners
Projects are more likely to obtain objectives with a wide base of support from the
community. Companies that are socially accountable usually have lesser amount of risk of
14