Sustainability Principles: Business, CSR, Ecology, and Case Study

This essay delves into the core principles of business sustainability, emphasizing the importance of social, economic, and political openness for business continuity. It highlights key principles such as openness, relevance, directivity, and conflict avoidance, alongside the significance of economic, environmental, and social considerations. The essay underscores the role of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in enhancing business sustainability through societal contributions and adherence to legislatively fixed norms. It also examines the Social Charter of Business and its impact on maintaining balanced stakeholder interests. Furthermore, the discussion extends to ecological sustainability, the impact of ecological footprints, and the responsible use of resources. The essay also explores forms of capital, the phase model of change, and systems thinking as critical components of sustainable business practices. Examples and case studies illustrate the practical application of sustainability concepts, emphasizing the importance of stakeholder engagement and the alignment of CSR with business reputation and brand value. The essay concludes by highlighting the increasing investor preference for socially responsible organizations and the role of sustainability indices in evaluating business performance.

Sustainability

Principles of Business
 Course Expectations and Introduction to the Principles of Responsible Business
 I believe business sustainability is paramount and core to business continuity. There are various principles in sustainability of a business.
However, one of the best principles in sustaining a business is having a good social economic and political openness that makes it easy to
conduct a business.
 some of the principles in business sustainability include; openness, relevance, directivity and avoiding conflicts. Economic impact,
environmental, social aspects are some of the fundamentals of sustainability (Cinelli, Coles & Kirwan, 2014). The broadest range of issues
related to the activities of companies.
 Other sustainability principle which has been embraced of late is the corporate social responsibility. I believe that helping the society by
giving back increases the chances of sustainability of the business.
 There is a basic level - it is legislatively fixed norms. They exist all over the world and in labor practices, and in corporate relations, and in
the zone of environmental responsibility.
 They must be kept without fail. In turn, CSR, based on these laws, sets additional higher standards. Companies voluntarily take on additional
obligations, as this meets the interests of the company itself and meets the expectations of its stakeholders (Ferguson & Souza, 2016).
 I am familiar with the Social Charter of Business of 2004 and the supplemented version of 2008. It reminds me of the oath of athletes before
the start of an Olympic Games. But we know that all this is just a traditional ritual Charter - these are certain principles of responsible
business conduct and sustainability.
 They include relationships with employees, partners, consumers and sometimes the state. To maintain an effective business, it is necessary
to maintain a balance of interests, which in turn helps to reduce risks and ensure greater business sustainability.
 A business is meant to make profits to sustain itself.
 Joining the charter means that the company shares its principles and expresses its intention to follow them. That is, it will strive to comply
with these principles and build their strategies with their consideration. Accession to the charter is a public act, which means that for the
company this is a certain reputational step (Pintér, Martinuzzi & Hall, 2018).

Ecological Sustainability
 Sustainability and Sustainable Development Ecological Footprints
 The idea of sustainability is only theoretical to many of us. However, sustainability affects us in our daily lifestyles in the sustainability of the
ecological footprints on the globe.
 It is acting responsibly with the resources that the ecology accords to us and the progress towards the sustainability of the future. The choices
that we make in our daily lives greatly affect the environment. We should sustain it. Non-observance of the principles of the charter does not
imply any punitive sanctions, but the company's reputation can be affected.
 In addition, it should be borne in mind that the principles of responsible business conduct lie at the heart of effective strategies and good
management quality, which means that they correspond to the interests of the medium- to long-term companies themselves, and not just the
immediate result (Sala, Ciuffo & Nijkamp, 2015).
 Generally we can reduce the negative effect of impact in destruction of the ecosystem by reducing pollution and reducing our consumption of
resources.
 The implementation of the provisions of the charter is a purely voluntary matter, at the same time meeting the interests of companies, and,
undoubtedly, influencing their reputation. It is useful to remember that reputation, no matter how good or bad, always goes ahead of us.
 This involves both risks and opportunities. In the modern world it is impossible to work in a closed mode.
 It is important to inform stakeholders how much you are doing your business, what your strategy is, how you achieve the implementation of
this strategy, what your results are, how it affects society and the environment.
 It is clear that these impacts can be either positive or not. In this case, it is important how you control the negative impacts, how to reduce
the level of undesirable consequences (Santoyo & Azapagic, 2014).
 Today, the requirements of information openness are one of the main conditions for the company's competitiveness. Be open or you will be
preferred to someone else whose activities are more transparent, who is more understandable and predictable. These trends are increasing all
over the world, for companies this is also relevant. Such is the soft power of coercion.
 In order to more objectively evaluate the performance of companies, the board has for several years now compiled indices of corporate
sustainability, responsibility and openness on a whole set of criteria and indicators.

Sustainability Concepts
 Sustainability Concepts- Forms of Capital, Phase Model of Change and Systems thinking
 Forms of capital- there are five types of capital where we derive our goods and services from to improve sustainability and the quality of life. They include;
 Natural capital- where a sustainable flow of material and energy produces goods and services.
 Human capital-it includes people and their health, skills, motivation and knowledge in driving
 Social capital- it includes the relationships that we build such as communities, unions, partnerships, friends and families.
 Financial capital- arguably one of the most important form of capital which involves the financial resources pulled together to enable a sustainable economy
thriving.
 Manufactured capital- comprises of fixed assets and goods that contribute to the production process.
 Phase model of change
 Contains three phases in the model; freezing, unfreezing, changing and refreezing. The "Responsibility and Openness" index assesses the situation of disclosure
of information in key areas of activity, analyzes 70 indicators characterizing responsible business practices, including economic, environmental, social
performance indicators and aspects of corporate governance. "Vector of sustainable development" is an index of performance dynamics, which makes it
possible to identify Ideas among the largest companies, the best in terms of openness and at the same time demonstrating a generally positive dynamics
towards the sustainability of development.
 This means that the economic indicators of the companies leading in the indexes were also high (Schaltegger & Lüdeke-Freund, 2016).. By the way, from this
year the RSPP indexes are included in the international rating and sustainability index base, which is used by many analysts.
 In the long term, we plan to expand the index line by including industry and thematic indexes (for example, the index of social investments) .Individual indexes
get some kind of material encouragement? No, but they get good support for what are noted as leaders in the result of independent evaluation. Today, publicity,
openness and good reputation are a significant intangible asset contributing to the growth of the company's value.
 Systems thinking
 It is putting systems and making reliable inferences about behavior and creating systems that help in business sustainability. The answer to this question
requires a certain philosophical acceptance of the fact that different stakeholders (or synonyms - interested parties) see the world in their own right and have
the full right to do this: for a company employee, social responsibility is a worthy pay, a guarantee of high labor standards, and for local communities - this is
the company's investment in the development of regions of presence, etc., there can be many examples, according to a wide range of stakeholders, and this is
only on the one hand (Sidiropoulos, 2014).

Examples and Case study
 Sustainability- Examples and Case Studies
 On the other hand, one must also understand the fact that social responsibility of business is considered at various
conceptual levels: it can be an instrument in the hands of business to achieve and achieve sustainable
development goals, or a concept in the hands of the government.
 for example the EU, to determine the role and place of business in society, or the view of a sociologist who views
the GSS as a kind of social institution used to achieve social homeostasis, etc.
 Many aspects of corporate social responsibility (CSR) are closely related to the company's business reputation -
the main factor that determines the value of a trademark.
 Accordingly, brand protection and business reputation development require companies to be attentive to
stakeholders and issues of interest to them.
 An increasing number of investors prefer to invest in organizations that demonstrate a high level of social
responsibility. Sustainability is also used in assessing business performance that takes into account ethical
compliance, social activities, environmental impact, and shows stakeholders the specific actions of the company.
 In the UK, the Corporate Responsibility Index is compiled by the Business in the Community on the basis of
voluntary participation and with the support of 150 companies, more than half of which are included in the FTSE
100 index (Tollin, Christensen & Wilke, 2015).
 The Business in the Community members are 700 companies, and another 1,600 participate in it programs. The
movement determined its goal to help attract companies to constantly improve the influence on society and
create appropriate incentives.

Reference List
 Cinelli, M., Coles, S. R., & Kirwan, K. (2014). Analysis of the potentials of multi criteria decision analysis methods
to conduct sustainability assessment. Ecological Indicators, 46, 138-148.
 Ferguson, M. E., & Souza, G. C. (Eds.). (2016). Closed-loop supply chains: new developments to improve the
sustainability of business practices. CRC Press.
 Pintér, L., Hardi, P., Martinuzzi, A., & Hall, J. (2018). Bellagio STAMP: Principles for sustainability assessment and
measurement. In Routledge Handbook of Sustainability Indicators (pp. 51-71). Routledge.
 Sala, S., Ciuffo, B., & Nijkamp, P. (2015). A systemic framework for sustainability assessment. Ecological
Economics, 119, 314-325.
 Santoyo-Castelazo, E., & Azapagic, A. (2014). Sustainability assessment of energy systems: integrating
environmental, economic and social aspects. Journal of Cleaner Production, 80, 119-138.
 Schaltegger, S., Hansen, E. G., & Lüdeke-Freund, F. (2016). Business models for sustainability: Origins, present
research, and future avenues.
 Sidiropoulos, E. (2014). Education for sustainability in business education programs: a question of value. Journal
of cleaner production, 85, 472-487.
 Tollin, K., Christensen, L. B., & Wilke, R. (2015). Sustainability in business from a marketing perspective. Journal
of Strategic Marketing, 23(6), 471-496.