Comprehensive Report on Business and Sustainability Practices

This report provides a detailed overview of sustainability in business, encompassing environmental, social, and economic dimensions. It explores the three pillars of sustainability, emphasizing the importance of long-term value creation through corporate governance principles such as transparency, accountability, responsibility, and fairness. The report examines stakeholder engagement, including customers, investors, and governments, and highlights the significance of ethical business practices and corporate social responsibility. It further delves into sustainable development models, including linear throughput and net psychic income models, and explores the application of sustainability in real-world scenarios through various business models like industrial ecology and natural capitalism. The report also addresses carbon emissions and sustainable investment, showcasing the impact of sustainability on returns and the importance of socially responsible investment. Finally, the report touches upon the fundamental marketing principles and the significance of sustainability in building a strong brand value and image, offering valuable insights into creating a sustainable business model.

Chapter 1
Sustainability has become the need of the hour as it helps in meeting the needs of the
present without compromising the future. The module intends to explain the meaning of
sustainability, its history, and current forces for business sustainability. It is determined that there
are three pillars of sustainability- social, economic and environmental. Social sustainability
ensures that the people are provided with a safe environment. Economic sustainability ensures
that the financial, employment and consumption issues are addressed. Environmental
sustainability ensures that there is waste management, optimum energy usage and pollution
reduction ideas. The main reasons why sustainability must be applied in real-life is that it helps
in creating long-term value by taking in consideration every dimension of the above stated
pillars. For example, every individual can address the climate change issue which is the most
dreading issue in the recent times. The four key principles of corporate governance are
transparency, accountability, responsibility and fairness. Not only individually, the corporate
companies can inculcate sustainability in their business practices. It is because there shall be
increased trust between management and employees. There shall be better life work balance,
equity of opportunity and increased respect among the employees. For a real-life example,
Starbucks may be reviewed. Starbucks supports farmers and communities by responsibly
growing coffee beans. It may be noted that such initiative by Starbucks has helped them lower
cost of production, reduction in pest disease, increasing the yield of coffee and benefit to the
communities (Starbucks.ca 2018).

Reference
Starbucks.ca, 2018. Supporting Farmers and Communities. [online] Starbucks Coffee Company.
Available at: <https://www.starbucks.ca/responsibility/sourcing/farmer-support>
[Accessed 4 May 2018].

Chapter 2
The customers, investors, employees, government, suppliers and other various
stakeholders have differences in the type of relationship they have with the firm. A firm needs
proper engagement with their stakeholders. They have different perceptions that impact the
objectives. The importance of a stakeholder can be adjudged on the basis of three attributes
namely power, legitimacy and urgency. The business paradigm should be updated as per the
requirement of sustainability. Dow Jones Sustainability indices are a group of indices that
evaluate these sustainability performances of number of companies. It also possesses industry
based indexed. For the application, the firm should try to make sure that it has more of the
supportive (positive) stakeholders than the Obstructive (negative) ones. The basic awareness and
understanding shall be possessed by the firm on sustainability. Another example for the
stakeholder is government in which it plays a vital role as the regulations laid by them affects the
firm directly. Therefore, the firm needs to make sure they are in harmony with the government
rules and regulations. The basic awareness and understanding shall be possessed by the firm on
sustainability. The government need to keep a benchmark for their performances. Their focus
should be on sustainability and have the basic idea about what and how to achieve such
objectives related to sustainability. The framework includes wide range groups, organisations
and government bodies. They need to have social awareness, support the NGOs and ultimately
the government support is also needed by the firm for achieving objectives (Harik et al. 2015).

Reference
Harik, R., El Hachem, W., Medini, K. and Bernard, A., 2015. Towards a holistic sustainability
index for measuring sustainability of manufacturing companies. International Journal of
Production Research, 53(13), pp.4117-4139.

Chapter 3
An ethical business has these basic characteristics such as honesty, confidentiality, trust,
good value, integrity, strong leadership. Ethical business practice helps in realising the
obligations and responsibilities to the stakeholders and supports the ethical goals of the firm. The
ethical objectives should be discussed among the employees. The firm should make sure that
they educate the employees on a regular basis so as to keep the ethical goals in mind. Good
governance means to conduct the public affairs and effectively manage the public resources. The
principles include recognition and will to accept the responsibilities, leading the organisation,
being transparent, working with integrity and efficiency and many other principles. The firm
needs to maintain a set of ethical principles and frame rules and policies that support these
principles. The policies should be monitored if they are being followed effectively by scheduling
a weekly meeting discussing the achievements and failures. Penalties should be imposed for non-
compliance of such policies and standards. Corporate social responsibilities are the
organisation’s responsibility towards the social and environmental duties. The organisation can
make adequate contribution to the sustainability goals by acknowledging and working on their
environmental, social and ethical responsibilities. The key elements of Corporate Social
Responsibilities are the creating a CSR management system and framing strategies, internal
assessments, documenting the visions and values, embedding CSR into the plans and budgets,
educating the stakeholders and specially the employees about the CSR by proper communication
and establish accountability and responsibility (Zaharia and Zaharia 2015).

Reference
Zaharia, C. and Zaharia, I., 2015. Corporate governance and business ethical values. Linguistic
and Philosophical Investigations, 14, p.103.

Chapter 4
Sustainable development helps in maintaining a balance and harmony between social,
economic and environmental well-being. The linear throughput model states that the resources
from the natural environment are the sole provider of life-support services. The human life
capital may increase human well-being beyond the natural capital. The linear throughput model
begins as input of natural resources end up in depreciation. According to the net psychic income
model, the psychic benefits are generated from economic activity less the psychic costs endured.
It is analysed that there is a need for making steady state economy viable by minimizing waste.
The concepts of sustainability can be applied in real world by improving the stock of physical
goods. The cost of negative impacts on the society such as unemployment may be reduced. It is
further determined that there are three policy goals that are required to be met by an organization
for sustainable development- sustainable scale, distributional equity and allocating resources
efficiently. In the real world, it might not be easy to attain sustainable development goals.
However, the organizations may differentiate themselves from the competitors and strengthen
their supply chains. The consumers demand may be anticipated so that the stock of physical
goods may be improved as required. Sustainability shall be applicable in real life when better
understanding is developed in the companies. Business helps in generating employment and is a
source of finance. The organizations across the globe shall consider sustainability concepts at a
strategic level and maintain good terms with all stakeholders (Broman and Robert 2017).

Reference
Broman, G.I. and Robèrt, K.H., 2017. A framework for strategic sustainable development.
Journal of Cleaner Production, 140, pp.17-31.

Chapter 5
Sustainable or green business creates least negative impact on the society, community,
economy and the environment. Sustainable business models are significant as every model helps
in attaining benchmark and provides clear guidance for managing the organizations. Industrial
ecology is referred to a man-made ecosystem which is similar to a natural ecosystem, with an
additional advantage of reducing negative social, economic and environmental impact. Natural
capitalism is a way of redesigning of production system for restoring natural capital, reducing
resource inputs and others. The cradle to cradle design relies on two critical concepts- waste
equals food and living off solar income. The Natural Step model relies on the four conditions
namely- must not be systematically exposed to increased substance from the earth’s crust;
optimum utilization of resources; must not be systematically exposed to increases in
concentrations of substances created by society; must not be systematically degraded. The above
concepts can be applied in real-world successfully for ensuring sustainability. The Kalundborg
Park located in Denmark uses each other’s waste and further becomes a by-product. More
examples of industrial ecology are using second generation bio-fuels in which the grease can be
converted into biodiesel for fuel vehicles. Further, cradle to cradle design can be used in a shoe
manufacturing company where the sole is made of biological nutrients and upper portion may be
made of technical nutrients. Additionally, disposable bottles, cups and wrappers can be made of
biological materials. In this manner, sustainable business models can be useful in attaining
sustainability (Leigh and Li 2015).

Reference
Leigh, M. and Li, X., 2015. Industrial ecology, industrial symbiosis and supply chain
environmental sustainability: a case study of a large UK distributor. Journal of Cleaner
Production, 106, pp.632-643.

Chapter 6
Australia’s major source of carbon emission is the electricity generation using fossil
fuels. It leads to greenhouse gas emission and Australia is in the top 20 list of greenhouse gas
emitters showing that the carbon emission in Australia is one of the highest in the world.
Transportation, consumer goods, housing and agriculture industry are the major contributors of
the carbon emission. BHP Billiton is emitting 50mn tonnes in excess, of its carbon dioxide
equivalent. The cost of carbon at $20 per tonne, to become carbon neutral, it is going to cost
them $1 Trillion. This signifies the impact of emission in Australia and the businesses need to
check their consumption of resources that emit carbon and reduce them. The carbon footprint
analysis helps in data collection. It helps in measuring the carbon emission identifying the energy
sources. Carbon accounting system will help by providing information regarding the emission
and will support the reduction of the same. It involves cost of data collection and is more useful
in large scale organisations. The management of carbon emission can be done by carbon
footprint analysis, strategic assessment of climate risk, identifying and implementing efficient
measures, switching to renewable sources, emission trading and investing in carbon credit
(offset) schemes. There are various ways of managing the sustainability. The climate
management options can be considered but it depends on their effectiveness and efficiency.
Geoengineering is the large scale deliberate manipulation to counter the global warming effects
but leads to increase in waste (Thiele 2018).

Reference
Thiele, L.P., 2018. Geoengineering and sustainability. Environmental Politics, pp.1-20.

Chapter 9
Sustainable investment is an important aspect of sustainable development as it helps in
incorporating social, environmental and governance factors in decision making. Various agencies
such as Ethibel, Vigeo, Sustainalytics and others help in providing ESG information. It is argued
if embracing sustainability has an impact on returns. It may not always be possible to receive
returns on investment. Moreover, it is argued that expenditure on sustainability impacts returns
in a positive manner while improving share price. Bigger the firm, higher is the sustainability
score. This argument is supported by the information gathered for reviewing big corporations
like Samsung, Microsoft, Marks and Spencer and multiple others. Samsung has an overall score
of 63 for sustainability (Csrhub.com 2018). Apple has an overall score of 59 for sustainability
(Csrhub.com 2018). It is observed that investment for sustainability must be socially responsible.
The socially responsibly investment is important and it must be applied in real world. The
investors must carefully read through fund prospects for determining the exact philosophies
determined by finance managers. The social investors may invest for social impact and financial
gain. Another example of socially responsible investing is community investing, which goes
directly toward organizations that have a track record of social responsibility through helping the
community and have been unable to garner funds from other sources, such as banks and financial
institutions. The goal is to improve the quality of the community by reducing its dependency on
government assistance such as welfare, which in turn has a positive impact on the community's
economy.

Reference
Csrhub.com, 2018. CSR information for Samsung Electronics Company Limited. [online]
CSRHub - Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsiblity (CSR) ratings on over
17,913 of the world’s largest public and private companies. Available at:
<https://www.csrhub.com/CSR_and_sustainability_information/Samsung-Electronics-
Company-Limited> [Accessed 4 May 2018].
Csrhub.com, 2018. CSR information for Apple Inc.. [online] CSRHub - Sustainability and
Corporate Social Responsiblity (CSR) ratings on over 17,913 of the world’s largest
public and private companies. Available at:
<https://www.csrhub.com/CSR_and_sustainability_information/Apple-Inc> [Accessed 4
May 2018].

Chapter 10
The basic principles of marketing includes identification of target customers and the
market, preparation of the perfect marketing mix, creating and maintaining a brand value and
image of an organisation and satisfying customer needs. Marketing helps in developing a good
relationship with the target customers and including their feedback in planning the next policies
and strategies. The company needs to market the green products that help in generation of
awareness for sustainable goods and services. The key concepts that link sustainability to the
consumers is sustainable problem related awareness and solutions, desirability of behavioural
change and accepting information of sustainability, adoption of sustainable lifestyle and
addressing the challenges related to sustainability. Sustainable marketing lays down the practice
of developing and implementing marketing strategies in such a way that it satisfies the
customers’ needs while taking care of the environmental issues as well as the social
responsibilities of the organisation. Sustainable marketing should be the core of an organisation
because of the depleting environmental and social conditions today. The sustainable marketing
mix has four elements namely costs, solution, communication and convenience. This helps in
persuading the stakeholders in adapting the practice of sustainable development. Social
marketing is the practice of applying marketing principles and techniques to generate and deliver
values which influences the target audience and their behaviour so as to ultimately benefit the
society as a whole. The organisation needs to implement the proper marketing strategies that
help in environmental and social development that leads to sustainable development altogether
(Hull et al. 2017).

Reference
Hull, C.E., Russell, J.D. and Kukar-Kinney, M., 2017, May. Abstract on Evaluating
Sustainability as a Core Competency: Consumer Response to Sustainable Products.
In Academy of Marketing Science Annual Conference (pp. 529-530). Springer, Cham.