Environmental Sustainability: Theories, Pillars, and Practices

This essay delves into the concept of environmental sustainability within organizations, defining it as the practice of meeting current needs without compromising future generations. It explores the three pillars of corporate sustainability: environmental, social, and economic, highlighting how companies are striving to reduce their environmental impact, support stakeholders, and maintain profitability. The essay introduces the open system theory and its influence on organizational behavior, emphasizing the importance of environmentally sustainable work behaviors such as energy conservation and recycling. It further examines how job design, goal setting, and flexible work arrangements can significantly affect an organization's sustainability practices, ultimately enhancing productivity and contributing to resource conservation for future generations. The essay references several academic sources to support its arguments and provide a comprehensive understanding of the topic.

Running head: ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author Note

1ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
Organizational environmental sustainability can be defined as the way the organizations
would be performing so that the needs and requirements of the professionals, employees,
stakeholders, investors and other decision makers in the present times are catered to without
making any compromise about the capability and ability of the future generation in order to cater
to their own requirements (Küçükoğlu). Environmental sustainability in the organization
includes making decisions and taking actions that would be able to use the resources carefully
and judiciously in such a way so that the resources are not exhausted in future. The business
organizations that utilize a plethora of resources and materials from the environment is supposed
to have a moral and ethical responsibility to save and conserve the resources for environmental
protection (Küçükoğlu).
The three pillars of corporate sustainability can be widely classified as: The
environmental pillar, the social pillar and the economic pillar (Garza). Under the environmental
pillar, the companies and corporate from all around the world are focusing on reducing their
carbon footprints, packaging waste, water usage and overall effect on the environment with the
sustainability methods to enhance the environment. Under the social pillar, the corporations
uphold their sustainability by having the support and approval of their employees, stakeholders
and the communities which the corporation is functioning in. Under the economic pillar,
corporations from all around the world have the aim of profitability because to be sustainable, a
business must be profitable. The economic pillar is met with activities such as compliance,
proper governance and risk management in order to increase the credibility of the organization in
the market.
Open system theory is a theory which signifies that organizations are strongly and
heavily influenced by the environment (Santos et al.). The factors of external environment that

2ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
influences organizations are economic, political and social in nature. Organization work culture
is highly influenced by the environment and vice versa. Environmentally sustainable work
behavior can be defined as the workplace behavior that harms the environment as less and little
as possible, and also benefits the environment. Such environmentally sustainable work behavior
includes energy and water conservation, recycling, transport, purchasing and product design. The
concepts of “Job design, goal setting and flexible work arrangements” would affect the
environmental sustainability of an organization (Silveira, Lisilene Mello da, and Petrini). Inside
an environmentally sustainable workplace, the involvement and engagement of the employees
according to flexible working conditions, proper job design and realistic goal settings can highly
influence sustainability practice of an organization because an organization is supposed to act
and frame their schemes and strategies according to the social, economic and environmental
factors outside as well as inside the organization. Credible and competent job design according
to the human resources available in a particular area, realistic goal settings that would harness the
resources (monetary and non-monetary) judiciously and flexible work arrangements according to
the external environmental, socio-cultural and socio-economic conditions would definitely bring
a sustainable synergy among the employees and their productivity in the organization. Such
sustainable productivity would not only enhance the reputation and credibility of the firm, but
would also take care of resource allocation and conservation that might be helpful and useful for
the future generations to survive and thrive in the global competitive world (Eccles et al.).

3ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
References:
Eccles, Robert G., Ioannis Ioannou, and George Serafeim. "The impact of corporate
sustainability on organizational processes and performance." Management Science 60, no. 11
(2014): 2835-2857.
Garza, Fernando Angel. "A framework for strategic sustainability in organizations: a three
pronged approach." Journal of Comparative International Management 16, no. 1 (2013): 23.
Küçükoğlu, Mübeyyen Tepe. "The mediating role of green organizational culture between
sustainability and green Innovation: A research in Turkish companies." Business & Management
Studies: An International Journal 6, no. 1 (2018): 64-85.
Santos, João Rocha, Pedro Fernandes Anunciação, and Anna Svirina. "A tool to measure
organizational sustainability strength." Journal of Business Management 7 (2013): 105-117.
Silveira, Lisilene Mello da, and Maira Petrini. "Sustainable Development and Corporate Social
Responsibility: a bibliometric analysis of International Scientific Production." Gestão &
Produção 25, no. 1 (2018): 56-67.