University Essay: Leading Change for Sustainability - ENGT5217

This essay examines how businesses in the USA are leading change for sustainability by reducing their carbon footprint. It explores the use of renewable energy sources by companies like Google, Apple, Walmart, and Intel and analyzes the implications of these actions on the environment. The essay discusses the issue of corporate social responsibility, highlighting initiatives such as energy-efficient data centers and employee programs. It also examines the role of companies like Siemens in shifting towards alternative energy. The Behavior Change Wheel is used to analyze factors influencing environmentally responsible behavior, including capability, motivation, opportunity, and various intervention functions and policy categories. The essay concludes by emphasizing the positive impact of these behaviors and advocating for their adoption by all businesses globally.

Running head: LEADING CHANGE FOR SUSTAINABILITY
Leading Change for Sustainability
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1LEADING CHANGE FOR SUSTAINABILITY
One of the most significant pro-environmental behavior is reducing the carbon
footprint that corporations all over the world are responsible for. With the growing
importance of behaving responsibly in business operations, corporations all over the world
are taking measures to reduce their impact on the environment. The businesses in USA, like
Google, Apple, Walmart and Intel use renewable or alternative sources of energy to reduce
their carbon footprint. All of these companies have been conducting their businesses in the
main cities of USA and over the world. Thus, their business operations have much impact on
the environment (Abts et al., 2010).
Businesses in the USA have taken much initiative to include corporate social
responsibility into their business goals. Companies like Google has built energy efficient data
centers and has created provisions for employees to share commutes and cycle to work. There
are also energy producing companies like Siemens that are shifting towards alternative
energy sources to reduce the footprint further. The significance of the behavior’s impact is
that it can effectively reduce the threats regarding climate change and global warming. In this
essay, the businesses in USA that use efficient energy and its implications on the
environment are explored.
The issue Classification rationale
Reducing carbon footprint has
positive impact on the
environment. It reduces the
emission of greenhouse gases to
the environment, reduces traffic
and fuel consumption.
The issue has direct impact on
the environment. It protects the
planet from the threats of
climate change. This falls under
the accountability of
environmentally significant
behavior. People who think that
they are accountable for the
The reason for choosing this
behavior is the current threat of
climate change and the role of
corporations for their impact on
the environment.

2LEADING CHANGE FOR SUSTAINABILITY
changes in environment take
measures to reduce the impact
they are having.
Table 1: Summery of the issue
Source: Created by the author
Corporations, because of their business and profit making undertake many activities.
They have several numbers of offices all over the world. They also have supply chain and
distribution system to support their business system. All of these has negative impacts on the
environment. The multiple locations and offices, their data centers, their supply chain and
distribution channels consume large amount of fuel and energy. Reducing the impact by
using alternative energy sources has become important (Goulding, Goldman & Winslow,
2010). Alternative energy sources like wind energy, solar energy and tidal energy are
effective sources as these protect the non-renewable sources of fuel. The reduction of mass
use of traditional sources of energy will reduce the demand of thermal energy which will help
the thermal power plants to shift to green energy production. Siemens is one such company
that produces green energy and has become a pioneer in this regard.
The most important reason that companies engage in environmentally responsible
behavior such as using alternative energy resources is their sense of responsibility to the
environment. Their behavior is motivated by their accountability and honesty element (Stern
2000). Many of the businesses are converting their businesses in cloud in order to become
more energy efficient. Businesses like Google are investing in their own source of alternative
power (Abdelsalam et al. 2009). There are several benefits to this as this ensures that their
investments for energy is reducing. They are able to extract more profit from the market.
moreover, these initiatives are long-term investments which means that they do not have

3LEADING CHANGE FOR SUSTAINABILITY
think about energy supplies for many years. Most of the established think about their future
outcomes and profits and investing on alternative sources of energy is profitable in all
aspects. Sometimes, businesses are also motivated by their sense of responsibility to the
society and environment as an entity residing in it.
The corporate social responsibility of businesses influences them to reduce their
impact on the society and thus, businesses choose alternative energy resources. Corporate
social responsibility is based on the idea of honesty and transparency. Businesses who are
socially responsible work on the philosophy of honesty and accountability to the society and
its people (Mills et al., 2008). This also enhances their positive brand image among their
consumers. They become more popular and are able to secure a loyal customer base.
Companies like Walmart has gained much popularity because of their environmental
initiatives and Google too has become example in energy efficiency and other socially
responsible behavior.
The Behavior Change Wheel gives a complete framework for the environmentally
responsible behavior of the companies. At the core of this wheel are the sources of behavior
such as Capability, Motivation and Opportunity (Michie, Stralen and West, 2011). The
businesses mentioned here are all capable of making the changes and support them through
investments. They have motivation of engaging in environmentally responsible behavior and
the opportunity as market leaders to do so. The second layer of the wheel contains the
intervention functions such as training, coercion, incentivisation, education, environmental
restructuring, modelling, persuasion and enablement. These are elements that enable the
companies to apply the behavioral changes into their business framework which can be
enabled through the education and training of the employees, coercing and persuading the
stakeholders to consider the changes, modeling and restructuring the businesses to
incorporate the changes and the company’s incentive to change their behavior. The third

4LEADING CHANGE FOR SUSTAINABILITY
component includes the policy categories such as legislation, regulations, service provision,
planning, marketing which has also influenced the leading companies to undertake socially
responsible behavior.
The leading companies mentioned here, have the means to invest and the man power
to facilitate the change. They have stakeholders who are willing to take risks for better
outcome. They are motivated by their social responsibility and their contribution to the
environment (Xu, 2003). They have the infrastructure to train their employees and ensure that
people embrace new ideas. Moreover, they are also aware of the tax saving aspects of
socially responsible behaviors and the extra profit it attracts and thus are more than willing to
engage in environmentally responsible behavior. In conclusion it can be said that the behavior
that these businesses in USA have engaged in is likely to impact the environment positively
and this is environmentally responsible behavior that that should become a mandate for every
business in the world so that our planet is saved.

5LEADING CHANGE FOR SUSTAINABILITY
References
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