Sustainability In Business Assignment Sample

Sustainability In Business Assignment

Introduction - Sustainability In Business

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A sustainable business can also be referred to as a green business. A green business that has minimal negative impact and affects positively on the Global local environment community society or Economic (Brummer, 2018). Any business structure cannot be termed as a green business. If the business matches some criteria, then it can be described as green and the criteria are given below:

• The business will always follow the concept of sustainability. In every business decision, the business should incorporate the principles of sustainability.
• The organisation should produce and supply an environmentally friendly product.
• The services provided by the organisation are also nature friendly (Wysoki?ska-Senkus, 2021).
• The organisation should possess the mentality of non green products or services if needed.
• Business should give more attention to greenery than traditional competition.
• The business organisation should make an enduring commitment to the environment and sustainable principles in the business operations (Brummer, 2018).

The organisation which follows the sustainable business strategy will know how to design products that will take good advantage of the current environmental situation. The organisation also focuses on the product performed with Renewable Sources (Rajayogan, 2021). The business should balance all three pillars which are people, planet, and profit all together by using the concept of Sustainable development and sustainable distribution that influence the environment, business growth, and also society. So the sustainable business organisation should have progressive environmental and human rights policies and also take care of the supplier, supplying chain, distributors, and stakeholders along with the environment (Wysoki?ska-Senkus, 2021). It will also give good value to customers, investors together with the environment and business organisation. So a sustainable business organisation practices sustainability in every step like business planning, processing products and manufacturing activity that adequately address the current environmental concern without hampering the profit (Wysoki?ska-Senkus, 2021).

Importance of sustainability with a background of a company:

The 21st century is the world of business but now it is the time to call it the world of sustainable businesses. The incorporation of sustainability is more important in that business which directly affects people’s daily life that means food and agriculture business. That is why agriculture practice should be more sustainable and organic (Rajayogan, 2021).

Importance of sustainability in Agricultural practice

The agriculture practice changed dramatically after World War 2 but it needs more sustainability and encouragement towards organic farming.

• Implementation of more scientific technology in the agriculture practice at the grass-root level is important. That means small countryside and village farmers should be encouraged to use modern technology instead of ancient agriculture practice (Wysoki?ska-Senkus, 2021).
• Use of low-quality Chemical fertilisers and pesticides that affect the environment, natural ecosystem, and human health of the crop field should be eliminated (Brummer, 2018).
• Reuse the natural resources in agriculture practice to be more organic.
• It is important to achieve a gross profit goal but that does not mean it will be achieved by affecting the health of nature and customers (Wysoki?ska-Senkus, 2021).
• Packaging and stock maintenance in the agriculture industry should be more sustainable and have to reduce the amount of daily wastage (Shih and Tseng, 2014).
• Farmers need proper education about organic farming and sustainable agriculture because it is very important for them to know about this concept.
• If people become interested in eating organic food, then the farmer will be encouraged to eat organic food expertly (Brummer, 2018).

 Nature’s Path

It is a well-known private company that has been selling certified organic food since 1985. The founders are Arran and Ratana Stephens. Initially, the company became famous for its breakfast cereal but now they have more than 150 products including granola, oatmeal, tortilla chips, toaster pastries, waffles. It has approximately 500 employees and they sell its products in more than 40 countries (Zhang, 2022). They have their farms with manufacturing facilities in Canada and the United States. The products are fully vegetarian and certified organic and non-GMO project verified. This company started its journey with the first product and that was manna bread. This company has 2,880 acres and 2,760 acres of organic farms in Saskatchewan and Montana respectively. Not only these, but this company also has many awards like Canada's green employers, best growing organic leadership in Canada. The farmers of this company were also awarded as the farmers of the Year in 2014 (Janmaimool and Chontanawat, 2021). Its headquarter was in Richmond but in 2018 September this company announced that it will move its headquarters to East Vancouver (Rodoplu and Gürsel, 2022).

Barriers to achieving sustainability and sustainable management of the company

Nature’s Path is one of the first companies that promote sustainable practice in the food industry and also help to establish the sustainable food trade Association (Rodoplu and Gürsel, 2022). The company struggles so much and faces different barriers in the way of their sustainable organic business. Let's focus on what kind of barrier can be faced by a sustainable organic business company:

• Lack of awareness: Everybody knows that daily food crops and livestock are coming from the agriculture field but they have a lack of knowledge against the process of agriculture. Not only to the customer as well as most of the farmers of the developing countries do not know about organic farming. This is one of the challenges in the establishment of the sustainable organic farming business (Dioha and Kumar, 2020).
• High input cost: the total processing of organic farming is quite more expensive than conventional agriculture farming. Because organic farming is about completely chemical-free so the used ingredients like fertilisers and soil nutrients should be naturally obtained. That is why this farming needs more effort from the farmers than conventional farming. The less availability of natural ingredients higher the cost while low-quality chemical fertilisers lower the cost in conventional agriculture (Dioha and Kumar, 2020).
• Marketing problems: when the input cost becomes higher the product cost will be relevantly higher. That is why organic farming products face marketing problems. organic products are not affordable for everyone and customers give more focus on the cheaper conventional agriculture product (Nadaraja and Islam, 2021).
• Low yields: as the natural ingredients are used as manure and compost so eating affects more slowly. That is why organic farming is less productive. The profit depends on productivity and that is why farmers do not prefer organic farming (Nadaraja and Islam, 2021).
• Difficulties in practice: another barrier is difficulty in the practice of organic farming. In conventional farming farmers generally use chemical pesticides to control the paste and protect the food crop. While in organic farming farmers give so much effort in crop rotation to control the pest naturally (Scorza and Santopietro, 2021).

Along with all those barriers in organic farming this company always try to manage their sustainable business in several ways:

• Organic farming: this company purchased its organic farm but they also serve as an outlet for many independent organic family farmers representing approximately more than 1 lakh acres of farmland (Scorza and Santopietro, 2021).
• Environment sustainability: This company became zero West certified in 2010 which means this company encourages the redesign of resource life cycles so all the products can be reused. 2. This company has successfully implemented practices that have diverted almost 92% of the west from landfills. 3. They also committed to complete carbon neutrality by 2020 and as being organic farming company day keeps over 18000 pounds of chemical pesticides out of the soil (Nadaraja and Islam, 2021).
• Social sustainability: not only the environment sustainability this company also helps to improve social sustainability (Dioha and Kumar, 2020).
• They committed too many charitable and social initiatives and spent a good amount.
• This company grants 15000 Dollars to the best 3 urban gardeners to help educate and feed their communities every year (Scorza and Santopietro, 2021).
• They also help fund programs to save endangered species and North American food banks (Scorza and Santopietro, 2021).

Economy and sustainable business

Business is always associated with the profit, cost of productivity, packaging distribution, and these are directly related to the economy. The concept of economy in sustainable business can be termed as the circular economy (Rodoplu and Gürsel, 2022). Circular economics is a model of our system that gives us a solution framework against Global challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution. This model is very much important in sustainable business because it helps to ensure sustainable growth over time. With the circular economy, our sustainable business organisation can drive the optimization of resources, reduce the consumption of raw materials and recover waste by recycling or giving it a second life as a new product (Wysoki?ska-Senkus, 2021). The circular economy in sustainable business is based on three principles that are-

• eliminate waste and pollution by recycling and proper treatment.
• circulate the products and materials at their highest value.
• regenerate nature with the Eco-industrial model.
• Responsible consumption according to social and ecological criteria (Rodoplu and Gürsel, 2022).

If a business organisation wants to be a sustainable business organisation, then it should implement the concept of the circular economy instead of the linear economy. The concept of the circular economy is also termed the green economy (Wysoki?ska-Senkus, 2021). Because the circular economy gives protection to the environment by reducing waste and also lowering the emission of greenhouse gases. It also allows decreasing the dependence of importance on resources like raw materials, water and energy (Scorza and Santopietro, 2021). The model of the circular economy directly fits into the more general framework of sustainable development. Not only sustainability, the circular economy also adds profitability in a sustainable business organisation. Not only in the economic and environmental benefit, the concept of the circular economy also includes social development (Scorza and Santopietro, 2021). Another benefit of the circular economy is a sustainable business that stimulates new inventions and boosts economic growth. It enhances the long-run chances of competitiveness of national companies. The circular economy creates job opportunities and reduces the chance of employment and property as well as helps to reduce the social impact of pollution and climate change. So, it can be said that circular economy gives a strength to work for sustainable business organisations by empowering sustainability in the environment, the economy as well as social affairs (Shih and Tseng, 2014).

Sustainable strategies

A sustainable business strategy can be explained as it is a set of actionable steps that a sustainable company should take to improve its impact on the community as well as the environment (Wysoki?ska-Senkus, 2021). The strategy is to increase the positive impact on the environment by reducing the negative impact. The implementation of sustainable strategies in a business organisation can take a long time but if it is incorporated with the business strategy then it will show it's a benefit. The concept of sustainable business has become more popular in recent years because of environmental concerns and consumer demand actions (Scorza and Santopietro, 2021).

Benefits of a sustainable strategy

There are so many benefits of Incorporation of Sustainable strategy in a business organisation:

• Environmental Benefits: The concept of Sustainable business is always related to the improvement of relations between business and the environment. When a business organisation incorporates a sustainable strategy that helps to reduce the emission and pollution generated from the production procedure. It also increases the amount of material we can recycle and also helps to reduce waste by creating more and more durable products (Rajayogan, 2021).
• Socio-community benefit: sustainability is only not about the environment it also includes the community. Sustainable strategy always benefits the community by encouraging companies to evaluate their relationship with the community and conduct practices to improve them. Not only the relation of the company and the community it also helps to clean the environment of the community. By reducing waste and cleaner the air , a sustainable business strategy leads towards a cleaner and safer community (Shih and Tseng, 2014).
• Positive impact on the company: when a company executes a sustainable business strategy it directly benefits the company. The strategy includes lower operation null cost and business expenses so it helps to better the overall financial performanceHow to create a sustainable business strategy for an organisation (Shih and Tseng, 2014).

By the following steps, it will be clear how an organisation can implement a sustainable business strategy:

• Find the issue: before implementing a sustainable business strategy, examine the current business practices. Then try to improve that area. Contact any sustainability consultant if you cannot identify the issues at the first level. By examining the policy operation and position the organisation has to understand the current impact of the company on the environment and the community (Wysoki?ska-Senkus, 2021).
• Consult with the employees and the stakeholders: Employees and the stakeholders are the valuable resources of a business organisation. It is important to create involvement of the employee and stakeholders associated with any business decision. The sustainable strategy helps to improve the connection with the community, especially the local community. Create capital programs to encourage the employees to recycle in the workplace and give rewards for their efforts (Shih and Tseng, 2014).
• Always set realistic and specific goals: implementation of sustainable business strategy is about taking unrealistic The goal should be realistic and attainable in a short time. If multiple issues arise then the organisation should address the most important issues. For example, the issue which is very time-sensitive or the issue that impacts the environment and the company needs to be improved in the first place (Rajayogan, 2021).
• Track the progress and make the next plan: the implementation of Sustainable strategy in a business that doesn't mean organisation makes several planning. Make sure that the first sustainable strategy is working perfectly. It is very important to track the progress and evaluate the performance. Always remember that a good change does not happen in a short night. If the goal is sustainable business strategy will show its result by increasing the performance graph (Rajayogan, 2021).

Conclusion

So, sustainability is very much important in every sector, especially in the modern business world. Without ignoring mother nature, destructive development cannot be possible these days. The environment is suffering from several issues like climate change, excess carbon emission, huge amounts of daily Industrial and electronic waste and its effect directly on nature and as well as the people’s life. They are several business ideas that need a sustainable strategy to improve two words: the betterment of nature as well as social health. The agricultural industry needs to be more organic and encourage the farmers for organic farming. Organic farming needs more awareness and improvement in productivity procedures so it can attend to a good target market and everybody can try the organic farming food. Not only the organic farming industry, other business organisations who want to be green should implement the model of circular economy as well as the sustainable business strategy. Business is not about profit and loss is also about the impact on nature as well as the local community. By the implementation of sustainable strategies, the business organisation gives importance to human rights also. Any business organisation gives a trace on solving the social environment issue then it will be more accepted and can get more appreciation. If it happens to any business organisation, it can influence other business organisations to be as green as them. Its main input is the impact slowly to the environment but it will be in a good way.

References

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Dioha, M.O. and Kumar, A., 2020. Sustainable energy pathways for land transport in Nigeria. Utilities Policy, 64, p.101034.

Janmaimool, P. and Chontanawat, J., 2021. Do University Students Base Decisions to Engage in Sustainable Energy Behaviors on Affective or Cognitive Attitudes?. Sustainability, 13(19), p.10883.

Nadaraja, D., Lu, C. and Islam, M.M., 2021. The sustainability assessment of plantation agriculture-A systematic review of sustainability indicators. Sustainable Production and Consumption, 26, pp.892-910.

Rajayogan, P., 2021. Keynote Speech: Sustainable Construction Basic Practice–Strategy, Challenges, Importance Benefits and Positive Impact. AIJR Proceedings, pp.xix-xx.

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Wysoki?ska-Senkus, A., 2021. Determinants of Improving the Strategy of Sustainable Energy Management of Building Sustainable Value for Stakeholders—Experience of Organizations in Poland. Energies, 14(10), p.2878.

Zhang, W., 2022. Economic analysis of the environmental sustainability of agriculture: recent studies using quasi-experimental methods. China Agricultural Economic Review.