Examples of sustainability in the following topics:
-
- Before beginning the sustainability process it's important to: (1) learn what sustainability entails, (2) articulate why the pursuit of it is important, and (3) establish the groundwork that will instil both managers and non-management employees with enthusiasm, answers and support.
- Without this foundation, most attempts at sustainability are prone to confusion, suspicion, disorganization and dwindling motivation – as well as wasted time and efforts.
-
- To date, in an ongoing survey, my students have asked 127 business managers and 530 employees in eight countries (Belarus, Canada, China, Peru, Poland, Russia, the United Arab Emirates and the United States) what aspects of sustainability most interest them.
- Top ratings are almost always given to: the cost savings involved, profit potential, market share increases and job security (i.e. the financial aspects of sustainability).
- Why then, when trying to win over businesspeople, are the aspects of sustainability that appeal most to business constantly forced to take a back seat to environmental facts and figures?
-
- In 2005, employees at Hewlett Packard managed to keep 84% of the company's trash out of landfills around the world as part of the business's sustainability drive.
- At Xerox, a company that credits sustainable activities as having helped save it from financial collapse, employees reuse, remanufacture and recycle over 90% of company waste.
- To be sure, the examples mentioned in this and other sections represent only a fraction of the overall sustainability picture –and it is important to note that sustainability is like quality in that one subpar or out-of-sync component often diminishes the entire end result.
- Staying on track involves acknowledging the big picture by continuously honing and developing an awareness of what sustainability encompasses (e.g. understanding the interplay of every component) before analytic thought, personal interests, negative experiences and biases begin their reductive work.
- This is the time to note that a pledge to sustainability is a pledge to ongoing improvements across the board along with complete acknowledgment that there is always room for improvement.
-
- In the autumn of 2011, a former student of mine, who had successfully completed an introductory sustainability program, packed his bags, hopped on a plane, and flew a considerable distance to attend a newly launched university course that claimed to focus on ‘shareholder wealth and corporate sustainability'.
- Around the same time, a different student of mine, again lured by the promise of a ‘new' sustainability program at an institute in another country, signed up and set off to build a portfolio in what she hopes will be a career that involves managing sustainable business operations.
- ‘Its emphasis is exploring the emotional issues behind sustainability, she told me afterward – with more than a hint of disgust in her voice.
- Further investigation reveals that none of these people has ever worked with a business or other organization in any sustainability-oriented capacity.
- Needless to say, as everyone rushes to jump aboard the sustainability band wagon a lot of unnecessary confusion results (e.g. highly regarded sustainability curricula become lumped together with unscrupulous claptrap – and/or subjects such as forestry, material science, CSR, the law, etc. are somehow seen as unrelated to sustainability.
-
- Sustainability is not a technological issue.
- For sustainable practices to take root and produce results, every employee – whether he or she is a cleaner, a production-line worker or an administrator – (as well as paying customers) must contribute to the process.
- No matter what level or experience a person has, everyone has the potential to discover a sustainable path that has been overlooked.
- Understanding the importance of people in all phases of the sustainability process is therefore necessary to ensure that a thorough and combined effort on all fronts is made.
-
- Welcome to this updated and expanded second edition of The Sustainable Business.
- In the past few years, the issue of sustainability in its widest sense (not just green' issues) has been comprehensively and wholeheartedly embraced by the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD), and its global base of member institutions: business schools, corporations, government and public sector bodies.
- This very important book stresses that sustainability is sensible and practical, covering such areas as the legal, financial, economic, industrial, social and behavioural aspects of business.
- As I wrote in the introduction to the first edition of The Sustainable Business, we owe it to our children and our children's children not to spend their inheritance on ourselves.
- We can do that by adopting sustainable measures, which have the happy side-effect of helping to preserve our environment and creating jobs in the process.
-
- Sustainability initiatives consider every dimension of how a business operates in the social, cultural, and economic environment.
- Sustainability, in a general sense, is the capacity to support, maintain, or endure.
- Three key principles that should form the foundation of a corporate sustainability initiative are: transparency, employee development, and resource efficiency.
- Resource efficiency refers to that fact that companies must adapt to a rapidly changing environment by being prepared to change and implement new creative ideas related to sustainability.
- Sustainability is related to the integration of environmental, economic, and social dimensions towards global stewardship and responsible management of resources.
-
- Hence the growing interest in sustainability, a catch-all concept that can be as difficult to comprehend as it is to define.
- So what exactly is sustainability and why is the word ‘green' attached to it - particularly when most definitions of the verb sustain don't mention the word green'?
- So why, you might still ask, is the word sustainability synonymous for ‘going green'?
- Simply put, the core of sustainability is comprised of waste elimination and resource extension.
- Preparation – accepting the breadth and depth of sustainability (e.g. particularly the financial implications) and understanding that sustainability is not solely about the environment or being independent.
-
- Reducing waste by more efficient manufacturing is a key goal of management, with supply chain sustainability seen as a key component.
- Supply chain sustainability is a business issue affecting an organization's supply chain or logistics network in terms of environmental, risk, and waste costs.
- One of the key requirements of successful sustainable supply chains is collaboration.
- Sustainability has been found to be a major component of supplier relationship management as an efficient way to cut costs among retailer giants such as Wal-Mart.
- As industry leaders continue to add in cost-cutting measures, we are likely to see this trend continue in supply chain sustainability for sustained improvement in relationship building and cost reduction.
-
- Several years ago I was invited to Amsterdam to speak to a group of finance event promoters about sustainability.
- ‘Your talk was very interesting,' she said, ‘but we're finance people and sustainability is obviously more of a manufacturing topic.'
- It is therefore difficult to expect progress in sustainability by focusing only on only one area of sustainability.
- And that's not sustainable.
- The message coming out of all of this is that sustainability is here to stay because sustainability just makes sense.