Sustainability: What Does It Really Mean For Your Business?
There is a lot of hot air talked about sustainability and while it includes the environment it is certainly not exclusively environmental.
There are many things that can cause a business to be unsustainable including human error and careless decisions. We even see very successful sports stars making their business of sport unsustainable because of their poor decisions (there is a prominent golf example at present).
The world is just emerging from a global financial crisis when some large corporate financial practices were found to be unsustainable and the impact went far beyond their businesses.
You would have to have been hiding somewhere very remote to have missed all the squabbles about how sustainability applies to global warming and what to do about it.
What a mix came together in Copenhagen! - Climate change deniers - Left wing radical greenies - Developing nations sent activists with their hands out - Politicians with images to sustain at home - And lots more
I don't know about you but thank goodness I don't have to try to balance all that.
So how does all this affect your business?
Climate change is simply another sustainability issue - just a giant scale of what each and every business faces in many areas, not just environmental.
Like building any workable management system the experts need to identify the risks and do risk analysis without all the noise and emotion. The negotiators then need to build a management plan and this includes: - Overall objectives - The targets that need to be met to achieve those objectives - The resources that are needed - Defining who is responsible and also a time for completion or implementation.
The resources needed will cost money and the developed world needs to help those who can't afford to make changes and will also need to supervise those changes so that the money is not diverted. And this needs to allow the recipients to retain their dignity.
Inevitably also those wanting help will be unhappy because more would be better and those giving will be unhappy because they have had to make commitments and contributions then justify them when they go home.
It does sound like any other business. You need a well thought-out rik-based management plan. You do need a feedback systems so that you have a place to report and learn from mistakes so that they are not repeated.
Your business is kept running profitably when you have sustainable business practices. These practices include: - really listening to your clients so that they want to continue buying from you, - Building and maintaining a credible image and reputation so that the right clients are attracted to you - looking after the health and welfare of your greatest asset - your staff, - knowing and understanding your legal requirements and having training and procedures so that it is easier for your staff to do things that right way than to make a mistake and accidentally break the law, - reducing waste energy and materials and avoiding other environmental damage - proactively being aware of changing conditions, and of course they include managing your finances.
We have all heard the old adage 'Failing to plan is planning to fail' - it is so true. The secret to building a sustainable business is to identify all your activities, assess where you have risks then plan to manage those risks. This way you can build resilience, prevent damaging errors and have a business that continues into a profitable future.
Questions and Answers
The concept of Sustainable Development is an important element and issue in the emerging international economy for the real and the actual economic development. The brundtland report stressed the importance of sustainable development to every nation through which the economic, social, political and environmental growth and protection can be ensured. This paper considers energy security and use of nuclear energy has a green energy for the scarcity of energy resource and to meet the needs and want
The increasing clamor for environmental protection urges the building industry to do their share. The industry's response is to adopt building methods and features that transform facilities into sustainable units. What are sustainable facilities? And what does it take to become one?
In the last decade, buyers added a new dimension to their requirements, and began making demands regarding health, safety and labour conditions. Global manufacturing centres have increasingly had to respond not only to local requirements but also to global ones. T
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(a) The challenges of achieving sustainable development in both developed and developing countries. (b)The necessary adjustments to achieving sustainable development.
Abstract This paper discusses the sustainability of modern logistics systems which have helped develop a high degree of organization and control over freight transportation locally and internationally. The compatibility between the narrow commercial interests of logistics providers and objectives of ‘green’ logistics needs to be established. It discusses the problem of greenhouse gas emissions by transport vehicles in India and the measures to mitigate the environmental effects.
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The key reason why some firms thrive while some implode during an financial recession is still a puzzle to many people business-owning business owners. Some wrongly assume that all businesses should suffer via recessionary cycles. But the truth is that some companies are usually essentially recession-proof, and it is not necessarily because they are much larger, better known, or a lot more generously capitalized.
Companies like Arch Coal (ACI) and Massey Energy (MEE) watched his or her stock climbed.
To me, a sustainable business is one that keeps on going with minimum drama, a sensible profit and a good lifestyle for everyone who works there, including the owner and that does not include having owners who are overworked and stressed in their business.
We have heard about the dreadful human cost and the houses lost but spare a thought also for the businesses and the consequent jobs lost. They have not had a lot of publicity. The recovery may well take years. How many won't recover? STOP and think about YOUR emergency planning even for things you thought were totally unlikely.
2010 was the equal hottest year recorded since man began recording temperatures 1880 and also the wettest and this is in spite of the big freeze n the northern hemisphere. 2005 was the equal hottest. A hotter world causes more evaporation from land and oceans resulting in a warmer atmosphere that holds and releases more water. The result is more violent storms and 100 year events becoming 20 year events.
The anecdotal evidence is that 80% of small business owners don't prepare a business plan and even less actually run their business from a plan. And if you do, you almost certainly concentrate on your strengths and opportunities and gloss over your threats and weaknesses because the plan is largely focussed on convincing the bank you are a good risk. Did you actually stop and think about risk? But that's another story.
Why even think of putting new housing development in polluted industrial areas? Just where is industry supposed to move? And what on earth would this cost? Doesn't it occur to some people that we actually do need some industry in this country? It really is helpful in producing wealth and employing people.
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