The Benefits of Sustainable Business Practices - Math Problem Example

Name Tutor’s Name Course Date Business Social Responsibility Question 1 The YouTube video link by Greennovate is an animated narration of the important role that sustainability has for business and their stakeholders. The narration starts by giving a historical journey of sustainability, stating that the battle between profits and the environment started in the industrial age when businesses unreservedly used natural resources to rake in profits without really caring about the effects that their pursuit of profits had on the environment. Consequently, the video indicates that there were several environmental disasters in different parts of the world (e.g. London, the US and India) where reckless release of toxic gases and wastes into the environment led to losses of lives. The losses prompted governments to make laws that would regulate waste management in order to mitigate the effects of pollution. The video link however indicates that soon enough, businesses, governments and the general population realised that regulation alone was not sufficient in enhancing sustainability. From the video link, it emerges that businesses had to find their own reasons for pursuing sustainability. Arguably, such reasons were provided by a push from investors who wanted to do the right thing and hence protect their profit interest, government, employees who ideally want to work for a responsible company, and consumers, whose purchase decisions are influenced in part by how environmentally responsible a manufacturer or a supplier of a product or service is. From the video link, it appears that corporate social responsibility (CSR) started as a separate function in business dedicated to doing the right thing (e.g. tree planting), while the rest of the company went on with business as usual. Soon enough, the video link indicates that it was realised that CSR was not having the intended impact, and as such, dedicated businesses had to incorporate CSR into the larger business. This meant that every action by the company had to be gauged by its effect on the environment and on stakeholders. Incidentally however, not every business has embraced CSR fully. There are those who talk, but never walk the talk; and there are those businesses which are dedicated to aligning their business practices with the sustainable concept. As the video indicates, those businesses that align their business practices with the sustainable concept reap the benefits of sustainable business practices because their responsible approach to business earns them support from investors, governments, employees and perhaps more importantly, customers. Compared to the prescribed text, I found the YouTube link more useful, because it gives simple explanations to what seems like a complex concept. The video for example explains sustainability as “not using up all the stuff on earth, not covering the earth in waste that never goes away, and making life better for people” (Greennovate 0:58). The foregoing simple explanation is in fact a detailed explanation of what sustainability is all about. The animations and the examples given in the video link are also a great resource that would ideally help learners recall the lessons in the video. The brevity of the video link is also another added advantage as one can watch it in about 12 minutes, while reading the prescribed text would take much longer. Overall, however, the two resources are complementary as the prescribed text provides more details regarding corporate social sustainability, and should therefore not be disregarded. Question 2 Plato, the Athenian philosopher, was an ethical thinker who indicated that social life was about justice. Plato specifically argued that political leaders had an ethical responsibility to hold their possessions in common. Interpreted, the foregoing means that political leaders had to be willing to share what they had with the people they led, especially if their possessions had been acquired while in leadership. Niccollo Machiavelli was another ethical thinker whose arguments indicated that rulers had to do away with all ethics, because man was inherently prone to troublesome behaviour. Embracing ethics would therefore, according to the Machiavellian thought, predispose rulers to weakness in that they would not be strong enough to deal with dissent among the people they led. Machiavelli argued that since people were inherently bad, rulers had to choose between evils, in which case the ruler had to choose the lesser evil. An example is when a ruler has to choose between killing a dissenter, who if left alive, would mobilise more people to cause widespread dissent across a country. Aristotle was also an ethical thinker and philosopher who argued that ethics demand for people to pursue actions or words that provide the highest good. According to Aristotle, the highest good has three characteristics, which include: being desirable by itself, not being desirable for the sake of some other good; and other goods being desirable because of it. In other words, the highest good is just perfect and nothing needs to be added or subtracted from it for its ‘highest good’ status to be maintained. Aristotle further indicates that a good man acts as a measure of the pleasantness or lack thereof in something, since the good is naturally good and therefore not self-seeking but interested in the greater good of others and the society at large. St Augustine is also another ethical thinker who argued that man is inherently unable to do things without God’s help. Specifically, St. Augustine stated that “man never does good things which God does not make him do” (Pratt 229). St. Augustine’s sentiment could be interpreted to mean that those people who do bad things do not seek God, and as such do not receive His help. St. Augustine further indicated that human beings have free will, which they can use to do good or bad; as such, they can obey God’s law and therefore be delivered from their sinful nature through grace, or they can choose to disobey, in which case they would be punished eternally for their guilty natures. The basic argument by St. Augustine however seems to underscore man’s dependent nature on God. Question 3 ‘Beneficial businesses’ are business enterprises that are small by choice; instead of enlarging their operations, they choose to do great things. They are also referred to as small giants, since they are acknowledged as worthy competitors by other players in the market, and are also ranked impressively in their chosen fields. Moreover, ‘beneficial businesses’ have a human scale element in that every employee/manager knows everybody else in the company. The purpose of beneficial businesses is to become better rather than grow larger. They insist on quality products/services, quality work-life balance, and quality goals as opposed to sub-optimal handful goals. For example, a company may cap its employees at 40, meaning that it cannot take any work that cannot be handled by 40 people. The foregoing situation would create efficiency and due to the limited number of workforce, everyone would know each other and create the synergy needed for effectiveness to be realised. Another aim of beneficial businesses is the creation of intimacy with its different stakeholders. Burlingham indicates stakeholders are the communities, employees, suppliers and customers that a business has to deal with (76). Through intimacy, beneficial businesses create an interactive atmosphere that makes it easy for the company to understand the needs, wants and challenges faced by each stakeholder category. The company is also understood by different stakeholders and consequently, mutually beneficial relationships between the company and its stakeholder groups are developed. -- Supply chain management is important to socially responsible business practice since suppliers are critical stakeholders to businesses. If suppliers do not uphold socially responsible practices in their operations, companies that do business with them are by extension tainted as well. Some of the social responsibility issues include safety, human rights and environmental issues. An effective supply chain management will establish what Keating, Quazi, Kris and Coltman call ‘socially responsible purchasing practices’, whereby, only suppliers who prove that they have minimal environmental impacts, uphold human rights in their treatment of workers, and do not engage themselves in practices such as sweatshops or child labour do business with the company (176). Effective supply chain management in relation to sustainability leads to an increase in supply chain benefits and a reduction in supply chain costs and risks. Consequently, there is an increase in the financial value, people value and environmental value of the business. An example of effective supply chain management in Australia can be seen in News Corp Australia, which required the paper mills from which it sources paper to get certification from relevant authorities (Goetze n.pag.). The action by News Corp Australia was intended to curb the illegal harvesting of fibre by suppliers and the consequent endangering of forests. Works Cited Burlingham, Bo. Small Giants: Companies that Choose to be Great Instead of Big. New York: Penguin Group, 2007. Print Goetze, Eliza. “News Commits to Sustainable News Print”. 9 Apr. 2014. http://www.thenewspaperworks.com.au/news-commits-to-sustainable-newsprint-practices/. 18 Jul. 2014. Greennovate. The Journey of Sustainable Business. 25 Oct. 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSDnAVkdaAM. 18 Jul. 2014. Keating, Byron, Andrew Quazi, Arthur Kris and Tom Coltman. “In Pursuit of a Sustainable Supply Chain: Insights from Westpac Banking Corporation”. Supply Chain Management 13.3 (2008): 175-179 Pratt, James Bissett. “The Ethics of St. Augustine”. The International Journal of Ethics. 13.2 (1903): 22-235. Read More