The Sustainability Policy of the Seventeen Event Company - Assignment Example

The sustainability policy of The Seventeen Event Company Insert (s) The sustainabilitypolicy of The Seventeen Event Company Introduction Seventeen Events Company is a sustainable event management agency based in Hay on Wye, United Kingdom. The company primarily focuses on providing a range of variety of event management services that are designed to address the social, economic as well as environmental impact of the event activities including air emissions, energy demands, wastes and recycling, land use, water use and community impact among others. According to the Company’s official website, Seventeen Events is a business that is focused on meeting their clients’ planning and execution needs to a high level of performance but this is all done through a rigorous sustainable approach that takes into account the business’s impact on various different stakeholders. Seventeen Event is not just concerned with responsibility towards their primary stakeholders i.e. clients, employees and suppliers but also the secondary stakeholders such as the community they operate in, society and environment. The company website lays out their sustainability policy which shows their dedication towards having best practices that allows them to “reduce the negative effect of what we do as much as possible, but more than that we seek to find ways in which to make a positive difference” ( Seventeen Events, 2014). However, despite being one of the major sustainable event management agencies in the region, the company has faced growing criticism over the gaps in its current sustainable policy. This paper critically evaluates the sustainability policy of the Seventeen Event Company based Triple Bottom Line framework. Literature Review: Critique of Triple Bottom Line (TBL) Theory The Bottom Line theory is an accounting framework that measures the three dimensions of corporate performance namely the financial, social and ecological as opposed to the traditional paradigms which only focuses on the financial bottom line of a business. TBL is widely used as a tool to measure the viability of corporate firms as sustainable organizations based on the effects of their financial, social and environmental policies and actions. According to Slapper and Hall (2011, p.4), the accounting framework goes beyond conventional measure of profit, return on investment, and shareholder value to integrate environmental and social dimensions in the calculations. Generally TBL system is primarily based on three pillars of sustainability (3Ps), namely the Planet (environmental), People (socio-cultural) and Profits (economic). However, while Triple Bottom Line theory may seem to be a straightforward idea, the framework is ripe with a diverse number of shortcomings and complexities that significantly undermines its effectiveness as a tool to measure the performance of corporate firms as sustainable organizations. Many researchers have raised a number of concerns regarding the conceptual standing of Triple Bottom line framework as well as its practical functioning, with some arguing that TBL paradigm is merely a rhetorical device with very little substance. Quantification Gaps/ Lack of Proper Measurements One of the major limitations of Triple Bottom Line framework as a measure of business performance is the absence of a proper way of economically measuring or quantifying the social or economic impact of a business. According to Hubbard, (2009, p179), the primary shortcoming of using TBL is that it can be a complex system to use as the measurement of the different inter-related factors are usually unique to each organization of the industry that the organizations work in. Financial and economic performance can be easily measured through tried and tested models and indicators but social and environment performance cannot be easily quantified. Although, there is support for the monetization of all used resources such as land, energy and water (and all relevant by products) as one concrete measure of a firm’s performance with regards to the environment, the social benefits or detriments such as welfare or environmental damage still remain mostly subjective and some resist the monetization of these factors on philosophical grounds (Fredline et al, 2005). One possible way of mitigating this limitation as suggested by Slapper and Hall is to calculate TBL in terms of an index of factors, created for each individual firm but graded on a common scale. The index would ideally consist of Economic, Environmental and Social measures and contain guidelines for documenting and reporting the different factors. However, not a lot of businesses have completely incorporated such a measurement index in their operations audit. The most common organizational response has been to create a basic sustainable practices policy and publish a report on sustainability performance along with their annual reports. In the past research has shown a general tendency for firms to show positive bias in their TBL reporting, focusing only the on the few best practices to appease the primary stakeholders, more often than not these practices are not even integrated or synchronized with the official financial reports, acting simply for a patronizing effect (Hubbard, 2009, p181). TBL’s lack of Integration Another critical shortcoming of the use of Triple Bottom Line (TBL) approach is the inherent lack of integration between the three dimensions of TBL namely the financial, social and ecological as opposed to the traditional paradigms of a business. This is particularly attributed to the ample division of labor in most corporate organizations. For example, firms normally specialize in specific tasks and this may make an economically focused business firm to report their ecological or social duties without creating an operational inefficiency due to dilution of labor. In addition, each of the three dimensions trains their experts differently. This makes it difficult to develop an integrated data collection for the three dimensions. TBL mentions the need to integrate economic, social and environmental dimensions of businesses in order to measure the sustainability of their impacts. However, in practice, the framework focuses on the co-existence of these three bottom lines with little demonstration of their interdependence. Main Body: Critique of the Seventeen Event Sustainability Policies Seventeen Event has provided a wide variety of documentation on their website to showcase their dedication and sincerity to the cause of sustainable business practices. However, despite some of the potential successes of Seventeen Event sustainability policies such as their effective management of environmental issues such as air emissions, energy demands, wastes and recycling, many of the company’s actions as well as the impacts of its activities do not conform to the sustainability requirements stipulated by the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) framework. One of the main limitations of the sustainability policies of Seventeen Event Company in relation to the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) framework is the lack of clear integration of all the three dimensions of TBL. Generally, the effectiveness of any sustainability policy based on Triple Bottom Line (TBL) can only be judged from its long term and inclusive Impact based assessment that encompasses all the three dimensions. For example, as discussed in the previous section, TBL stipulates the need to integrate and balance the economic, social and environmental dimensions of a corporate organization as a way of evaluating their viability as sustainable organizations. However, this is lacking in Seventeen Events Company just like in many other organizations when Triple Bottom Line (TBL) paradigm is used as a benchmark to evaluate their sustainability policies and the impacts of their actions. In addition, the company doesn’t state specifically how they measure their sustainability achievements based on ‘Triple Bottom Line” framework, as well as how their sustanability guidelines can be used in fulfilling the sustainability requirements outlined by the TBL (Hubbard, 2009). However, their guidelines sufficiently address the 3Ps- Planet, People and profits, but do not go beyond the model by providing measurement guidelines and an integrated approach. This shortcoming of the Seventeen Events Company sustainability policy may be blamed on the fact that the terms of the TBL model are also ambiguous enough that any company can claim that they are following TBL in order to gain publicity and consumer support while only making superficial policy changes. On the other hand, this is also possible due to the fact that the model has not been specified through any common documentation or measurement regulations. Recommendations and Conclusion A critical analysis of Seventeen Event’s policy indicates that the company is indeed one of the few that is correctly utilizing the holistic framework for measuring their sustainability performance. A focus on fair and just business relations with their suppliers, industry peers and clients is a strong supporting point for their policy guidelines which create value for both their primary and secondary stakeholders. Their CSR activities provide support for local communities and economies as well as guiding the event management industry regarding sustainable practices. TBL framework is a part of their business system but is not mentioned in the exact terms. The one recommendation for the business is to try and expand their reach beyond just the event management industry. At this time the business is still a small influence in the industry even though their developed guidelines are among the most comprehensive ones available for use. Along with practical guidelines, there is still a need for creating awareness about the ideas of cost effective sustainability in the industry and as a benchmark organization Seventeen Event can act as a medium of communication through their established network. So far their conferences and guidelines focus on how sustainability can be practiced, they can make an addition in these resources focusing on why sustainability is required in the first place. Finally, despite its limitations, the TBL can not only provide helpful guidance and documentation for the businesses themselves but also establish a common set of comparative factors that can set a benchmark for sustainable performance if implemented correctly with minor improvements on its requirements. Bibliography Mowforth, M. & Munt, I. (2009) Tourism and Sustainability: Development, Globalisation and new tourism in the Third World, 3rd edition. Abingdon: Routledge. Slaper, T. F. and Hall, T.J., 2011. The Triple Bottom Line: What Is It and How Does It Work Tanya J. Indiana University Kelley School of Business, Indiana Business Review, Spring 2011, pg4-8. Jones, M., 2011. Sustainable Event Management. IFEA’s ie: the business of international events Spring 2011, p12. Retrieved from: [Accessed 29 Sep 2014] Hubbard, G., 2009. Measuring Organizational Performance: Beyond the Triple Bottom Line. Business Strategy and the Environment, 19, p177–191. Sherwood, P., 2007.  A triple bottom line evaluation of the impact of special events: the development of indicators. PhD thesis thesis, Victoria University. Retrieved from: < http://vuir.vu.edu.au/1440/> [Accessed 29 Sep 2014] Fredline, E., Raybould, M., Jago, L., & Deery, M., 2005. Triple bottom line event evaluation: A proposed framework for holistic event evaluation. Paper presented at the Third International Event Conference, The Impacts of Events: Triple Bottom Line Evaluation and Event Legacies, UTS, Sydney. Seventeen Event 1., 2014. About Seventeen. Retrieved from: < /http://www.seventeenevents.co.uk/about-seventeen/our-services/> [Accessed 29 Sep 2014] Seventeen Event 2., 2014.Sustainablity. Retrieved from: < http://www.seventeenevents.co.uk/sustainability/sustainable-events-guide/> [Accessed 29 Sep 2014] Seventeen Event., 2009. Sustainability Policy. 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