Organizational Sustainability and Environmental Performance - Essay Example

? ORGANIZATIONAL SUSTAINABILITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE By Sate submission Corporate social responsibility has become an important realization in the modern business world, and despite the fact that there are still few organizations, which do not regard it as important, most business leaders and companies are adapting to it (Markley & Davis 2007). Currently, organizations and business leaders who may have seen CSR as a waste of time and resources, have changed their attitudes. This is because before, a majority of business leaders who were known to mainly focus on profits have come to realize that complying in CSR and integrating in the business strategy does not prevent them from achieving their goals in terms of profit making. Instead, this particular business approach may take some time to put in place as it involves everybody connected to the business and require resources, has proven to be capable of giving more benefits than just profits as the result (Cortez 2011). Organizational sustainability is one other thing that is challenging business leaders, and from the look of things, the competition in the business world requires that organizations are sustainable and competent. Sustainability is therefore a Business tool that also requires going through processes and business leaders, for it to work must exert efforts (Wikstom 2010). According to a good number of business Scholars, the argument that most businesses are now adapting to CSR is true. Organizations have also reputation drastically hence causing it to attract the attention of a variety of consumersrealized that CSR is not only based business ethics but that it is capable of changing the company. Menz, for instance, is one of the Scholars who says that many corporate companies, which never considered CSR to be an effective tool in business, have now experienced a growing interest. This is due to the fact that as profit-oriented companies, the world climate changes, lack of enough resources and the developing social pressures is forcing them to realize the importance and positive impact of it. Menz says that these organizations are now realizing the social need of creating holistic goals and objectives. It is usually termed as the “triple bottom line,” which is the current consideration of economic, environmental, and social features of the construction of corporate strategies (Menz 2010). Hadders, on the other hand, comes up with his “Quadruple Bottom Line Scorecard,” which he uses to measure the performance measurement system for organizations. It offers a calculated map that helps business leaders to measure the performance in their companies in a much better way. Hadders argument about organizational sustainability is more or less the same as that of most scholars because he stresses that effectiveness and adaption are two of the main things that drive business sustainability. He also says that sustainability in business requires both knowledge on its effects in the society and the ability for organizations to learn and modernize in response (Hadders 2010). Angelo Cortez answers the question on whether the markets really care about social and environmental performance using the Tokyo Stock Exchange. In his text, he makes it clear that the top Japanese organizations are some of the world’s best example with markets, which are concerned with social and ecological performance. In Japan, over twenty of the top manufactures actively promote and maintain sustainability and provide yearly financial reports in the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Together with countries such as Germany and U.K, Japan practices progressive sustainability reporting through the government assistance, and one of them is the Ministry of Environment which assists in drafting the strategies for ecological accounting and reporting (Cortez M. 2011). John Grinde in his view strongly blames the environmental harm on human activities, and argues like the rest of scholars that it is the duty of the same humans to ensure this harm is stopped and prevented. The harm caused by human quest for profits and little consideration on its environmental effects has existed since late eighteenth century. The dangers being portrayed now through warnings of environmental catastrophe have however, made organizations to think of reconsidering business issues which are related to sustainability. Grinde has also quoted Thomas Jefferson in his text when he said “The earth belongs to the living . . . no man can by natural oblige the lands he occupied, or to the person who succeed him in the occupation, to the payments of debts contracted by him. For if he could he might during his own life, eat up the usufruct of the lands for several generations to come and then the land would belong to the dead and not to the living.” (Grinde & Ashuman 99). This quote explains clearly what is evidently known by man and that is where sustainability and environmental responsibility must apply in any kind of business that requires any form of natural resources (Grinde & Ashuman 99). Waldman and Siegel respond to each other concerning the instructiveness of CSR and strategic leadership, where Waldman believes that there is luck of attention towards the importance of this particular issue in business world while in real sense, social responsibility engagement in a business is a strategic decision. Waldman also believes there nothing wrong with organizations concentrating mainly on profit-maximization and that CSR implementation is an issue that is upon the business owners. However, Siegel is completely opposed to that and he says that in as much as he agrees with him on the fact that determining how social responsibility exist in an organization depends on the leadership level and the kind of leaders, he believes that profit maximization should not be the main reason for a company to engage in responsible actions. They however agree in many issues as far as their conversation is concerned (Siegel & Waldman 2008). Authors and many modern organizations argue in the same way concerning sustainability and environmental performance. Organization leaders have realized that if they concentrate mainly on profits and fail to engage in business ethics, they may not be able to achieve their goals as expected. They have realized that CSR engagement in business is the key contributor and promoter for more and better profits because of its power of influence on consumers (Epstein 2008). This is because it is the same consumers and even stakeholders who campaign for such things as social responsibility and environmental accountability to challenge how business is operated in relation to natural resources. They have also realized how exhausting natural resources can seriously affect the same businesses hence causing great financial losses. Due to all these findings, corporates are now working hard on promoting sustainability in their businesses, in order to maintain the existing natural resources and create more where possible (Mirchandani & Ikerd 2008). This would then reduce the risks of losses in the business world and the fairer they treat the environment, the fairer it treats them and their businesses. References Cortez Angelo Michael 2011, do Markets care about Social Environmental Performance? Evidence from the Tokyo Exchange, Asia Pacific University. Epstein, M. J. 2008, Making sustainability work: Best Practices in Managing and Measuring corporate social;, Environmental, and Economic impacts, San Francisco: Berrett- Koehler. Grinde John and Khare Anshuman, 2008, the ant, the grass hopper or Schrodinger’s Car: An Exploration of Concepts of Sustainability. New York, NY, Imperial college press. Henk Hadders, 2010, The Adaptive Quadruple Bottom Line Scorecard: Measuring organizational sustainability performance, Netherlands: University of Groningen. Markley, M. J and Davis, L. 2007, Exploring future competitive advantage through sustainable supply chains’, International Journal of Physical Distribution &Logistics Management, New York, NY: Routledge Menz Michael-Klaus, 2010, Corporate Social Responsibility: is it rewarded by the Corporate Bond Market? A Critical Note, New York, NY: Springer. Mirchandani, D. and Ikerd, J. 2008, ‘Building and maintaining sustainable organizations’, organization Management Journal 5(5) 12-92 Senge, P., Smith, B., Kruschwitz, N., Laur, J. and Schley, S. 2010. The necessary Revolution, New York, NY: Doubleday. Siegel Donald and Waldman A. David, 2008, Defining the Socially Responsible Leader. New York, NY: Elsevier. Wilkstrom Per-Arne, 2010, Sustainability and Organizational Activities – Three Approaches. New York, NY: Wiley inter-science. Read More