Why Sustainable Is Now The Key Driver For Innovation. 4wd2b

Introduction Sustainable development for business means “adopting business strategies and activities that meet the needs of the enterprise and its stakeholders today while protecting, sustaining, and enhancing the human and natural resources that will be needed in the future”. Sustainable business has three interdependent economic, environmental and social objectives. Long term viability depends on integrating all three objectives in decision making. Most companies expect that the achievement of greater sustainability will be at the expense of increased costs, no immediate financial benefits, and possible erosion of their competitiveness, while policy makers and activists argue that it will take tougher regulations and educated, organized consumers to force businesses to adopt sustainable practices. So why sustainability is key issue for business in today’s world? There are basically many reasons – the world population is growing at unprecedented rate and putting pressure on already overstressed natural resources; there are growing expectations on business to help solve environmental and social issues from government, employees, customers and the public broadly; and how the individual companies respond to these trends will influence their profitability and longevity. It is not going to be easy for the business to achieve that level. They need to change the mindset about the way they used to think about the products, technologies, process, and business model. The achievement of greater sustainability involves five distinct stages of change: viewing compliance as opportunity; making value chains sustainable; deg sustainable products and services; developing new business models; and creating next-practice platforms. 1. Viewing Compliance as Opportunity - Rather than viewing compliance as a burden and doing as little as possible, the organization should view compliance as opportunity. The first-mover approach provides a competitive advantage as well as efficiencies of scale. Staying ahead of regulation can also put companies in a position to shape future legislation.

2. Making Value Chains Sustainable - Driving sustainability through the supply chain compounds the positive effect by requiring suppliers, typically small to medium businesses, to improve their environmental and labor practices. The company will adopt new tools like life cycle assessments, energy footprint calculators and carbon management protocols that can lead to future innovation especially in the design of new products and businesses.

3. Deg Sustainable Products and Services –With an increased focus on efficiency and newly acquired skills like life cycle assessments, companies can redesign their offerings and tap into growing consumer demand for more eco-friendly products and packaging.

4. Developing New Business Models – As companies view current business models through the lens of sustainability, they will inevitably rethink these models, especially with the advent of new technologies and the shifting landscape of customer expectations.

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Why Sustainability is now the Key Driver of Innovation

5. Creating Next-Practice Platforms – A sustainability focus also allows companies to build on their existing competencies to develop next-practice platforms and new paradigms. Can we imagine products like waterless detergents, or crops that grow without water or biodegradable packaging that plants seeds as it decompose?

What are businesses doing to be more sustainable? Starbucks is aiming to draw 100 percent of its energy from renewables by 2015. IBM, Office Depot and Intel Corporation are among the greenest companies in America. Ford has a science-based strategy to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from their vehicles. Their new products is a leader, or among the leaders, in fuel economy, and are reducing greenhouse gas. They have set a goal to reduce Co2 emissions by 30 percent per vehicle by 2025 compared to a 2010 baseline. As per the forbes the 10 most sustainable companies include General Electric, Pacific Gas and Electric, TNT NV, Hennes & Mauritz, Nokia, Siemens , Unilever, Vodafone , Smiths Group and Geberit. Among 100 most sustainable companies, European Companies are more efficient with their resources and have transparent policy.

Conclusion The debate over the role of the state and business leads back full circle to the definition of sustainability and the reason why it has become such a pressing issue. Although currently being driven by growing anxiety over the impact of climate change, the underlying questions about the relationship of business with the world’s societies—developed and developing—have been given a new urgency by the impact of globalisation. The social and environmental benefits of sustainable business practices are what governments and citizens are likely to demand in return for an open world economy. In long run, sustainability does pay. It can help reduce the cost, open up new market and improve the company’s reputation. Companies that think they are doing well on sustainability are generally seeing better financial results than those who believe the opposite.

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Why Sustainability is now the Key Driver of Innovation