How can a business be sustainable?

Résumé du document

The global warming of the planet is just the top of the iceberg of environmental problems. The iceberg under the water is growing and hiding several issues such as, over-fishing, over-exploitation of the ground and natural resources, water pollution, air pollution, radioactive and non-recycling wastes, and forest depletion. While consumers keep living in the unconsciously luxurious of our developed nations and are told that the level of life has never been so high, especially regarding medical progress, car safety, the comfort of air conditioning and the delight of a swimming pool during the summer, they are still astonished to learn about environmental issues. This document will study the cause of the issue. "What has happened to the nice planet we lived in?" Business is aimed at spending all its time improving human life, by using available resources on earth, but now it is no longer possible as the bottom of this free reservoir has been reached. Understanding what has happened is important to find out how to react. The major challenge of the XXI century will be to replace these resources; especially those without we cannot produce goods, eat, drink, and simply live.

Extraits

[...] This leads us to a major issue: how can a business be sustainable? What does mean sustainability? It can be simply defined as “being able to continue into the future”[2], or it generally refers to “land management practices that provides goods and services from an ecosystem without degradation of the site quality, and without the decline in the yield of goods and services overtime”[3] and without compromising the needs of future generations. To enable sustainability, it is important to point out each responsible and its role in environment degradation and to propose them a guideline to save our civilisation from this emergency. [...]

[...] This engagement in environment protection brings success to main of the businesses as it is a competitive advantage for consumers who appreciate this initiative. The businesses are not acting alone in the process of sustainability. It is the role of governments to give some rules to protect environment, as regulating consumption of resources or limiting pollution of factories. For instance, Germany wants to put into practice the plans by the European Commission to extend the emissions trading scheme to aviation[9], which complies with Kyoto Protocol targets to bring down greenhouses gases emissions, linked to global warming. [...]

[...] The target is yet to use the less unsustainable practises. The role of the USA is also important in the process to sustainability. This country pulled back from the Kyoto Protocol, even though it is one of the world greatest polluters. Besides, the American government has not so much influence over businesses, which does not encourage them to become sustainable. In fact, businesses see the sustainable investments as a sacrifice of the budget, instead of seeing it as the only way to escape. [...]

[...] But everyone is involved and every body has to pay the price to protect the environment and at the same time our lives. Solving the environmental crisis lays only on individual concern. The real stake is to see if sustainability is realisable or if it is an illusion. Only the future will tell. By now, minds are mitigated. http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/jul2005/bs20050715_9296_bs001.h tm http://www.oregonstate.edu/instruct/anth370/gloss.html http://www.sfrc.ufl.edu/Extension/ssfor11.htm [4]“Demographic Changes”, Third seminar of Critical Issues Management, 16th November 2006 Handbuch für die betriebliche Umweltorganisation from U. [...]

[...] Innovation is the most attractive solution, as it pre-empt external changes by creating them. Finding new environmental friendly process and remaining competitive The compatibility of the activity of a business and the efforts to make to become sustainable is another remaining problem. How can a company be sustainable if it is producing or using or selling polluting production? First of all the size of the business is an issue as the bigger a company is, the harder it is to be environmental friendly. [...]