Environmentally Sustainable Business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Environmentally Sustainable Business - Essay Example Globalization and ever-changing advances in information technology and the emergence of ethical investment opportunities have resulted in an increased focus on community and business smooth relationship. Globalization resulted in cross border flow of people, products, information and money. At different level all over the world, globalization is resisted by societies or communities concerned with the social and environmental implications of large companies (say MNC's) operating throughout the world. Therefore it becomes increasingly important for organisations to attempt to be proactively responsive to social and environmental issues in order to ameliorate to social concerns (Panwar et al. 2006). Corporate social responsibilities is defined as "an obligation to pursue those policies, to make those decisions, or to follow those lines of action that are desirable in terms of the objectives and values of our society" (Bowen, 1953, P.6). However there is no universally accepted definitio n but several models have been developed. The Continuum model of business responsibility conveys a proportional set of responsibilities of the firm such that larger elements represent greater responsibilities. According to the model the firm's primary responsibility is economic success followed by legal, ethical and discretionary responsibilities. Ethical and discretionary responsibilities espoused by Carroll (1979) and have been further developed. Another model called the multidimensional Construct (Niskala & Tarna, 2003) is introduced by emphasizing the interdependence among economic, environmental and social dimensions in responsible business behavior. According to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD, 2000) Companies have a responsibility to the following stakeholders: Owners and investors- high profits Employees- consistent, fairly compensated employment. Customers- high quality products and service. Business Partners- fair, ethical treatment as partners. Suppliers- consistent customer upon which to base the suppliers business. Competitors- Maintain industry image. Government regulators- meeting or exceeding expectations. Communities- Stable employment for community members. Finally Zadek (2004) proposed 4-stages maturity model (fig.-1) having different organizational stages through which business organizational deals with social and environmental issues. The first stage is latent stage where active communities and NGO's are aware of the societal issues but generally issues are ignored or dismiss by business communities. The next stage is Emerging stage where Political and media is aware of the issues and leading business also try to deal with the environmental and social issues adopting different approaches. The third stage is consolidation stage represented by those business organizations which frame their business policies and practices around societal issues, organizations normally establish sector wise and issue base voluntary initiative which take care of societal issues. Through litigations and legal approach all the issues are addressed. In the process voluntary standards are developed and collective actions emerges. Finally the fourth stage in t he organization emerges with