Balancing Profit and Planet

Introduction

The obligation to conserve natural resources and maintain global ecosystems to support health and welfare today and in the future is known as environmental sustainability. Because many actions that affect the environment have a long-term impact, one of the most important aspects of environmental sustainability is its forward-thinking character. Indeed, the Environmental Protection Agency defines it as "filling today's requirements without jeopardising future generations' capacity to fulfil their own." Companies have a strong social duty to pursue ecologically friendly practices, but these practices do not have to conflict with corporate objectives. Well-implemented environmental sustainability should link profits with humans and the environment. This essay encompasses the positive and negative effects of environmental sustainability. If you require environmental studies dissertation help, we can provide the best expert support.

Positive effects

In recent years, there has been a growing trend among corporations to become more ecologically sensitive. Companies are required to follow regulations that serve as a starting point for making a positive difference in the world. Companies may reap a variety of benefits by following several expert-recommended actions. Financial incentives, a greater positive community reaction, and extending the life of the firm are just a few of the advantages. The public's reaction is an important aspect of the environmental business sector. The public has propelled the sustainability movement; individuals prefer to buy products from environmentally concerned firms. Even though they know they are contributing to a corporation that is wanting to create a favourable effect on the world, these businesses can conserve good standing with the general populace and business from life-long consumers because they know they have been providing to a company that is looking to make a favourable effect on the world.

Climate change and sustainability have emerged as critical elements in long-term business decisions, making it necessary to include sustainability into company plans and investment rationale. As a result, new business models have arisen, as have new societal and environmental KPIs and valuation criteria. Following are some positive effects of environmental sustainability on business companies.

Sustainability encourages creativity by forcing individuals to think differently and outside the box. When the existing quo no longer works, innovation takes control. New ideas to increase operational efficiency and minimise costs emerge as a result of innovation and new ways of thinking, with a direct beneficial influence on profit, net working capital (NWC), and productivity, as well as other financial and operational key metrics.

Collaboration is encouraged by sustainability. The current Covid19 scenario also demonstrated that crises and significant societal shifts stimulate collaboration and partnerships. Businesses are no longer viewed as separate micro-entities mainly concerned with improving their cash flows and balance sheets. Companies are interconnected in a network of interdependence with shared initial circumstances and the objective of accomplishing an overall common objective, which fosters collaboration.

Greening a business requires an ongoing investment, but by prioritising sustainability, one will save money over time. According to a 2011 McKinsey survey on the business of sustainability, 33% of organisations were incorporating sustainable practices enhancing cost savings and decreasing costs, a 19% rise from the previous year. Clients of managed service provider Elytus saved more than $11 million over ten years by implementing waste minimisation and visibility (Schaltegger and Wagner, 2019). Going green can help you save money in the long run. Saving money can be achieved by employing more energy-efficient lighting or creatively repurposing existing resources. Although switching to solar energy requires an initial investment, it pays off: the average industrial property owner will save roughly $500 per month on energy, equating to $587,377 in benefits over the life of the solar power system. In most cases, the cost of panels is repaid in five to seven years.

In business, reputation management entails developing a positive image by matching messaging with actions. Lego ranks third among the most recognised firms for corporate social responsibility, thanks to its choice to manufacture Legos using plant-based materials. Lego quickly followed up with goods built from leaves and sugarcane after making the announcement (Lo and Kwan, 2017). By 2030, the Danish toymaker hopes to have all of its key goods and packaging made from sustainable materials. The company's reputation has soared as a consequence. People think of sustainability as a positive, and businesses with green principles are keen to promote them.

Because they're controlling and planning for climate change, S&P 500 firms with sustainability baked into their strategy outperform those that don't: they get an 18% greater ROI. "One will do better financially by doing things like having a fantastic sustainability programme," says Jeffrey Hollender, professor of sustainability at NYU Stern (Mahmood et al. 2018). "They been analysing the sustainability programmes of 30 significant firms for some time," said Harvard Business Review researchers. Their findings reveal that sustainability is a gold mine of organisational and technological innovations that pay off on both the lowermost and top lines."

Negative effects

Sustainability has many successful advantages although there are some significant drawbacks of it on companies as well there are businesses that use plenty of environmental raw materials which surf as a purpose for the ongoing business of the company not being able to sustain result in those resources slowly and steadily getting depleted from the face of the earth along with some other major important substances for eg. Countless industries across the globe use coal and while others use silicon for their significant usage of these resources go extinct or become very limited, it might affect many industries and households because of their very usage (Miska et al. 2018). Products like petroleum play a major role in serving the business of different industries since these elements are formed from the natural cycle of earth and the millions of years to form and then not being able to sustain them might affect many entities like individuals small size medium size or large size companies. Taking assistance from the environment takes a lot of time. Since companies rely mostly on environmental elements or metals that are formed from the natural cycle of the earth therefore they take much time in getting formed and being used by firms and their factories. These process not only affect the market share of the company, it also affects the business of the company and the revenue of the company as well as the profit that the company is generating from its business it is important for the companies to make use of only a considerable amount that is being allotted by government since the raw materials are limited in nature (Shad et al. 2019).

The next alarming thing is climate change. This phenomenon has long lasting effects on the weather and the climate of the world researchers have found out that the production unit of various firms are responsible for the phenomenon known as the global warming that happens due to the over utilization of petroleum coal and other known fossil fuels and also because of the trees being cut down or in other words known as deforestation this might have serious effects of a business of a particular company or various other company or those who rely significantly on natural resources and the climate change can have irreversible damage on this company. Non sustainability also results in the pollution of the environment various types of harmful materials are deposited in the form of smoke dust and into the air and other particles mostly solid are dumped into the water or on land causing pollution in water pollution of water as well as pollution of land respectively these problems also have serious implications on life be it humans, marine life like fishes and also birds as well as birds that prefer the aerial roots (Xie et al. 2019). Health issues like asthma, breathing problem nausea, cancer are some of the known problems that occur due to pollution, various businesses are also responsible for causing noise pollution through their means of manufacturing or production or through their means of marketing or some other means leading to loss of hearing or heart related issues in people. It is found that pollution will have serious effect in life in both the near future as well as the distant future pollution is responsible for extinction of various popular birds as well as fishes that live deep in the ocean and seas countless deaths have occurred due to cancer as well as due to heart issues and which are the main side effects of pollution. Pollution as well climate change are the result of rigorous environmental resources in a not restricted manner and immediate checking must be the top most priority.

Conclusion

It is important to note that nature has provided earth with countless facilitates in the form of countless foods water oxygen etc and it is everyone's responsibility to see that nature is able to sustain so that while on land as well as on water keeps on growing it is important to rectify the effects that has occurred and take necessary steps so that these mistakes are not repeated and a better world is being built for the future. Creating a substitute is still under process therefore for the time being natural resources are the only way to conduct business for various industries and should be kept in mind that the usage must be kept in limit therefore limiting the harmful effects in the future. Proper measures must be set up by the government as well as by the upper level management of the companies to make sure that the usage of the resources is efficient as well as effective and does not have some serious effects on the nature and on life of different forms. Important measures if are taken by business forms might also help in infinitencing other competitive firms hence having appericiative effects on the nature and also result in slowing down the process of global warming

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References

Lo, K.Y. and Kwan, C.L., 2017. The effect of environmental, social, governance and sustainability initiatives on stock value–Examining market response to initiatives undertaken by listed companies. Corporate social responsibility and environmental management, 24(6), pp.606-619.

Mahmood, Z., Kouser, R., Ali, W., Ahmad, Z. and Salman, T., 2018. Does corporate governance affect sustainability disclosure? A mixed methods study. Sustainability, 10(1), p.207.

Miska, C., Szőcs, I. and Schiffinger, M., 2018. Culture’s effects on corporate sustainability practices: A multi-domain and multi-level view. Journal of World Business, 53(2), pp.263-279.

Schaltegger, S. and Wagner, M., 2017. Managing and measuring the business case for sustainability: Capturing the relationship between sustainability performance, business competitiveness and economic performance. In Managing the business case for sustainability (pp. 1-27). Routledge.

Shad, M.K., Lai, F.W., Fatt, C.L., Klemeš, J.J. and Bokhari, A., 2019. Integrating sustainability reporting into enterprise risk management and its relationship with business performance: A conceptual framework. Journal of Cleaner production, 208, pp.415-425.

Xie, J., Nozawa, W., Yagi, M., Fujii, H. and Managi, S., 2019. Do environmental, social, and governance activities improve corporate financial performance?. Business Strategy and the Environment, 28(2), pp.286-300.