Greta García Garza

Making sustainability work

Best practices in managing and measuring corporate social, environmental and economic impacts. by Marc J. Epstein

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The world is changing everyday, as a result from this corporations have to take action on responsibility, sustainability and social aspects of the daily basics in order not just to survive, but to create a value. Sustainability has been defined as economic development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. For business, this includes issues such as corporate social responsibility, citizenship, environmental aspects, such as a stakeholder engagement. Now at days, sustainability, environmental and social issues are an important concern in corporate decision making, because of this companies are increasingly striving to become better corporate citizens, recognizing that economic growth is only possible with a balance between a social and environmental sustainable growth. Within each day corporations have realized that doing good to the environment also makes good for the business, therefore some corporations have implement strategies to improve the environment that surrounds them. Epstein describes 9 principals of sustainability in the context of corporate responsibility. The nine principals are: Ethics, Governance, transparency, business relationships, financial return, community involvement/ economic development, value of products and services, employment practices and protection of the environment.  Ethics, the company establishes ethical standards and practices in dealing with all of the company stakeholders. Governance: company manages all resources effectively, recognizing the fiduciary duty to focus on the interests of all company stakeholders. Transparency: company provides timely disclosure of information about all products and activities. Business relationship: company engages in fair-trading practices with suppliers, distributers, partners, and customers. Financial return: The company compensates providers of capital with a competitive return on investment and company assets. Community involvement/ economic development: mutual relationship between the corporation and community in which it is sensitive to the culture, context, and needs of the community.  Value of products and services: company respects the needs, desires and rights of its customers and strives to provide the highest levels of product and service values. Employment practices: human-resource management practices that promote personal and professional employee development, diversity and empowerment. Protection of the environment: the company strives to protect and restore the environment and promote sustainable development with products, processes, services, and other activities. This 9 principals are for getting into account when taking an important decision, this means that, the success of the strategies require a better understanding of the implications of management decisions, that include a careful analysis of the key drivers, the impacts that are caused by corporate activities and the impact on the stakeholders. For that reason the company has to identify the right leadership, because the most effective sustainability strategies are the ones that the top management is clearly committed. In this way the vision, mission and strategy techniques are transmitted encouraging employees to act in ways that are compliant and consistent with the company strategy. The impact of management commitment and leadership, organization structure and rules, system, communication, performances and the initiative structure all are key factors in establishing the culture of the organization toward sustainability initiatives. Leading companies have increasingly recognized the critical importance of managing and controlling corporate, social and environmental performance, the impetus for implementing corporate strategies to integrate social, environmental and economic impacts may be driven by internal factors, such as management commitment to sustainability as a core value (as said before) or by management recognition, in which it recognizes that sustainability can create financial value. In other cases the leading impetus for sustainability is a pressure for external outputs, such as the government regulations, competitors, NGOs, etc.  Although there’s still companies that haven’t develop a coherent sustainability strategy, that thinks about the social and environmental impacts, It is unlikely for a company to fulfill their sustainability strategy, numerous companies have taken important steps towards it.

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This book talks about values such as Justice, Cooperation, Fairness, satisfaction, responsibility towards creating a better corporate sustainability work.