The Best Buy: The Three Pillars Of Sustainable Development

When talking about sustainability numerous people associate it with just protecting the environment. Sustainability is far more than going green, but it is a principle that many companies have adopted and have worked persistently to improve over the last several years. Sustainability is defined as the ability to continue a behavior indeterminately, but it also includes improving human life overall. Sustainable development is broken down into three pillars: economic, social, and environmental (Harich & Bangerter, 2014). Economics is the study of how people use resources, which correlates to the goal of sustainable development by using resources to their full potential (Laszlo, C., & Zhexembayeva, N., 2011, p. 60). Economic sustainable development allows companies to give their customers what they want without overusing mutual resources. Social development combines the social world with the physical realm to provide a good quality of life (Benoit, 2010, p. 7). Social sustainability focuses on the well-being of people and their communities. Environmental development, the most recognizable, includes protecting the environment by reducing pollution, recycling, switching of electronic devices when not in use, etc. All three of these pillars make up what is known as sustainable development. In this paper, I researched a company and their involvement in sustainability and how it applies to the

Sustainability from a strategic business perspective is the potential for the long-term well-being of the natural environment, including all biological entities, as mutually beneficial interactions among nature and individuals, organizations, and business strategies. (O.C Ferrell, Fraedrich, Ferrell, 2015). Business sustainably is often defined as managing the triple bottom line – a process by which companies manage their financial, social and environmental risks, obligations and opportunities. These three impacts are sometimes referred to as profits, people and planet. (Business sustainability definition from financial times lexicon, no date). This essay will discuss the idea of sustainability being an important element within a businesses and its core strategies and the importance of it within different businesses. Secondly, this study will look at how different stakeholders are affected and influenced by sustainability as this could be seen as a catalyst to improving the environment as a whole and. Then this study will look at how businesses not focusing

Bertrand Piccard quotes, “In the 21st century, the heroes will be the people who will improve the quality of life, fight poverty and introduce more sustainability. This is a powerful message, it sums up the concepts discussed throughout the course. Additionally, the case studies such as the New Belgium Brewery, SC Johnson and The Kimberly Clarke organization have been proven to practice this philosophy. As society progresses in its efforts to provide a more sustainable future, there is a fundamental foundation of principles that must be followed to ensure success. Sustainable business development takes into account the application of business operations as it relates to the three pillars of sustainability, which is a dynamic yet integrative place to begin this journey. DesJardins, (2006) calls for a re-imagination of the future to create a vibrant sustainable model; which forms similar beliefs to Piccard. In addition, organizations are more inclined to create sustainable practices based on consumer demand and the willingness of leadership to participate in sustainability programs.

The three pillars are environmental, social and economically sustainability. However in this report, environmental sustainability will be brought to light, the two other pillars will be trivial. In order for environmental sustainability to be defined, general sustainability must be defined. Sustainability is the ability to continue a defined behaviour indefinitely (Thwink.org, 2015). For the environment, there are three aspects which must be sustained for, renewable resources, non-renewable resources and pollution. Therefore, environmental sustainability is the degree of pollution emission, renewable resource production and non-renewable resource consumption that can be continued indefinitely for future use. CAROBN

`Best Buy recognizes that there are social, environmental and economic impacts that happen throughout the value chain. They take action by taking responsibility of mining for raw material, to the reuse and recycling of the materials once the products life cycle has come on an end. They are committed to making the world a better place, another way they do this is by reducing the use of carbon and promoting the use of carbon.

Sustainable development is defined as “Development that meets the needs of the present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (IISD, par. 1 ).

Sustainable development means that the present generations should be able to make use of resources to live better lives in such a manner that it does not compromise the ability of future generations. For sustainable development to occur, there needs to be sustainable economic, ecological and community development. Society needs to be educated about ways in which they can use resources, especially natural, in such a manner that it does not cause harm to the environment and put future generations lives at risk.

The greatest challenge faced by many organizations today and especially the labour intensive industries is ensuring there is a sustainable

Sustainable development recognizes the importance of economic wealth, environmental integrity, and social balance (Gladwin et al. 1995, cited in Gao and Bansal,2013). Environmental integrity recognizes the value and the limits of natural resources and social balance is distributed impartially across individuals and social orders to meet fundamental human needs (Bansal, 2005 cited in Gao and Bansal, 2013). Barbier (1987) has stated the purpose of sustainability is to maximize simultaneously the goals that should be met, such as trying to meet all the basic necessities for all individuals and to increase the utility of goods and service for all people in the economy (as cited in Gao and Bansal, 2013). Also, Salzmann integrated business sustainability into their business policies for a better outcome (Salzmann et al, 2005, cited in Sjors, Walter, Jacqueline). Another thing is the corporate social responsibility, that has been characterized in a wide range of ways, as its most fundamental level, CSR is about business assuming responsibility for the

Sustainability is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations” (Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future 1987). The concept of sustainability comprises of four pillars: environmental; economic; political and social; as can be seen in the image below. Environmental sustainability is the use and management of the environment in a way that it does not deplete our finite resources. Economic sustainability is a long term sustainable economy that supports its community and political sustainability is the collaboration of different bodies of government to achieve a sustainable future. Now social sustainability is hard to define as it encapsulates many different factors; however to be very broad it is to achieve social justice. The real objective for sustainability is that all four pillars work together equally in a precautionary principle;

Sustainability can be defined as the development of present needs that wouldn’t hinder the development of future needs in an environment. Sustainability main focus is on preserving the natural resources of an economy, it is not a fixed state of harmony but a continuous process of change where the exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, orientation of technological development and institutional change are made consistent with present and future investments.(UNCED, 1978). Mohan Munasinghe posited that the goal of Sustainable development is to maximize the net welfare of economic activities while maintaining or increasing the stock of economic, ecological and socio cultural assets overtime to ensure the sustainability of income and Intra generational equity and providing a safety net to meet basic needs and protect the poor.

Sustainable development takes into consideration the restricted resources and urban growth boundary along with the greatly increased human life span, which is one of the main reasons sustainable development is so important. However, although environmental sustainability is important, it isn’t the only element which is crucial to account for, as economic and social sustainability also fit within the parameters of sustainable development and

Sustainability is a concept with a diverse array of meanings and definitions – a widely used glamorous, ambiguous, ambivalent and vague concept that is used by different stakeholder groups in various ways. Presumably to avoid noodling over a terminology or to avoid the confrontation with a definition, most widely the concept is broken down a planning process (c.f. e.g. Döring & Muraca, 2010). That is why most common sustainability is understood as sustainable development.1

Sustainability is one of the main keys to success for corporate companies in the 21st century. Research has shown that companies that successfully maintain sustainability within their companies usually have long-term success over companies that have not achieved sustainability within the company. One reason that sustainability is important for companies to have is because by addressing it can improve operational efficiency and also lower many costs. Another reason why that the concept of sustainability is important is because it merges social, environmental, political and ethical issues that can be detrimental to a company internally and externally, if they are not handled in an appropriate manner and incorporated into company policies or follow policies already in place. In order to avoid these problems from occurring or if they do occur they will not be detrimental and cause huge problems that cannot be fixed for a company, sustainability is very important to have in place already or strive to achieve. Sustainability drives companies to develop specific goals to address those social, environmental, political and legal issues. Importantly having the proper sustainability within a company can hopefully address all those issues altogether.

Urbanization, which is becoming a buzzword during the last few decades, is enlarging at a booming speed. It is predicted that 93 percents urban growth will occur to the year 2020, in the developing world (Elliot J.A, 1999). Generally speaking, more than half of the people around the world have been moved to cities, which led to a series of “matters” connected with people’s life that changed in a dramatical way. In this period, sustainable development, another buzzword during the past few years, came into people’s view and gradually became the mainstream of society development. Its definition is to make the development continue in a long term, which means allowing appropriate economic growth and industrialization without