The Ecological Environment: The Ecological Environment

Robert Swan once said “the greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.” Two companies that understand this concept are Patagonia and Nike. How they address these issues regarding sustainable business practice vary, however. Both have made it their mission to deliver excellence and make the best quality products within their industries, Patagonia focussing more on outdoor active wear, while Nike is more sports oriented. Part of this process has been developing products from sustainable sources. Patagonia, for example, actively took a stand against chemical intensive cotton in 1994, and has since switched to less harmful means of organic cotton within all their cotton-based products. They are even going the extra

In a time of global commerce, new business ventures can take on many forms. What used to be local or even national companies have become world-wide. International growth of a business can be extremely beneficial but is not without its challenges. Different countries have different peoples and different cultures - different ways of doing business altogether. If a venture is to be successful, these differences must be well understood.

Conditions have changed. Global trade has rapidly increased in both volume and value, reaching nowadays more than $4 trillion in 1997 (Daniels J.D., Radebaugh, 1998, pg. 529). Competition is fierce from all corners of the world. Failure at the global level can backfire and may consume existing brands and business relationships. At the same time, global opportunities have emerged that offer possibilities for growth, profit, and an improvement in worldwide standards of living.

My decision to pursue graduate study and research in the field of ecology comes from my aspiration to become a leading researcher. I feel that the knowledge what I have gained in this field is little. Therefore, to help me acquire a better understanding of this multi-faceted field of ecology, I would like to pursue my doctoral degree major in ecology.

The process is just as important as the materials used in the production. Alongside production technology innovations, brands such as Adidas and Nike have begun to use recycled materials in their shoes. The way to ‘do more with less’ will involve innovations in the types of materials used in products. Adidas has prototyped Primeknit shoes made from recovered ocean fishing nets while Nike is using recycled polyester, diverting plastic bottles from landfills. Furthermore Nike has begun to implement sustainability metrics into their material choice and product design. This helps to ensure that there is greater transparency to the trade-off’s that designers are making between functional performance and environmental impact. To ensure continuous superior product performance a business must drive product innovation as well as

What are we doing to our environment? This is a question many people have asked but never quite been able to answer in the fullest way. How do we find out the answer then you ask? By multiple sources. There’s the ‘scare’ tactic, saying what could happen in the future if we don’t change our ways. There’s the ‘inspirational’ tactic which spreads the word of all good that we can, should, or maybe even have done to our environment. And last but not least, the ‘fiction transformation’ tactic which turns something that we would read ourselves or maybe to our children to open up our eyes of what’s going on. Why is this important to even know? Many different ‘eco enthusiasts’ express their research on the environment, this general tactic is called ecocriticism. Ecocriticism is where authors analyze texts that embellish environmental concerns and study the various

Background: Every ecological system provides multiple services for the organisms that live in that specific ecosystem. Some more than others, depending on the biome and health of the environment. One of its roles serve to act as a resource base, available to all nearby organisms for survival purposes. This "resource base" is finite, however. When not used wisely, resources will most often deplete dangerously quickly, resulting in irreversible reduction of something we call "carrying capacity" of a population(s) (Arrow, 92). Carrying capacity, denoted as “K” is not limited to animals in a forest, or sea creatures in an ocean; it exists for microscopic cells, as well. The factors involved in affecting the carrying capacity of an animal population are very similar to the factors for cells, and the curve on a graph showing values of K behaves identically, for the most part, to cell populations as well.

Hill, C. (2011). International business, competing in the global marketplace. (8 ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

In the business industry, if businesses want to export their goods and services to other countries, they must become familiar with and adopt international and global strategies. Consequently, there are three types of international and global business strategies. The first type is international, which entails conducting a significant amount of activities outside the home country, yet its focus remains on the home market (Fung, 2014). The second type is multinational, which consists of operating in multiple countries, yet the headquarters is in its home country, not to mention that the competitive advantage will vary by country (Fung, 2014). The third and final type is global, which is when the organization treats the whole world as one market and one source of supply, not to mention, that its competitive advantage is contingent of common brands, standardized products, and global scale production (Fung,

There is a myriad of varying definitions for the word ‘culture.’ Instead of defining culture in general terms, it is often defined by how it is related to the environment; and consequently, how it is affected. Culture provides direction, and reason. Throughout history, people have remained stalwart and true to their roots and traditions. However, it has become evident that, with the changing environment, many traditional practices have had to adapt. Climate change is a key component causing this adaptation. Through reflecting upon environmental relativism, and cultural aspects, such as subsistence patterns, economic systems, and religion and world view, it can be concluded that the natural environment influences culture by causing environment-based traditions to mould to external factors.

Technological advancement has made globalization an inevitable factor that businesses of the future will need to consider in order to be successful. Increasingly, companies that have been solely domestic are branching out internationally for a wide variety of reasons, but in the end, it’s all about making profits from previously inaccessible market segments. The scaling is vast: international businesses can be as small as a stay at home mother that just created a Limited Liability Corporation to sell a unique product to the world, to an already established international businesses conglomerate with offices across the globe.

For much of the past, most businesses have acted with little regard or concern for the negative impact they have on the environment. Many large and small organisations are guilty of significantly polluting the environment and engaging in practices that are simply not sustainable. However, there are now an increasing number of businesses that are committed to reducing their damaging impact and even working towards having a positive influence on environmental sustainability.

The world offers significant business opportunities for every company, however, opportunities are accompanied by significant challenges for managers. Managing global operations across diverse cultures and markets represents a big challenge and opportunity for companies. To compete in the global market and be successful, companies must learn the strategies, policies, norms and technology necessary to conduct international business. The opportunities for global expansion are numerous, and attaining success is a matter of developing the right strategy to win local markets and its consumers.

Adidas have created a team to tackle green initiatives. Its name is “Green Team” and exists in each of their sites across the world. The goal of this team is to educate and support employees and suppliers the green initiates. These suppliers and employees will then implement the green initiatives in the respective areas of the global site they belong to. The Green Team encourages employees to think green. This initiative definitely needs more time, cost and additional effort. This can be seen as a proactive strategy from Adidas. As an international effort, the team initiated efforts to recycle waste at their Carlsbad (USA), Landersheim (France), and Herzogenaurach (Germany) facilities. At some of these sites, Green Team successfully launched projects to reduce pollution. Adidas rolled out an international environment management system and was certified as per the international standard of ISO 14001. ISO 14001 deals with responsibilities related to environmental management. Most of their operations in the Americas and Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) regions has certified as ISO 14001, which is a tremendous achievement from an environmental responsibility certification perspective. (Adidas16 2015).

Some companies are more successful than others in the global market, some of the drivers that determine the potential of the companies in the globalization markets are the following; cost drivers, customer drivers, competitive drivers and government drivers. The cost drivers are the global scales economies, sourcing efficiencies, high product development costs and the rapid change in the technology. The customers’ drivers are the market drives that determine the global channels, the marketing of the products, and the customer needs. The competitive drivers determine the global competitors, interdependence among countries, trade. The government drivers determine the trade policies, technical standards, and the regulations of the country.