Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Corporate environmental and social goals are included but generally only as
specific responses to regulatory pressure or to be in step with sustainability
expectations of trading partners (who are often well ahead of the United
States in implementing sustainability practices).
Figure 2.3
Schematic illustration of the emphasis in business planning
and implementation.
Present corporate thinking that “people” and “planet” are important only
to the extent that they define the “freedom to operate” or the regulatory
constraints, has to change in moving toward sustainable growth. In the new
paradigm, resources are assigned to all three areas as shown qualitatively
in
Figure 2.2
(
right
), with the objective of creating a healthy triple bottom
line. The relative areas of circles qualitatively indicate the change in focus
with more equitable distribution of attention and resources to all three Ps.
Business plans of the future will explicitly account for the cost of natural
capital used—that of all externalities generated in the value chain and have
good labor relations (Beard et al., 2011) and engage constructively the
community (Sen et al., 2006).
Schrettle et al. (2014) recognize a set of endogenous factors in addition
to the obvious exogenous factors such as regulation and market drivers
that may promote corporate interest in sustainable development. A robust
corporate culture with strong champions across the management team is
