The Concept of Sustainability - Example

THE SUSTAINABILITY DEBATE Name: ID: Subject: Lecturer: Tutor: Introduction ‘The Sustainability Debate’ is an article written by Wilkinson A., Hill M., and Gollan P. in 2001that focuses on the topic of sustainability; it gives an introduction into the aspect of sustainability and sums up the role of government and corporations in the design of legislation and standards (Wilkinson & Hill, Gollan, 2001). It also highlights the role of investors in production and process management. The focus of the article is the requirements for the corporations to attain sustainability through process management as well as human resource management. It further analyses the interaction of the two in relation to attaining environmental balance. This article offers a crucial perspective to sustainability by placing a huge burden on corporations in ensuring long-term sustainability through management of their routine operations. Summary The issue begins with defining sustainability as a long-term approach to development that focuses on current operations to ensure they do not affect the future generations unfavorably through maintenance and restoration of resources. It involves striking a balance between current economic pressures and future needs. Corporations are now focusing on attaining environmental balance rather than dominance through various ethical considerations (Griffith & Petrick, 2001). The government plays a major role in maintenance of environmental sustainability through introduction of regulations and standards for corporations to follow. These regulations are essential to protect the quality of life and avoid overexploitation of resources since corporations would not take these actions voluntarily because they contradict their goal of competitiveness. The regulations also lead to incremental costs in the short run, which adds to the reasons for the designing of these standards and regulations. Government policies differ from country to country with the adoption of environmental technology with some governments demonstrating leniency while others enforce strict regulations. Since national governments operate in isolation, they cannot control the global natural environmental issues unless the economic environment facilitates their actions. Governments at influential positions however lack the political will and proper incentives to control industrial pollution. The emergent market model also places a major obstacle to the environmental perspective since the profit motive is the backbone of every organization shifting focus to a short-term outlook while neglecting the long-term effects of the industrial operations. Despite the profit motive, the article also notes the efforts of some organizations to control industrial pollution through production of environmentally sensitive products. Some of the crises associated with these actions include population explosion, depletion of nonrenewable resources, misguided incentives that encourage waste, low diversity of species, which somehow relate to industrial pollution. This proves the need for an ecosystem that supports economic activities. The article proposes the establishment and harmonization of effective and strict regulatory structures to control activities of corporations in an international context. The issue also addresses the important role of industrial and commercial activities in achieving sustainability. Business organizations face challenges due to commercial pressures as well as internal organizational pressures. Commercial pressures include strict regulation imposed on the environmental standards, consumer pressures and the increasing awareness of the need for responsible resource utilization. Pressures associated with the internal organization relate to the curbing human resource turnover to maintain sustainability in the human resources in the prevailing environment characterized by decreasing loyalty, long working hours, high stress levels, and low satisfaction levels. Human and ecological sustainability work for the organization in acquisition of competitive advantage and helping the organization in achieving long-term goals in addition to short term ones. They involve structural adjustments, operational adjustments, values revision, and prioritization aimed at achieving a long-term perspective to the organizational goals. Manufacturing operations have a major effect on the environmental maintenance due to their high direct correlation with the raw materials requirement, efficiency, emissions, energy consumption, and delivery systems. Innovation appears as a means to eliminate environmental pollution as well as improve environmental technologies and obtain competitive advantage. Sustainability in human resource involves capitalizing in their abilities through development of technical and managerial skills (Gollan, 2000). The organization must consider the needs, abilities, and individual goals of the individual employees to ensure satisfaction and prevent turnover. The overall organizational goals must therefore incorporate individual goals for the fulfillment of the employees while pursuing the company goals. The increasing awareness of the workers as well as their high knowledge and expertise level, organizations have to shift their focus on the employees’ satisfaction. Human resource sustainability focuses on the long-term business success rather than the short-term goal of business survival. Critique The main point in the article is the concept of sustainability, which is a long-term goal for the economy as well as the environment. According to the article, corporations and the government have major roles to play in the attainment of sustainability. The major points of consideration in corporations include process management as well as human resource management. Environmental sustainability is important and it emerges from the maintenance of a balance between the two. The corporations operate under the control of government policies through standards and regulations that they must observe. These policies control industrial operations that result in environmental pollution through toxic emissions, over exploitation of renewable resources and depletion of non-renewable resources. The article further points out process management as the tool to attain environmental sustainability while human resource management as a tool to ensure the firm’s sustainability. The achievement of a balance between ecological and economic environments leads to ultimate sustainability. The author’s ideas match the ideas of other authors who highlight the need for process management in attaining sustainability. Angell identifies internal and external factors that influence process management in adoption of an environmental perspective (Angell, 2000). Increasing employee awareness emerges as the main source of internal pressures while external pressures emerge from various groups that push for environmental conservation. The points brought forward by the author help in explaining in details the concept of sustainability. The explanations and illustrations used in comparing market economies in different nations bring out the differences in roles played by the governments. This helps the reader gain an international overview of this aspect of sustainability and the need for integration of environmental regulations. The explanations given in the human resource sustainability segment help the author strongly make his case about the short-term profit motive and the desirable long-term goals. The author however demonstrates biasness where he uses countries in the west to explain an international concept. This fails to paint the desirable picture of the global aspect, which would come out with the use of countries with minimal proximity and large deviations in their prevailing conditions in terms of institutional structures and level of economic growth. The writer demonstrates sufficiency in knowledge of the basics of economic and market operations. He clearly relates the specific organization’s operations to the local industry and to the international market. He also clearly relates the industrial operations to their respective environmental effects and adequately relates the economy to the ecology. He however fails to relate his arguments to economic models to support his argument, for instance the Malthusian theory would clearly relate the impacts of population explosion to the environment. His ideas on sustainability however, make a valid argument on the neglected aspect of environmental conservation (Angell, 2000). According to him, environmental conservation includes a series of activities such as depletion of non-renewable resources and over exploitation of renewable resource as well as wastage of resources, which move away from the basic idea of pollution as the only concern for environmental conservation. I agree with the idea of relating economic and ecological sustainability by actively engaging corporations and their operations towards achieving the long-term goal of sustainability of the economy and the environment through striking a balance between internal and external pressures. The author has written this article in a comprehensive language simple enough for the common citizens to understand. The article can therefore act as a guide to governments, investors, multinational corporations well as small and medium enterprises. The author uses other sources to support his arguments and validate his points. He uses other sources as the basis of arguments to strengthen his position on a specific issue (Clarke & Clegg, 2000). The article uses direct quotations and paraphrased information from other sources for explanation purposes. It also includes proper in text citations and references from relevant materials written by resourceful authors. The structure of the article simplifies complex ideas into concepts that one can relate to real world situations. I would recommend this article to anyone interested in the sustainability concept since it acts as a compilation of ideas from other sources and from its author. Conclusion The sustainability debate is a crucial concept in the modern world characterized by rising industrial nations (Clarke & Clegg, 2000). The overwhelming focus on industrialization blinds the society on the implications of industrial actions on the environment. The article introduces the concept of sustainability as an overall description of current activities that affect the survival and operation of future generations. The future also refers to the organization’s long-term goals that receive considerable influence from current operations. The future therefore requires planning and the world should abandon the notion that the future takes care of itself. This article is helpful to organizational managers to enable them gain an overall overview of the implications of routine decisions on the organization, economy, as well as the entire human race’s existence. References Wilkinson A., Hill M., Gollan P., (2001), ‘The Sustainability Debate’. International Journal Of Operations & Production Management, 21(12):1492 – 1502 Angell L. C. (2000). ‘Editorial’. International Journal of Operations and Production Management, 20(2):124-6. Clarke T. & Clegg S. (2000). Changing Paradigms. Longman. Sydney. Gollan P. (2000). Human Resources Capabilities and Sustainability. Allen Unwin, Sydney, Pp.55-77. Griffith A. & Petrick J. (2001). ‘Corporate Architectures for Sustainability’. International Journal of Production and Operations Management, 21(12):1573-85 Read More