Sustainability in Business Situation

The concept of sustainability is created on balance or synchronization between the three dimensions: social equity, environmental protection and economic prosperity, which are called ‘People, Planet, and Profit’ (PPP).

The PPP concept suggests that an organization should take its decisions with the consideration to the people, the planet as well as profit. Since the primary goal of most companies is to generate shareholders value, the ‘profit’ dimension is well embodied in business strategies and polices.

Almost by definition, companies are organized with a strong positioning toward the economic prospective. The environment and the social prospective, however, are often less represented in a company’s strategies and practices. Hence, organizations that try to contribute to more sustainable development of our world should focus more on the decreasing of the negative environmental and social impacts of its operations while maximizing positive environmental and social impact.

The triple bottom line is based on the financial reporting term ‘ Bottom Line’ and company should not only focus on their financial bottom line such as net income or profit, but also on their achievements with regard to social and environmental aspects .

A sustainable company should measure, monitor, document and report its impact on all three bottom lines, financial or economic performance indicators may include: sales, return on environment, tax, monetary flows and profit, environmental or ecological indicators may include: air quality, water quality, energy used and west produced and social performance indicators may include job created, labor practices, community impact, human rights and product responsibility.

• The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI):

  is a non-profit organization that used sustainability reporting framework, companies can use the framework to indicate to shareholders and consumers their economic, social and environmental performance. The most current version is called the G4 guidelines, this framework is made up of various indicators, from which companies can select the ones they find most suitable for their own operations .

• United Nation Global Compact:

  It is cover the area of human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption. Participating agrees to comply with these principles and they can use the provided framework as a platform for disclosure. This initiative has bed created because the UN realized that business are primary drivers for globalization and can help ensure long-term value creation that can bring benefit to economies and societies all over the globe.

• ISO 26000 :

  to response to business growing interest and the increasing number of sustainability related institutions framework a number of organizations have developed framework that help companies in this transformation such as international organization for standardization (ISO) lunched ISO 26000, a complete guideline on social responsibility, it designed to help companies, NGOs, Governments to introduce more sustainable practices. ISO 26000 contributes to sustainable development including health welfare of society, it also takes into account the experience of stakeholders, also it’s complies with international low and international norms of behavior, ISO 26000 integrated through the organization activities and organizations product, service and processes and the relationship between them. Whatever the company can learn from ISO 26000 more about social responsibility and as guidance for implementing sustainability principles and practices into their businesses processes, strategies, production, systems and organizational structure.

• ISO 14001:

  this standard defines the core set of processes and practices for designing and implementing an effective environmental management system in an organization. ISO 14001 is a normative standard unlike ISO 26000 which is a guideline, ISO 14001 and ISO 26000 do not include or infer each other, they can be used independently, but they are Complement to each other.