Sustainable Development and Sustainability

Sustainable Development and Sustainability

Introduction

The prime objective of any business is, without any doubt, to make money. With any business, this prime objective is complemented by the responsibility of the business to reciprocate to the environment. A corporation acquires its raw materials to run its business operations, gains its ultimate talent pool, from the environment in which it operates. All these resources impose upon an organization a responsibility, responsibility to pay back to the society.

This is the premise that gives birth to the concept of Sustainable Development. We can safely say that the more vivid objective of any business is to pursue triple bottom-line (TBL or 3PL); rather than just the bottom-line to make sure it is contributing to sustainable development (Bennett & Whiting, 2002). The bottom-line is an accounting profit that an organization earns through its regular operations whereas triple bottom-line focus over three p's; profit, people and planet. Profit becomes the primary focus because to finance sustainability ideas that are becoming more and more complex and challenging, monetary support is required. That financial support is provided by organizations regular operations.

Discussion

Sustainability is defined as providing for the needs of the present generation whereas simultaneously not exhausting all of the resources, so that quality lifestyle for future generation could be ensured. Resources are scarce and certain steps are to be taken to ensure that people get access to it. These certain steps are what comprise the Sustainable Development; it is the means to achieve Sustainability. The world is formed of interrelated constituents; people depend upon the environment to acquire resources, environment depends upon its occupants; people, for environmental management, and people depend upon people as well for survival.

Businesses are to run in a way that while providing customer value and creating shareholder value, it should also incorporate ...