tant natural cycles for freshwater, pollination or seed dispersal. All in all, business profits ultimately rely on what our planet gives us.
It makes sense for businesses to ensure that $125 trillion is sustained into the future, and not squandered over a short time period.
By preserving natural resources, extinction in a business sense is prevented.
Business and environmentalism as concepts are, therefore, very compatible. By ensuring our natural world and its resources are sustained into the future, businesses are maintained by virtue.
Pillar two: The society and its impacts on business
Pillar two, social sustainability, is about understanding human needs.
From a business perspective, social sustainability is realizing the impacts corporations have on workers and society as a whole. This includes accounting for human rights, health and safety, community engagement, work-life-balance, philanthropy, diversity, and equality.
Professor of Accountability and CSR at the Middlesex University Business School, Adrian Henriques, states:
“Social impact includes anything that affects company-stakeholder relationships: from how much and how reliably suppliers are paid, to how a product affects lives. From how small shareholders may be treated to the impacts of alcohol on health and communities.” – Adrian Henriques, Understanding a company’s social impact is crucial to sustainability
One key element that’s certainly contributing to Google’s success is high employee satisfaction.
86% of Google employees state they are satisfied with their jobs. Providing flexible working hours, fun offices and encouraging collaboration and trust, Google integrates social responsibility into its business strategy and delivers a profitable company culture.
Walt Disney certainly practices what it preached in the childhood classic movie Winnie the Pooh. Take Disney’s voluntEARS program for instance. The program encourages employees to donate time to community service efforts. It’s a successful program, as 2.9 million hours of service have been pu