n 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 put in since its inception.
Pillar three: The economy and its impacts on business
It is at pillar three, the economic pillar, where we find common ground with most businesses. To be sustainable, businesses must make a profit.
Activities that fit under the economic pillar include compliance, proper governance and risk management.
Let’s consider the oil company Shell as an example to explain pillar three.
Often deemed as ‘evil’, oil companies receive a lot of pressure to reduce the use of fossil fuels and switch to renewable sources. Investment in Shell occurs due to the returns Shell brings. But abruptly dropping fossil fuels will mean losing returns and thus investment. The adoption of renewable energy resources, therefore, has to be slow and incremental.
To achieve a successful balance, Shell has set targets to cut its net carbon footprint by 50% by the year 2050. If Shell meets these targets, Shell will have successfully balanced economic factors to meet the environmental climatic demands of being more sustai