StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Free

Embedding Sustainability Issues into Design and Business Contexts - Coursework Example

Cite this document
Summary
"Embedding Sustainability Issues into Design and Business Contexts" paper examines how sustainability can be incorporated into various parts of the organization. Sustainability may be defined as the process by which an organization, individual, or group is able to meet their current needs…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER94.7% of users find it useful
Embedding Sustainability Issues into Design and Business Contexts
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "Embedding Sustainability Issues into Design and Business Contexts"

Introduction Sustainability may be defined as the process by which an organisation, individual or group is able to meet their current needs without affecting the ability to meet those needs in the future. Usually, sustainability is associated with the resources that organisations use to maintain their overall functions. Sustainability has a large effect on the natural environment because this is where most resources are derived from. If an organisation can look for ways in which they can operate sustainably, then chances are that they will contribute to a greener earth. The purpose of the essay will be to examine how sustainability can be incorporated into various parts of the organisation. Sustainability as a win-win situation Numerous business communities are changing the way they operate. They have realised that working sustainably or going green can actually cause increased profits. Usually, most companies are motivated to go green when they are operating under the bottom line scenario. However, soaring stock prices are one example of what sustainability can do to an organisation. Additionally, a company that chooses to go green is likely to portray a positive image to their clients, their suppliers or even to their investors. Consequently, this creates a scenario in which more parties are encouraged to work with that particular company. (Lubar, 2006) It should also be noted that corporate citizenship is an instrumental factor in determining why an organisation would choose to be sustainable or to go green. It is the responsibility of that particular company to ensure that they affect their community positively and that their activities do not undermine the community’s ability to meet the needs of their future generations. Sustainability of any company can embrace any of the following aspects Guarding water supplies and the marine population Reducing one’s dependence on carbon based fuels Minimising solid waste Improving the health of one’s surrounding population Reducing the amounts of emissions released to the air Companies must embrace sustainability in order to remain on top of government regulations that would otherwise require them to depict sustainability concerns. (Brown, 2001) Consequently, there should be sustainability at all times in any given company in order to demonstrate its business commitment to the concept. Possible project The purpose of this project is to design mechanisms that would enable organisations to use Information Technology in order to boost their sustainability ratings. Since IT is becoming a useful tool in everyday life, then it would be interesting to know how this can be applied to an organisation. The company chosen for implementation of this program is Unilever. The reason why this company was chosen was that the company deals in the production of tangible items. Consequently, their pollution concerns are quite high. Additionally, the company is located in various parts of the world; therefore, their business practices affect very many communities. It will therefore be plausible to look for sustainability solutions for such a company. (Lai, 2006) How sustainability can be merged into business designs As it has been stated earlier, the purpose of the project will be to merge sustainability with the respective IT solutions in Unilever. This will be applied to all the following areas Business data IT sector Asset Management Inventory management Product planning Manufacturing Report on sustainability Energy efficiency Information technology has the ability to change and affect the level of sustainability within a certain company. If used well, IT can contribute towards a greener earth by collective efforts in different companies. For this particular case study i.e. Unilever, IT can prove to be an immeasurable asset if Unilever chooses to go green. In order to do this effectively, the company will need to keep watch over their overall emissions, their safety precautions and the amounts of resources that they use from day to day. In order to monitor these effectively, they will have to collect and store data effectively; the best way to do that is through Information Technology. Through IT, it will be possible for Unilever to analyse, record and even change some of the issues revolving around their green initiatives. Consequently, it will assist them in the process of creating green programs or in setting up procedures required to maintain sustainability. (Lubar, 2006) The first and most direct way in which Unilever can use IT is in its report production. Currently, the company still has lots of paper reports that are present in almost all sections of the organisation. By using a lot of paper, the company is encouraging the depletion of forests for the former mentioned resource. Also, in order to make paper, one needs to use up a lot of electricity and fuel in paper industries. All these issues can be drastically minimised if Unilever opts to store all its data in electronic rather than in paper form. This will go a long way in reducing the resources required to make paper and also the emissions that are discharged during paper manufacture. (Anderson, 1998) Information Technology can also boost asset management at Unilever. The latter company heavily relies on trucks for delivery of its supplies. Besides that, it also depends on machines in order to create all their products. It is therefore very necessary to make an inventory of their assets from time to time. Information Technology is the route which organisations can use to make effective asset inventory. If Unilever knows exactly which assets are needed at any one time, then they would not have to purchase excessive equipment. This also means that the company will have cut down on electricity, fuel or any other resources required to run those excess equipments. (Doppelt, 2003)Therefore, Unilever will have become more sustainable. It is also imperative to note that Information Technology can gain wide applicability in the process of inventory management within this company. One may wonder how this can occur but it is in fact a very possible thing. Supplies to products that have been ordered can be carefully analysed through the use of information Technology. Many businesses these days have adopted the issue of data warehouse systems management and this has done wonders for their inventory management system. Similarly, Unilever ought to consider such an option in the future. However, one would wonder how data warehousing can be directly linked to sustainability; when companies opt to take up green measures, then they ought to look for all avenues of reducing wastage. If Unilever is to take up data warehousing as part of its options for going green, it would drastically reduce its work orders because it would only be dealing with what is necessary. This means that the company will have very minimal inventory that they will need to discard thus minimising wastage. (Lai, 2006) If Unilever adopts data warehousing as part of their sustainability strategy, they will also reduce their transport usage. This is because they would have lower excesses of inventory and this will require less transportation. In close relation to the latter issue is the matter of having a well stocked warehouse. This provides cost saving measures to the company. Information technology can also work for Unilever in terms of product planning and demand forecasting. IT through the use of Business Intelligence can go a long way in forecasting demand for a product. This is usually possible through incorporation of past consumption patterns and a series of other internal and external factors. Through this approach, the organisation will be able to estimate exactly which amounts of products will be needed by clients and this will reduce wastage. (Lubar, 2006) Furthermore, such an approach could boost sustainability because of the way the company would save up on excessive fuel or electricity required to produce those extra items (which will not be bought anyway). Additionally, the company will save on extra transportation costs required to bring the supplies to be used for making the product. Lastly, this approach will also be instrumental to the company because they will use up less packaging. It should be noted here that most packing material are pollutants because they are plastic in nature. Those ones that are made up paper are also not suitable because they cause forest depletion and water resource depletion. Information Technology will also go a long way in boosting the manufacturing aspect of Unilever. This is because through the latter approach, more analysis can be conducted in the production process. (Griffiths, Dunphy & Benn, 2003) Packaging can be adversely improved by adopting only the right amounts of packaging material. Additionally, the shipping process can also be effectively analysed through the process of IT so as to ascertain which aspects require improvements. Through this approach, only the most important resources will be used and there will be less wastage thus better sustainability on the part of the company. Additionally, through IT, it will be possible to analyse and determine the most effective methods of packaging one’s product so as to use up less resources and transportation for the merchandise. Information Technology provides the tools that would assist Unilever in reporting issues about sustainability. This will be possible through effective storage of sustainability efforts in the following areas Electricity Natural gas Water Transportation Waste disposal Through effective recording of these items, an organisation will be able to see which direction they are taking and look for ways in which they can save money thus heightening sustainability. Through effective resource planning, it can be possible for organisations to get hold of some of these sustainability metrics and thus come up with ways of improving. (Lai, 2006) Information Technologies can also assist Unilever in the process of embracing sustainability in its IT sector. It should be noted that the IT sector is heavily dependent on a series of resources. For instance, Unilever uses up a lot of electricity in order to maintain their servers. Besides that, other IT machinery requires heating and cooling and this takes up a lot of energy. Unilever can minimise the energy consumption in the IT department by reducing redundant servers. Additionally, it can eliminate databases that are not useful to the company and it can also create better energy consumption through the use of more efficient IT systems. However, in order to implement new IT systems, management approvable must be sought. This is only possible when the company’s IT team convince their leaders about its importance. It should also be noted that IT solutions can be very instrumental in the process of improving overall company performance through the use of more efficient hardware and software. Many IT servers take up a lot of energy costs because energy is necessary in running the Servers. Additionally, the heat generated by them needs to be cooled through equipment which is also not very cost effective in environmental terms. Unilever as a company needs to improve their energy efficiency through adoption of more energy saving hardware. This will definitely boost their sustainability ratings. (Esry & Winston, 2006) Conclusion Information Technology can be a vital tool to Unilever in its sustainability efforts because it can be applied to all sections of the company’s operations. It works by maximising efficiency, elimination of waste and operating under optimum conditions. Sustainability is a win-win situation to this particular organisation owing to the fact that all the initiatives adopted will make a contribution to the organisation’s effectiveness. Unilever may benefit both indirectly and directly from their energy saving initiatives. First of all, their business profits will be greatly improved because they will have eliminated wastefulness. Additionally, the company’s image will also have improved both to the external customers and to their employees. It is a known fact that employee morale greatly increases in sustainable companies. Consequently, this is a strategy that would definitely improve Unilever’s image. Reference Anderson, R. (1998): Toward a sustainable enterprise; The Peregrinzilla Press Brown, L. (2001): Eco Economy - Building and Economy for the Earth; Norton Company Publishers Doppelt, B. (2003): Leading Change towards Sustainability; Green Life Publishing Company Griffiths, A., Dunphy, D. & Benn, S. (2003): Organisational Change for Corporate sustainability; Routledge Esry, D. & Winston, A. (2006): How Smart organisations use environmental strategy to build competitive advantage; Harvard Business review Lubar, P. (2006): Succession Planning and sustainability; Executive Transition Initiative Report, 3, 13-45 Lai, K. (2006): Steps to sustainability for organisations, available at http://www.aiesec.org.sg/ accessed on 12th Nov Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(Embedding Sustainability Issues into Design and Business Contexts Coursework, n.d.)
Embedding Sustainability Issues into Design and Business Contexts Coursework. https://studentshare.org/management/1717882-design-management
(Embedding Sustainability Issues into Design and Business Contexts Coursework)
Embedding Sustainability Issues into Design and Business Contexts Coursework. https://studentshare.org/management/1717882-design-management.
“Embedding Sustainability Issues into Design and Business Contexts Coursework”. https://studentshare.org/management/1717882-design-management.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF Embedding Sustainability Issues into Design and Business Contexts

Systems Analysis & Design Methods

hellip; This research is being carried out to explain or describe the process that should be taken to develop an automated information system and or software, to explain the context of system analysis, design methods and system building blocks and to discuss the importance of the systems development life cycle (SDLC) and project management....
16 Pages (4000 words) Research Paper

Integrated Marketing Communications

11 Pages (2750 words) Essay

Sustainability in Business

As a result, many prototype projects headed towards the market with the similar intentions of gaining popularity and strength in the market which had little focus on the design and resource utilization as in that stretch little research and focus was concentrated on sustainability and effective use and utilization of resources along with no think tank established to monitor the environmental and ecological effects of these developments and productions.... This paper ''Sustainability in business'' tells that Many factors that are considered important now and are social even legal responsibilities for businesses were not even placed in the consideration set for starting a business in the early 1900s....
7 Pages (1750 words) Essay

Explaining and Exploring the Concepts of Sustainability Marketing

The essence of this definition can be related to the principles of sustainable development that are being incorporated by organisations across all disciplines for improved social and ethical business practices.... Widespread focus and attention on the issues of corporate social responsibilities and sustainable growth aspects have shaped new governance policies and practices.... sustainability marketing Contents Contents 2 Introduction 3 Critical review of literature 3 Evolution of research in area of sustainable marketing 6 Illustrative examples 9 Implications of practice 10 References 12 Introduction Economic growth, globalisation trends and rapid advances in technology have created new avenues for industrial growth, expansion and management concepts....
8 Pages (2000 words) Essay

How Social Sustainability Is Defined and Measured

The importance of sustainable development has become debatable after leading economists have stated the fact that contemporary business ways with respect to greenhouse gas emissions would lead to a global economic and environmental disaster in the long run, and nowadays many of the scientists.... The paper "How Social sustainability Is Defined and Measured" discusses the importance of the interrelationship between the environmental, social, and economic aspects of social sustainability, the tools that measure sustainable development, and policies to achieve social sustainability....
7 Pages (1750 words) Essay

Corporate Social Responsibility - Understanding CSR-Interpretation

he literature on Corporate Social Responsibility illustrates this clash between the instrumental comprehension of corporate social responsibility in a conventional approach to business and the latest comprehension of the responsibilities of a firm.... The conventional approach to business is to formulate the conceptual work and emphasize the analysis of business society at the macro level (Lozano, 2006).... Palazzo and Scherer (2008) explained the politicization of the post-positivist approach by discussing the paradigm shift from the depoliticized business activities towards the politicization of corporations....
19 Pages (4750 words) Research Paper

Design Thinking Influences and Critiques

Proponents of design thinking applications in business settings point to a number of advantages accruing from its use.... Essentially, design thinking becomes significant for organizations today as they seek to formulate business strategies directed towards enhancing performance.... In this view, the use of case studies reflects on the practical application of the concept in business situations.... The paper "design Thinking Influences and Critiques" discusses that the concept of design thinking elicits mixed reactions from various corners....
8 Pages (2000 words) Essay

Architecture, Politicsand Consequences

This term paper "Architecture, Politics…and Consequences" argues that that design is political since it has societal consequences, but architects are political since they are mere instruments of power.... hellip; The logic of how political ideology informs, affects, and controls architectural practice, and architectural design has been used dominantly in controlling social norms, behaviors, and practices.... In any case, there would be missed opportunities here since politics is concerned with values and design would be nothing if it wouldn't be a means to embody these values (Lockton 2011)....
13 Pages (3250 words) Term Paper
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us