Friday, May 13, 2011

Vitality of Sustainablity for managers

The concept of sustainability has been there in the business world for a long time,however the area or to me more precise the broader aspects which it covers is increasing day by day.Earlier before investing in a new business avenue the most important factor which the top notch of the company used to see was whether the proposed business is financially viable or not.By financial viability they mean that whether the revenues which are being generated because of the implementation of the business idea outweigh the cost of implementing the idea.But now a days financial viability is not the only important criteria,sure it is there among the list of important things to checked of before the implementation,but certain other factors like the one which has gained the most importance-the environmental sustainablity.
Environment sustainability has become one of the influencing factors these days as companies are striving really hard to make an impact on its customers and to be seen as a company which places a great deal of importance to ecological conservation.Various companies herald this commitment of theirs through various programs like the corporate social responsibility(CSR).With the ever increasing pressure from the various NGOs, companies before implementing any of their plans make sure that they are in accordance with the environmental law existing in that area.The government too is encouraging the companies to be more and more environmentally responsible by using more and more greener ways of producing.The help from the government side comes in the form of various subsidies which are provided once the company reduces it pollution level.There are various methods of measuring the pollution level and the one which is quite famous these days is carbon footprint.Their is quite a tussle within companies to reduce their carbon footprint and be seen as a more greener companies.Recently government of India in order to promote this initiative has waived the import taxes on greener sources of power like solar panels etc which are imported from other countries.Even newer concepts like trading if carbon footprints has come up and has been in existence for quite some time in countries like US.However the carbon footprint trading concept proved out to be a sort of a fad.
The use of greener products is definitely a topic which the environmental specialist will like to foster,but again these products are not cheap and hence the initial set-up cost are quite huge and because of this high set-up cost reaching the break even point will be difficult until and unless there is large demand and the company is able to reach economies of scale.The developed countries are pondering upon the developing countries which are still in the industrialization phase to use more and more greener ways,however the most important issue which they are not addressing is that how the developing countries is going to have access to the huge capital investment required for this pourpose. This is one of the reasons why the copanhagen summit was not that successful.

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