Running head: FINANCIAL IMPACT OF SUSTAINABILITY 1
FINANCIAL IMPACT OF SUSTAINABILITY 2
Financial Impact of Sustainability
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Milestone 4
Financial Impact of Sustainability
Patagonia’s objectives and goals are to maintain its excellence and ensure sustainability. The company is dedicated to producing a good with no harm. It utilizes the business to inspire and execute solutions to the environmental crisis because it has a strong driving force. At some point in its operations, Patagonia had to rethink its business decisions and commit to incorporating an ecologically responsible mindset to better its goals and vision (O’Rourke & Strand, 2017). Therefore, since XYZ manufacturing company intends to emulate Patagonia’s working ethics and operations, it should strive towards improving the environment. The conservation efforts at XYZ manufacturing industry should be parallel with the company’s profit margins. This should begin with the products and services offered at the firm. For instance, organic raw production can aid in the contribution of a successful and sustainable environment.
Implications for financial sustainability
XYZ manufacturing company intends to an environmental and social sustainability plan. This plan can potentially affect the company’s financial sustainability in the long term. When a company decides to be environmentally and socially sustainable, there are possibilities that the company will face a positive impact in its sustainable course since it can increase the number of available resources at ease. Creating a sustainable environment increases the number of resources available for a company’s operations, creating more financial opportunities. On the contrary, a company that operates in a poor quality environment faces a low or decreased economic growth because the quality and quantity of available resources also reduce in the long run (Huang & Badurdeen, 2018). Therefore, if XYZ manufacturing company implements its sustainability plan, it is more likely to positively affect the environment, leading to increased resources and consumer base. This is because, in today’s business environment, good or quality products are not enough to win consumer loyalty; customers are continually looking for products and services that align with their values. Hence, XYZ’s sustainability plan can potentially improve its financial sustainability in the long term.
Emerging technology and best practices for environmental and social sustainability have implications on the financial bottom line of XYZ manufacturing company. From Patagonia’s examples, XYZ must partner with other innovative technologies and investors to improve its supply chain investments. The company can engage in green marketing whereby it will market and sell its products through the environmental benefits. More so, XYZ manufacturing company can use the emerging technology to provide scientific knowledge to its employees to sustain the use of raw materials for its textile industry instead of textile chemicals (Marota, 2017). This aspect is somehow different from what Patagonia does. Patagonia has been a leader in environmental and social sustainability. It has diversified its efforts into websites and blogs that create awareness for sustainability (O’Rourke & Strand, 2017). For instance, the ‘worn wear’ website helps Patagonia customers return their worn outwears to exchange new products for reducing waste. Such efforts are better off compared to those at the disposal of XYZ manufacturing company because it is in its initial stages of sustainability.
Integration
The financial, social, and environmental plans at XYZ integrate to represent best practices for sustainability. For instance, the by-products at the manufacturing company were rendered poisonous and with a short lifespan. This required regular replacements and was environmentally unfriendly. The cost of regular replacements was high given that the amount of water and energy required to produce trash and gases was also higher. More so, XYZ intended to operate alongside Patagonia’s conservation beliefs; therefore, it had no choice but to restructure and redefine its practices and plans to suit the environmental and social sustainability efforts. SOME PRACTICES RELATE TO THOSE PRACTICED AT Patagonia in XYZ’s environmental and social sustainability plan (Huang & Badurdeen, 2018). For instance, the company intends to engage in raw material production to reduce health hazards. More so, XYZ intends to partner with technologically advanced companies to promote its efforts towards a sustainable environment. Furthermore, technology will help the company engage in green marketing, which is essential in attracting customers and gaining a competitive advantage.
The three aspects of the triple bottom line include the social, environmental, and economic impacts, which encourage the business to track and manage economic, social, and environmental value-added advantages. Businesses can balance or remove conflicts from the three aspects of the bottom line. Businesses can seek new business opportunities, adapt to the local context, share risks or work alongside nature and not against it (Marota, 2017). For instance, the XYZ Company has decided to work towards nature by investing in nature-based solutions in supplementing and replacing large-scale infrastructure to reduce costs, improve operations, increase financial income and relations in the community.
The XYZ manufacturing company has a lot to do to achieve the same environmental and social sustainability as that of Patagonia. The company has to leverage a technologically enabled action to ensure its consumers through green marketing. The company has to switch its means and mode of production from chemical production to raw production. The company has to ensure that all its activities and metrics are computed and visualizes its goals to meet its sustainability goals (Huang & Badurdeen, 2018).
References
O’Rourke, D., & Strand, R. (2017). Patagonia: Driving sustainable innovation by embracing tensions. California Management Review, 60(1), 102-125.
Huang, A., & Badurdeen, F. (2018). Metrics-based approach to evaluate sustainable manufacturing performance at the production line and plant levels. Journal of Cleaner Production, 192, 462-476.
Marota, R. (2017). Green concepts and material flow cost accounting application for company sustainability. Indonesian Journal of Business and Entrepreneurship (IJBE), 3(1), 43-43.