Questions
1 : What are the key drivers in the Age of Responsibility, According to Wayne Visser? In other words, what is causing companies to take sustainability seriously, and what are some of the reasons or evidence for this shift in the market? What are some of the consequences for companies that ignore sustainability as a driver?
2: Why does Visser view Wlamart as an example of a comoany worthy of emulation? What are some of the problems about how sustatinable comoanies have introduced sustainable products and services into the marketplace and what does Walmarts’s bets practices have to teach us about sustainability? Furthermore, why would Walmart pursue sustainability , if its primary objective is profit?
3: Explain the difrence between ‘Cradle to grave and Cradle to cradle’ design , and describe a process by which a service or product could become circular. In other words, how can we look at waste diffrently, or cretae products that don’t producce negative extermnalities? Can you provide exampes of comoanies that have sucesfully transitioned to cradle to cradle process?
Answers
1. According to Wayne Visser, the key drivers in the Age of Responsibility are Good governance, societal contribution, and environmental integrity. Good governance is a requirement in the Age of Responsibility to ensure that all the business organizations operate in a transparent way to accomplish its objectives. Integration of ethical organizational culture thus has become one of the facilitators of the success of the organizations. The societal contribution requires that all the business organization to ensure that community, where the business operates, are included in the operations such as the offering of fair labor practices such as avoiding child labor, fair salaries and among others. The last driver is the environmental integrity that requires all the business organizations to limit the environmental damage and aim at enhancing the sustainability of the ecosystem for future use. Most of the companies’ raw material is diminishing at a high rate such as wood, water, mineral thus it is imperative for these companies to adopt strategies that will make them responsible over the existence of these resources for the next generation. Some of the practices in environmental integrity include the use of renewable energy and zero wastes.
Ignoring the sustainability drivers, business is exposed to failure due to many reasons: first, the business might be closed down by the Government agencies over polluting the environment, producing unsustainable products or even over the bad. Secondly, the business might face inadequate raw material; for instance, in case of a company that is using wood as the source of raw material, then the company has to facilitate the planting of more trees to ensure sustainability of the raw material even in the future. The company might lose the support of the society if the community is not enjoined on the activists thus might not receive cheap labors resulting in the high cost of production. Consequently, the company might not get a ready market for the finished products and services thus leading to failure.
2. According to Visser, Walmart is a company worthy emulation since all the system put in place has proven to be sustainable. The company is one of the know leaders that fight against climate change as well as providing an affordable product that aims at improving the lives of people. The major objectives of Wal-Mart thus include: use of 100% renewable energy through Global Greenhouse Gas Strategy to eliminate about 20 million metric tons of GHGs; Creation of zero waste of products through the examination of the supply chain and adoption of sustainable packaging technique; and to sell products that have the capacity to sustain both people and environment.
Some of the problems that have made sustainable companies to introduce sustainable products include the crowding of indisposable plastic bags used as bin liner polluted the environment since they take more than 100 years to break down back to the Due to a large amount of plastic bags on the environment, the introduction of the compostable bin liners is an approach to reduce the disposition of the plastic bags especially by the hospitality institutions, thus help in keeping the environment clean. Secondly, the high rate of energy consumption from major sources such as fossil fuel and wood has made most of the environment to remain bare, exposing it to direct sunlight. The sunlight and drought are dangerous to both the existence of human beings and wildlife, thus some of the companies have come up with alternative sources of energy such harnessing of the solar to reduce the pressure on the fossils and the natural woods. Wal-Mart sustainability practices teach us that profit-based business entity has to work hard in sustaining the existence of the environment it is operating and the customers, to continue existing in the current world where most of the raw materials are diminishing at a high rate.
Walmart pursues sustainability even though its primary objective is profit because of the following reasons: Walmart's mission is to help the customers save their money to live a better life since customers are the core factors of business growth and development. Wal-Mart perceives that action on climate change is a responsibility of both the consumers and the business, however, much of the tasks are upon the business entity to think of how to have renewables product that will sustain the environment and customer for continuity of the business. Thus through this, the company is not only profit-oriented but also out to sustain the environment as well.
3. Cradle to grave refers to the end of life thus cradle to grave is a sustainability model of production that describes the impact of the products from the moment of production to the end of its usefulness or disposal. On the other hand, cradle refers to the beginning of life thus Cradle to cradle is a sustainability model that follows the regenerative cycle of nature to allow the reuse of the waste. The model was developed by MC Donough and Michael Braungart with an aim of cradle to cradle is to create a cyclical approach of product production rather than the linear approach; thus decreasing the waste since the production process absorbs the obsolete materials in their own ecosystem. The cradle to cradle design composes two nutrients cycle: biological cycle whereby the material is taken back to the ecosystem in the form of compost to facilitate the creation of new products; the technical cycle that allows the utilization of material that was not used during the product production.
A product or a service can become a circular when during the production the manufacturer creates high emotional and physical durability that’s will have a high capacity to resist obsolesce. Secondly, the products can be designed in such a way that is easy to repair and refurbish to give old products new look or recontextualization to enable the use of the product in other purposes that it was not initially intended to.
Example of companies that have successfully transitioned to cradle to cradle product production includes Warmchild Company produces disposable diapers with composistion of about 80% cellulose-based material. The material is capable to break down in home-based compost within a period of three months, unlike the conventional diapers that are composed of plates that have high resistance to the environmental effects thus take too long to rejoin the ecosystem. Another company is the Dura Clear Glass Company that produces tabletops from already used recyclable glasses and cement. Both glasses and cement tend to be in-compostable, thus using the waste to produce new products is a great step in the cradle to cradle model of production. The company also recycles water to ensure that no more waste and excessive consumption of resources are incurred during the production and use of wind energy to offset the energy consumption too. Consequently, the company policy is to by employ a large number of refugees and youths to the workforce enabling the needy to get some cash that is instrumental in enhancing their lives too.
