How Business Can Address Social and Environmental Problems: The Sustainability Report

In Week 6 we provided you with the following list of three social and/or environmental problems currently facing the world. (In each case we provide a link to a relevant internet resource. This link is very much just a starting point. You will need to do your own additional independent research to properly understand your chosen problem.) 

The Sustainability Report requires you to select ONE of these problems and to prepare a 1,000-word Report that addresses the following points: 
 
1. Describe the precise harms that are associated with your selected problem. Show the negative social and environmental consequences that it causes for people, communities and/or the environment. 
2. Describe some of the business practices and some of the firms that are causing this problem. 
3. Explain why the companies you discuss in part (b) continue to act in ways that cause your selected problem. 
4. Provide examples of how some companies around the world are acting so as to minimise or avoid the negative consequences that you described in part (a).  

Choosing a social or environmental problem from the list provided. 

Start by choosing a sustainability issue (a social or environmental problem) from the list that we have provided on Blackboard. Choose one that seems to you to be interesting and important. In choosing a problem, keep in mind that you will need not just to explain the problem (part a) but also discuss how business is involved in causing it (part b), why they do so (part c) and how business is involved in minimising it (part d). 

Please note that we have provided a link under each problem to get you started. We provide these to give you a good start, but they are not intended to be sufficient. You will need to do your own additional, independent research in order to complete the various sections of your Report. 

Having chosen your social or environmental problem, the task in Part A is to explain it accurately and clearly. To do this you will need to draw on credible research: you will need to go beyond the links that we provide on the list of possible issues. Don't just tell me that it’s a problem: show me how big of a problem it is by drawing on relevant examples and evidence. Make sure that these come from credible and authoritative sources. Depending on the issue that you choose, you might draw on statistics from the Ministry for the Environment, or the International Labour Organisation, or on well-researched articles from credible news sites – not from some opinion piece in the paper, or a blog post. If I was doing this Report, I would look at providing 5 or 6 references in this paragraph to fully support my contention that my chosen problem is actually a big deal. 

Choosing a social or environmental problem from the list provided

Having established that your chosen problem really is a problem, we now ask you to show how business organisations have been involved in creating this problem. I don’t want to go into too much detail here, because you’ll need to work this out for your own chosen problem. But the process I would follow is this: I would think about my chosen problem and I would think: what sort of business activity causes this problem? Then I would think, what industries and (therefore) what business organisations are involved in this sort of activity? Note that the wording for Part B refers to “business practices and some of the firms”. You need to do both: what are the actual business practices that cause the problems, and what are some of the actual firms involved In these practices that cause the problem? Make sure that the firms you talk about are ones that actually create a meaningful impact in terms of the problem you are writing about. This paragraph asks you, again, to do the sort of work that is going to require some research. I don’t have some magic number of references – it depends on the nature of your problem and how firms contribute to it, but I would be thinking of at least 3 or 4. 

The problems that you have described in Part A, and the business activities contribute to it (Part B) are quite well known. In Part C we ask you to explain why the companies that you discuss in Part B continue to act in ways that cause significant harms to people, communities and planet. Make sure that you draw on relevant course material as your explanation here needs to be clear and comprehensive. 

In this Report we want for you to focus not just on the problem, but also (and especially) on something more positive: what firms can do to address this problem. Remember that an over-riding question for this ERS paper is: how can business operate in a way that generates a positive social (or environmental) impact, rather than a negative impact? So, the task in Part D is to describe how " some companies around the world are acting so as to minimise or avoid the negative consequences that you described in part (a).” Please do not write about how charitable organisations have responded, or what government programmes are doing. We are interested in seeing how it is possible to conduct business in a way that solves our most pressing problems. Again, I don’t want to go into too much detail here – it's up to you to find examples of companies who are doing creative and constructive things to address your chosen problem. But you might start by looking at the slides for Weeks 7, 8 and 10 – there are many examples given there of companies trying to address social and environmental problems while still remaining viable and profitable businesses. Some of them may be relevant to your chosen issue. You will need to ensure that you choose companies that are making a significant positive difference (not just some minor or trivial difference) and you will need to be able to demonstrate that these firms really are doing the good things that you claim (see next section). 
A really important note on thinking critically in Part D 

Companies often like to say that they are doing good things for people and planet, because that is good for their public reputation. It doesn’t always mean that they are as good as they say they are. So be very careful if your only reference is to the company’s website, or their sustainability report. Those things might be valid resources to draw on. But please don’t rely simply on what companies say about themselves. Look also for reports or article published by others, so that you can report with confidence on what these companies are doing. 

1,000 words (+/- 10%) is a pretty tight limit for this Report. You’ll need to plan it out carefully, make sure that you only write material that is directly related to the questions, and edit carefully. You’ll want to leave yourself plenty of time to make sure that it is done well. We don’t have a prescribed structure that you have to follow, but here’s a suggested structure that might help. 

Explain what your Report is going to do, why this an important topic, and how you are going to go about the task (maybe provide an overview of the various paragraphs and your overall conclusion). But keep it brief, and make sure you don’t just repeat what you say later (suggestion: 150 words) 
Please note that the Executive Summary is not included in the word limit for the Report. 

Table of Contents 

Paragraph dealing with Part A (200 words) 

Paragraph dealing with Part B (175 words) 
Paragraph dealing with Part C (175 words) 
Paragraph 1 dealing with Part D (150 words) 
Paragraph 2 dealing with Part D (150 words) 

Conclusion / Recommendation 

Conclude by suggesting some ways in which the positive business behaviours that you describe in Part D could provide some lessons to other businesses: what principles might be taken up more broadly across business so that business could make more of a positive contribution? (150 words)