Sustainable Systems Many Businesses in This Day

Sustainable Systems

Many businesses in this day and age seek to demonstrate stewardship and resolve to do business within a guideline of corporate social responsibility. In this quest many have chosen to focus on greening their business often including both procurement and manufacture, seeking to reduce the effect of their business on the environment. The different systems approaches that an organization can utilize to demonstrate more effective environmental sustainability are almost as varied as the companies themselves. The utilization of pollution prevention programs depends almost entirely on what it is a company does and what wastes they challenge to control. Additionally companies seek to demonstrate their compliance utilizing various accounting tools that are often made public and become incorporated in their systems designs. These designs will incorporate procurement, logistics, on demand manufacture, i.e. lean manufacture and many other possible systems designs to both demonstrate cost savings and produce a more environmentally conscious business practice. Often along the way they also save money.

Logistics has often been overlooked as an area needing to be greened and in short companies seeking to become environmentally aware and act upon this awareness seem to be hitting a dead end, they reduce environmental impact in procuring supplies, producing products and then much of the work goes to waste when logistics enters the situation and is not environmentally conscious. (New, Green & Morton, 2000, p. 43) Green logistics according to the leading research organization on the current global state of green logistics, eyefor transport, logistics in many businesses applications accounts for 75% or more of the carbon footprint of any product. According to this organization the shift to looking at green logistics as not only responsible but essential to healthy business has occurred and many companies are currently and plan to in the future green their supply chain as so much of the footprint is located in this area and therefore the area of logistics offers an opportunity to make a large difference in the overall impact of the company. (Green Logistics Forum "Download the Green Transportation & Logistics Global Report Now," 2007, NP)

Logistics itself is often a complicated issue that is fundamentally different for almost every different business size. Some businesses and their products warrant the use of company owned transportation logistics, while others demand logistics contracting to another business that might be able to provide the service for a lesser price. With contract logistics in place in many business structures, i.e. The transportation of materials and finished products is done by a company other than the parent and eliminates the need of the company to incur the costs of transportation equipment that it might not keep busy. First of all any company who is using an outside business to solve logistics problems may already be responding to environmental concerns, as just like the individual combining several trips into one most logistics professionals are seeking and often succeeding in doing the same thing. Remember all they have to think about is how to get items from one place to another, rather than the whole of the business from beginning to end. (New, Green & Morton, 2000, p. 47) This in and of itself is a lot to think about and creates a reasonable set of important skills to provide, where as with many companies providing their own services the issue is often departmental and secondary to the main decisions of the company. This can create a situation where the best green decisions are not made. Yet, it must also be said that paying lip service to just this aspect of logistics does not make a logistics company green and research is key to accepting the greenest possible contract provider. (New, Green & Morton, 2000, p. 48)

Environmental accounting considers both external (community) and internal (company/financial) considerations, unlike traditional accounting which generally only takes internal concerns into account. SC Johnson Wax, for example as a chemical producer must consider both external and internal environmental costs partly as a result of the fact that they must comply with laws and regulations in one of the most highly regulated industries that exists today. (Barrow, 2005, p. 26) Yet, previously the company had not provided accountancy for all of these issues as discrete expenses on either an internal or external scope or scale. Since the writing of the case study involving SC Johnson's first foray into the environmental accounting school the company has become what many would call an adaptive company, recognizing that environmental decisions based upon transparency, innovation and collaboration have seriously aided in not only their company decisions also their bottom line but. (Sisaye, 2004, p. 81)

Individual corporations and purchasing agents can and have made a significant contribution to corporate consumer social responsibility with regard to the development of both ideals and implemental structures and plans that follow a "greener" path through the maze of purchasing options. The systems have gone from an implied idea of need, in the 1960s to the development of plans that help professional buyers seek out and find both manufactured and raw goods that are developed and/or obtained in a more environmentally conscious manner than other options. These organizations both new and adaptable have begun to see the value in creating sustainable practices, be it utilizing recycled paper or substantially reducing the waste (or reusing it) they produce in the processes they use to bring products to market. An interesting example found within the International Green Purchasing Network Starter Kit is a chemical purchasing agreement that has developed a program for two electronic equipment manufactures (Nortel and Intel) have opted to use chemical management programs where the company providing the chemicals is no longer paid based on the quantity of the chemical provided but based on collateral services provided the company. The provider is then rewarded for reducing utilization, rather than increasing it and for utilizing its expertise in things like waste management and procurement. (IGPN, Starter Kit, NP) If such practices were utilized in innovative ways in other areas of production and manufacture it is likely that businesses would be working within a more sustainable environment as suppliers would no longer be given incentive to sell products that are not needed but instead are given incentive to use and sell resources more wisely, without significant loss of revenue. If the worlds largest organizations utilized such services and changed intrinsic incentives from traditional quantity to quality and ecological concern motivations it is likely that the system would significantly change in a few short years, especially if smaller independents also joined the "green" procurement game. (Motavalli & Harkinson, 2002, p. 26)