Creating conditions for better quality of life

Corporate sustainability strategies can aim to take advantage of sustainable revenue opportunities, while protecting the value of business against increasing energy costs, the costs of meeting regulatory requirements, changes in the way customers perceive brands and products, and the volatile price of resources. Not all eco-strategies can be incorporated into a company's Eco-portfolio immediately. The widely practised strategies include: (1) Innovation, (2) Collaboration, (3) Process Improvement and  (4) Sustainability reporting. It is quite clear that corporate sustainability is a business approach that creates long-term consumer and employee value by creating a "green" strategy aimed toward the natural environment and taking into consideration every dimension of how a business operates in the social, cultural, and economic environment. It also formulates strategies to build a company that fosters longevity through transparency and proper employee development.
Corporate sustainability is an evolution on more traditional phrases describing ethical corporate practice. Phrases such as corporate social responsibility (CSR) or corporate citizenship continue to be used but are increasingly superseded by the broader term corporate sustainability. Unlike phrases that focus on "added-on" policies, corporate sustainability describes business practices built around social and environmental considerations. Corporate sustainability can be regarded as the corporate response to sustainable development represented by strategies and practices that address the key issues for the world's sustainable development.
 Sustainable development is about creating the conditions for better quality of life for everyone, now and in the future, based on eco-efficiency and innovative solutions for engaging everyone and particularly the developing countries in the global economy. "Corporate sustainability means that your service or product does not compete in the marketplace only in terms of its superior image, power, speed, packaging, etc. Additionally, your business must deliver products or services to the customer in a way that reduces consumption, energy use, distribution costs, economic concentration, soil erosion, atmospheric pollution, and other forms of environmental damage"-- The Ecology of Commerce (1993).
PricewaterhouseCoopers define corporate sustainability as aligning an organisation's products and services with stakeholder expectations, thereby adding economic, environmental and social value. According to Dow Jones Sustainability Index., "Corporate Sustainability is a business approach that creates long-term shareholder value by embracing opportunities and managing risks deriving from economic, environmental and social developments".
The corporate sustainability movement is about companies contributing effectively to a global partnership for sustainable development. It is about companies delivering wide societal value including support for health and human rights improvements, regional development and fair globalisation, preservation of the environment by implementing effective environmental risk management systems. It is also about companies that make long term performance stability a top priority in corporate strategy.
Six growing trends of sustainable corporate culture are:
1: The "tone from the top" is key to heightened awareness and preparedness for sustainability risks.
2: Governments and multilateral institutions aren't playing a key role in corporate sustainability agendas.
3: Sustainability concerns now include increased risk and proximity of natural resource shortages.
4: Corporate risk response is not well paired to the scale of sustainability challenges.
5: Integrated reporting is slow to take hold.
6: Inquiries from investors and shareholders are on the rise.
SETTING STANDARDS: Enormous economic and population growth worldwide in the second half of the twentieth century aggravated the factors that threaten health and the world -ozone depletion, climate change, depletion, fouling of natural resources, and extensive loss of biodiversity and habitat. In the past, the standard approaches to environmental problems generated by business and industry have been regulatory-driven "end-of-the-pipe" remediation efforts. In the 1990s, efforts by governments, NGOs, corporations and investors began to grow substantially to develop awareness and plans for investment in business sustainability. One critical milestone was the establishment of the ISO 14000 standards whose development came as a result of the Rio Summit on the Environment held in 1992. ISO 14001 is the cornerstone standard of the ISO 14000  series. It specifies a framework of control for an Environmental Management System against which an organisation can be certified by a third party.
SIX ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS
1. Triple top-line value production: The TTL establishes three simultaneous requirements of sustainable business activities - financial benefits for the company, natural world betterment, and social advantages for employees and members of the local community-with each of these three components recognised as equal in status. Whereas many businesses use the triple bottom line, "triple top line" stresses the importance of initial design.
 2. Nature-based knowledge and technology: This bio based principle involves the conscious emulation of natural-world genius in terms of growing food, harnessing energy, constructing things, conducting business healing, processing information and designing communities.
3. Products of service to products of consumption: Products of service are durable goods routinely leased by the customer that are made of technical materials and are returned to the manufacturer and re-processed into a new generation of products when they are worn out. Products of consumption are short-live items made only of biodegradable materials. They are broken down by the detritus organisms after the products lose their usefulness. These are also non-hazardous to human or environmental health. This principal requires that manufacturing of only these two types of products and necessitates the gradual but continual reductions of products of service and their replacement with products of consumption as technological advancements allow.
4. Solar, wind, geothermal and ocean energy: This involves the advocacy for employing only sustainable energy technology-solar, wind, ocean and geothermal-that can meet the energy needs indefinitely without negative effects for life on earth. Many authors, like Paul Hawken, have referred to this as utilising current solar income.
5. Local-based organisations and economies: This ingredient includes durable, beautiful and healthy communities with locally owned and operated businesses and locally managed non-profit organisations, along with regional corporations and shareholders working together in a dense web of partnerships and collaborations.
6. Continuous improvement process: Operational processes inside successful organisations include provisions for constant advancements as the company runs its business. The continuous process of monitoring, analysing, redesigning and implementing is used to intensify TTL value production as conditions change and new opportunities emerge.
Response and approach to sustainability issues of different companies are influenced significantly by the "tone from the top" - that is, how their senior management bodies are engaged in the conversation. As the sustainability conversation in some companies shifts - from eco-efficiency to risk reduction and mitigation of natural resource shortages, extreme weather events and supply-chain disruptions - sustainability is seen as affecting a company's ability to compete. Some of these risks are exacerbated as the role of governments and multilateral organisations shrink in the sustainability arena.
 The result is a muddled policy environment, making it difficult for some companies to make long-term plans and investments. NGOs, stock exchanges and investor groups are stepping in to fill the void, often exerting higher leverage than governments to move companies and markets to provide transparency and disclosure on sustainability-related risks. But corporate risk response appears to be inadequate to address the scope and scale of some of these challenges. For example, most companies have yet to run scenario analyses considering the availability of key inputs such as water or other raw materials. Such analyses are increasingly important given the growing understanding that such issues as food, energy and water are inextricably linked and must be looked at holistically. Amid this dynamic environment, investors and stock exchanges are pressing companies ever harder to assess and disclose sustainability issues. Companies, however, are slow to do so. Among the challenges is balancing demands for transparency with the legal risks of disclosing more information.

Muhammad Abdul Mazid PhD, a former Secretary to GoB and Chairman, NBR, is  Chairman Chittagong Stock Exchange Limited.
 [email protected]