Environmental Sustainability in business: British Sugar plc.

Introduction

Sustainable development is a concept that has become of importance to organizational practices and industries, where environmental concerns are given significant consideration alongside man’s pursuit towards developing and meeting the daily needs. This management-briefing document focuses on British Sugar Company, and how it will benefit from using sustainability strategy to enhance its production. British Sugar Plc is the leading sugar producer company in the United Kingdom supplying the country with more than half of its sugar (British Sugar, 2017). About 7,000 farmers contract with the company yearly providing it with 9 million tonnes of raw sugar beet used to produce approximately 1.4 million tonnes of sugar at the company’s six factories yearly. British Sugar is a fully owned subsidiary of Associated British Foods Plc, it dates back to the early 1900s with the formation of the National Sugar Beet Association in 1909. British Sugar has a variety of products including; granulated sugar, caster and screened sugar, icing and milled sugar, decorative sugar, pharmaceutical speciality sugars, brown sugars, liquid sugars and blends, first producer of bioethanol in UK, quality topsoil, animal feed and aggregate for building and construction. British Sugar has a wide range of customers for instance its products are used by the food industry in cereals, baked goods, confections, ice-cream and nutritional products, pharmaceutical companies e.g. GW pharmaceutical (DEFRA, 2018). Supplies over 170 food and drink manufacturers including many household-name brands in the UK, sugar is also sold to wholesalers and in retail markets under the Silver Spoon brand. British Sugar offers variety of services to its customers by supporting and nurturing careers to attract, retain and develop great people to be part of achieving the visions and strategies. The diverse range of services that offer opportunities to learn include finance, agriculture, operations, science, commercial, sales and customer’s service, innovation, science, procurement, HR, people development, ICT, facilities, logistics, health and safety, communication, project management and development programmes e.g. Lead the way, management fundamentals, graduate and apprenticeship schemes and the operations technician’s qualification & credit framework (British Sugar, 2019).

Business sustainability refers to adopting business activities and strategies that coincide with the needs of the enterprise and stakeholders today while protecting, sustaining and enhancing the human and natural resources that will be required in future. It has continually motivated the process of production towards utilising renewable resources rather than the scarce resources and minimising them while eliminating toxic pollutants, which contributes to the daily contemporary challenges that face the globe i.e. pollution, and environment degradation (Sharma et al., 2010). Sustainability deals with environmental, economic and social issues in a more advanced manner to transform organisations so they can contribute to sustainable development of the economy and society, within the ecosystem limits (Whiteman et al., 2013).Adoption of sustainability is very essential, it helps companies maximise their opportunities and minimize the negative impacts their operations have on the environment, communities and economies around them. It focuses on issues such as climate change, corruption, human rights, consumption, supply chain practices and empowerment of women.

Some practical operational sustainability includes;

Transforming Higher Education: A Practical Plan for Integrating Sustainability Education into the Student experience and the best practices in sustainability education include green orientation, first year education, graduation requirements, interdisciplinary education, the campus as a model sustainable community, and sustainability-focused academic programs are combined to construct a comprehensive, easy-to-replicate strategy that administrators, faculty, staff, and students could use to improve sustainability education efforts at their own institutions. An institution with a comprehensive approach to sustainability education is a place where students are part of an academic environment where they see the connections between disciplines and work collaboratively to find interdisciplinary solutions to real-world problems (Encyclopaedia, 2019).

Assessing the sustainability performances of industries; Business sustainability entails the incorporation of the objectives of sustainable development, namely social equity, economic efficiency and environmental performance, into a company's operational practices. Companies competing internationally are increasingly required to commit to and report on the overall sustainability performances of operational initiatives. The current indicator frameworks that are available to measure overall business sustainability do not effectively address all aspects of sustainability at operational level, especially in developing countries such as South Africa. Social criteria, specifically, do not receive due considerations.

Higher education for sustainable development in China; There are main barriers hindering balance and promotion of Education for sustainable development (ESD) in higher education in China including regional difference in this wide developing nation and there is need for broader educational approaches across academic disciplines. Teaching about SD has been integrated into technical fields especially at universities in major cities and researches have been undertaken to develop economically effective and environmentally friendly innovations. However, resources and capacities are still limited given the ambitions associated with SD in China. National and international networks and collaborations must be promoted and curricula and research reoriented to progress education and change for SD in Chinese higher education (D Niu et al., 2010).

Some of the companies that uses the best practices in sustainability include; Alcoa (board leadership), PepsiCo (Stakeholder engagement), Coca-Cola (Water stewardship), Ford Motor Co (Supply chain management), Xylem (Management accountability), PG&E (Biodiversity) and Adobe (Greenhouse Gas Emission).

Traditional justification assessments and evaluations such as investment return and discounted flow of cash techniques tend to short sight financially orientation. While this justification tends to be positive, it has led to challenges in adopting projects and programmed strategically, particularly with intangible and tangible benefits that cannot be reflected by traditional justification approach (Presley, 2007). Justification and adoption process for strategically oriented programs is difficult, due to high capital costs and risks, misguided capital budgeting decisions, technological uncertainties, and general myopic approaches to strategic sustainability justifications. An important question that comes to mind, therefore, is why firms are coerced to consider a sustainability corporate related initiative taking into consideration pressure coming from the decision makers. The answer is owing to the fact that stakeholders tend to mount much pressure on the firm.

British Sugar must develop approaches and tools to offset pressures from the stakeholders. According to (Smith & Sharicz, 2011), this tool exists in practice and literature (related to the sustainability and environment) yet has setbacks. For instance, a lot of studies do not address several factors that are related closely to environmental impact, limitation of criteria integration (particularly integrating quantitative and qualitative criteria), difficulty when considering social requirements and integrating stakeholder, and selection of the tool (Kiron et al., 2012). In addition, the success or failure of the implementation of strategic sustainability programs depends on a consensus by top management decision-makers. Non-traditional justifications are needed to fully assess strategic sustainability in the current business climate to support strategic initiatives and strategic decision-making. Adopting a sustainability strategy is important to the environment and organisations in various ways including increasing sales, attracting employees, reducing operation costs, attracting investors, encouraging creativity, improving productivity, risk reduction, brand loyalty, promoting public relations and existing government regulations to protect the environment.

The benefits of adopting sustainability strategy are numerous; 1. To achieve sustainability it requires that the costs are controlled and that sales are maintained or improved by offering quality products and service. Financial returns are improved from the overflow of a good product or service that is produced by a reputable company. From the good reputation, profitability increases resulting in the improvement of the stock price over spilling to the desire of every business executive, to improve stock dividends for the investors. 2. Productivity costs can be increased by the manner in which the business manages its human resources. Employee relations determine the level of staff morale and that has a direct impact on productivity. Companies that have a good reputation achieve low staff turnover and that reduces the costs associated with the learning curve. High staff turnover increases productivity costs associated with training and reduced speed during the period a new employee familiarises and adapts to the new environment. This is because the company is expected to pay the learning employee emoluments due from date of engagement even though his productivity is reduced.

3. Companies that adopt sustainability are reputable and maintain high workplace safety. Costs associated with poor safety are enormous, they include huge fines for non-compliance from institutions such as National Social Security Authority and Environmental Management Agency that may result in down time from non-availability of productive workforce due to injury. In worst case scenarios, the company with poor workplace safety may face closure to facilitate investigations. 4. Companies that achieve cost management increase their reputation attracting new markets and retain the existing market. Productivity automatically translates to profitability and a healthy financial status that makes it easy for the company to meet its financial obligations. In event that the company with a good reputation intends to borrow, the costs of borrowing are less because it is appealing to lenders and investors as a result of good governance and risk management.

Lack of a well-defined sustainability strategy may have variety of impacts; for instance, lack of sustainability strategies results to potential brand erosion on environmental footprint issues, lack of action to mitigate the escalating energy, water and material expenses and may lead to threat of sudden disruption of a company’s supply chain or access to customers. Some potential hits to revenue when a company fails to adopt sustainability strategy include risk to revenue from poor reputation on energy and carbon management, water management, material and waste management and poor supplier reputation and behaviours.

Global air pollution; on a universal scale, about 5 million people including children are killed each year as a result of air pollution. Air pollution can sometimes cause businesses and institutions to close due to the toxic air quality. Common pollutants of air include; carbon monoxide, ground level ozone, particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide. Car emissions release nitrogen dioxide into the air and cause lung illnesses upon inhalation, and acid rain (Basri et al., 2015). The burning of fossil fuels avails sulphur dioxide into the air, which may lead to stunt growth in plants, cause acid rain, and also lung problems in humans and animals. Diseases such as heart disease and chest pain are caused by carbon monoxide, which is availed in the air through machinery and vehicles. Additionally, ground level ozone results when pollutions from industries and vehicles respond to sunrays, generating smog and increasing chances of lung illnesses (Yilmaz & Flouris, 2010).

Continuous increase in water pollution: Discharge of pollutants from industries have adverse effect on water bodies. Industries needs a lot of water for efficient production such as cleaning, treatment and cooling and as such, the water that has been drawn from the sources of water are always polluted after use. If the industry fails to adopt sustainability practices of dealing with water drawn for industrial use, industrial discharge of waste water into sources of water will always result into air pollution. In most cases, contamination of water is due to discharge of radioactive materials, toxic chemicals and heavy metals. For this reason, marine life and other aspect of the environment are negatively affected.

Green business initiative; plastic waste recycling

Plastic waste recycling is the process of recovering waste plastic and reprocessing it into useful products to prevent waste of potentially useful materials, supplement the consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce energy usage (less energy is required in recycling), reduce air pollution from incineration and water pollution. Plastic recycling is very essential since plastics make up a huge amount of solid waste and take a lot of time to break down on land or the ocean. Therefore, all recyclable plastics should be recycled to reduce landfall, conserve energy and conserve the environment. Waste plastics can be used to manufacture a variety of products we use every day, such as beverage and food containers, trash bags and grocery bags, cups and utensils, children's toys and diapers. British Sugar can employ plastic waste recycling initiative by ensuring all the plastic packaging are reusable, recyclable, biodegradable or compostable. This can be achieved through many ways. For instance, contacting local waste management about recycling services, sorting and placing recycling on the cab. The recycled plastic waste can be used by British Sugar Company to manufacture new plastic packaging without incurring much energy.

Plastic waste recycling is a green business initiative that can assist the organization to go green by boosting environmental performance in a manner that eventually boosts its financial achievements (Schaper, 2016). If British Sugar adopts the plastic waste recycling initiative, it will be able to reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, energy usage, water and air pollution and the greenhouse gases emissions. Adoption of green business initiative ensures improved environmental and financial performance of the organization through various green programs; certification program of green business, forums for green business, resource regional metabolism assessment, and supply chain sustainable program.

The reasons for adoption of green business initiative (plastic waste recycling) include; Affordable plastic products: Recycled waste plastic are normally cost-effective and affordable to purchase. Purchase of cheaper plastic facilitate manufacturing of more recycled goods thus sustaining the recycling companies. Decrease in pollution: Burning of plastics in incinerators of waste emits masses of pollution into the air. Recycling of waste plastic would therefore lead decrease in carbon emission hence ensuring sustainable environment. Preservation of wildlife: waste plastic recycling assist in shielding the habitat of beautiful insects, birds and wide variety of wild animals that would be rendered homeless due to deforestation. Forums for green business: Larger organizations that go green sets up various positions of chief environmental officer, chief green officer, and sustainability officer to oversee that the addresses and complies with the environmental regulations and overall environmental performances. The purpose of forums for green business is to create support optimization and better exchanges for businesses' strategies of improvement by addressing collective barriers and opportunities.

Its benefits are numerous and include; 1. Ensuring workforce morale and innovations are boosted. Improvement of sustainability is a joint effort. When employees join hand together for the identification and implementation of green and sustainable initiatives, it facilitates a culture of teamwork and continuous improvement. Employees tend to work harder if they are engaged and a sense of pride instilled in them in their company. Through internal communicating of the significance of changes and the effect on the business environment, DH Smith will be able to control its positive corporate culture in a positive manner (Basri et al., 2015). 2. Conserve natural resources and energy; Recycling plastics reduces the amount of energy and resources e.g. as water, petroleum, natural gas and coal, needed to create plastic. 3. It attracts new clients and cut down on costs. Sustainable and green practices make an organization of high value in terms of market demand. Consumers are normally more conscious of the surrounding and making improvement will enhance the reputation of a company. Outlining of company’s initiative to the public enhance customer’s attraction and this results in increased sales (Yilmaz & Flouris, 2010). 4. Recycling plastics saves landfill space. Recycling plastic products keeps them out of the land and allows the plastics to be reused in manufacturing new products since a lot of plastic ends up directly in the environment, breaking down into pieces, polluting our soil and water, and contributing to the Ocean's Great Garbage Patches (OGGP).

British Sugar will have to meet certain costs prior to introducing the initiative. A plastic recycling business plan will require resources to open, cost for setting up (capital), time investment and strategy for successful recycle business. It is important to remember that policy portfolios develop over decades hence, policies in support of green business require a long-term consistent effort to strengthen institutional and governance capacity to manage, enforce, monitor and evaluate policies. The green business will require resources, official permissions, labour, experts, waste paper collection techniques and equipment/machines to be used, the green business for certification program must be launched (Yilmaz & Flouris, 2010).

Positive climate community initiative: The Oberlin Project

The Oberlin Project is a joint effort of the City of Oberlin College and private and institutional partners to improve the resilience prosperity and sustainability of the community. It aims at revitalizing the local economy, eliminating carbon emissions, restoring local agriculture, food supply and forestry and creating a new sustainable base for economic and community development creating a sustainable foundation for the communities (Isaak, 2017). The Oberlin has five goals, including; Creating one of the first climate positive cities in America by shifting the City and College to renewable energy source, creating and supporting existing business ventures in energy efficiency, conserving 20,000 acres of green space, developing good food economy and serving as a model that can be looked upon by the communities.

Improving the Oberlin in future

Waste reduction; the most imperative sustainable effort in an organisation is limiting waste. Heavy investment on these initiatives has a substantial impact on the baseline. For instance, Google contains a sustainability effort named Google green to utilize resources more sparingly, which has made the company trickle in overall power needed for its data centres by an average of fifty per cent. Such savings and some similar can be directed to other areas of the business organization (Yang et al., 2015). Certification and measurement; the setting of transparent and goals that are well known, and the measurements for sustainability initiatives assist in tying all aspects together, by highlighting goals clearly that a company should struggle to meet (Fineman, 2017). Every single employee remains committed in to make it a reality. Establishment of baseline metrics assists in tracking the effectiveness of sustainability initiative.

Conclusion

This management-briefing document focuses on setting the stage for a collaborative, detailed, and wide plan on sustainability. It builds on the remarkable achievements of green operating businesses and the dream of highly ranked administrators to inject sustainability in all activities and functions. Acting on this modelling initiative will enhance sustainability in British Sugar Company hence improving production, maximising opportunities and minimizing the negative impacts its operations have on the environment, communities and economies around.

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