Posted: May 7th, 2015

Business and Sustainability

Business and Sustainability

Assignment Brief
As a Consultant, you have been asked to help a company with understanding how they can assess their ongoing impact on the environment. The company are keen to improve their sustainable image and hope this will be reflected in increased sales along with attracting more customers.

In order to help them you have been asked to look at the following topics and give them some guidance on what is involved:

1.    What is the definition of sustainability when viewed from an industry stance?
•    What is sustainability
•    What are the ‘Pillars’ and what do they each mean
•    Use a diagram to illustrate your answer
•    Explain why sustainability is important to industry

2.    Identify the KEY Steps you would need to undertake when conducting your baseline sustainability audit and the areas for consideration.
•    Briefly explain why a baseline audit is required.
•    Clearly identify the various resources that should be covered in your audit
•    Consider both internal and external resources.
•    Outline what actions are required by each of your chosen steps
•    Produce a flow diagram which can be used as a route map of the process for others to follow.

3.    For each resource identified, highlight what information is required to assess the quantity used, potential emissions and costs.
•    Location of information if available
•    How you would obtain some data if none was readily available
i.    Specific sections of the company
ii.    Specific machines or processes

4.    Explain how you would analyse the data obtained during the audit to highlight areas of opportunity for improvement.
•    Outline potential types of data
•    Briefly explain the methods you would use to show which areas could be targeted for improvement.
•    Use some simple examples of data analysis to show your chosen techniques

5.    Develop a plan for the company which would help them understand the sequence of performing a sustainability audit and implementing recommendations.
•    Think about the sequence of doing an audit from the company viewpoint
•    Produce a Gantt chart or project plan to help visualise how the process may be undertaken.
•    Identify the tasks and associated times. An estimate is sufficient to illustrate your thinking.

6.    Explain to the company how you would embed a sustainability culture within the company to establish the long term benefits.
•    Identify areas that would help the company
•    Consider how to involve external suppliers
•    Think about people, product and future

Please include in your report sections 1 – 6 as shown above. You may add a brief introduction and concluding remarks.

The assignment should be in the order 15 pages in length (17 pages maximum) including the necessary illustrations, references and any appendices.  You should structure your report in a fashion that allows for easy reading and brings out the main points suitable for the Company Board of Directors to assess.  The use of short paragraphs and bullet points is encouraged.

You should reference any material used within your report.

Explain any figures you include. You should use a font of size no less than 10 points.

Reference Material

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/business-sustainability

https://www.2degreesnetwork.com/groups/2degrees-community/resources/top-5-benefits-sustainability-audit/