Talk:Sustainable Business/Sustainable business practice

Notes for Ethics principles and methods section
Using this business workbook as an example:


 * Ethics
 * This workbook will minimise its impact on ecologies
 * This workbook will ensure fair and equitable access to all
 * This workbook will sustain economic viability for ongoing development

Principles
 * Ethics into principles and methods
 * Produce no waste = Use print on demand POD service
 * Source materials from sustainable providers = Use POD that sources post consumer waste materials
 * Use software that does not encourage eWaste = Use free and open source software designed for low end computers such as mediawiki and open standard formats.
 * Ensure free access and open development = Use free and open authoring platforms with social capital, and publish using free and open copyrights, ie Wikibooks

Notes for evaluating section

 * Successful by in terms of contribution to wider society.
 * Success can simply be earning enough.
 * In some cases business growth for the sake of growth does not produce benefits to the staff (who may be overworked) the environment (which may suffer further degradetion)and the owner simply upgrades a motor car that does the same job as the one it replaced.
 * By adopting a triple bottom line concept and reviewing that company as a whole,

One of the difficulties of small businesses is that the owner works in the business and works in it to the point where they are unable to extricate themselves from the day to day running of the business and do not take the time develop strategy (partially covered in the marketing section. Some describe this as the difference between working on a business not in it.

Typically a small business owners are so busy they only read their year end accounts (often provided by their accountant) with a cursory glance and frequently consider only their income tax liability.

Because triple bottom line reporting demands more time of the owner (or their representatives) it facilitates the development of strategy. By adopting this more complex approach to reporting a business is better able to cope with impending issues and will have a more resilient future hence be more sustainable.

Ideas noted
I'm starting to cut and paste unresolved ideas off the main page to here:

Lifestyle realising some activities create pollution and
 * Chris: There are times when people equate sustainable to organics and hippies which is unfair.
 * Chris: In many respects the concepts underpinning organics are too restrictive in the modern world.
 * Chris: The sustaianble world sees the world as a system wheres organics sees its limits much closer to its own rural base. (the farm)
 * Chris: the sustainable system recognises that some countrys will be at times be polluters and others will not and that these situations may reverse. Sustainability recognises that some businesses will always pollute (for example Formula 1) but are unlikely to go away.
 * Chris: Sustainability is not about being pious. It is about balance
 * Chris: banking biscuits to avoid the packaging.

Ethics
 * Chris: not eating chicken or pork that has been farmed intensively.
 * Chris: avoiding seeds grown by monsanto
 * Chris: not using tanalised wood
 * Chris: Avoiding products from companies that exploit child labour
 * Chris: Avoiding products from countries that:

Principles
 * Chris: being a steward - for your chidren (the next generation)

Comments on rough draft
I put about 2 hours of work into the book today. Sorry some of this was navigating my way through all the info to get a better feel for the book. I was not able to figure out a number of the wiki functions and didn't want to waste too much time doing so. I have made some notes online and attached are a couple of diagrams. Let me know if they need to be better quality, although most I have used from other sources over the years. I think a section titled 'what is sustainability?' is really important or else I do we will be recycling and changing light bulbs forever! I completely understand that some people do not want to go into detail about these things but I also think it is important to give people the option if they choose to want to know more. The funnel used in the section above is also a very helpful tool when looking at your SWOT analysis as it helps to contextualise what some of those opportunities and threats might be. Currently this SWOT analysis is extremely narrow in view. In the forecasting business section I think it is important to note those earlier identified 'threats' to your business to ensure that as you forecast you can see the bredth of what the best and worst scenarios might look like. In a rapidly changing world forecasting is somewhat flawed as a concept. For example, if a business has previously identified the threat of a diminishing cheap labour force, then their forecast needs to reflect that the price of labour (or any other resource such as power) is going to go up. Slightly random but a major component of the future thinking of 'management and staff' is that working in green buildings increases productivity. There is also a real push for leadership as opposed to management. I started on the business principles which started to become quite challenging... I am not sure if you would like me to put all the principles that I know for sustianability up on the website then have a conversation about which ones are going to be best? As I have mentioned before the systems conditions are the only ones based on science, however others like the permaculture principles cover other areas of systems understanding etc. The Sustainable Business Network articulates it as 8 areas that create a sustianable business http://sustainable.org.nz/index.php?page=what-is-a-sustainable-business Community Principles: World of Difference Principles http://www.aworldofdifference.co.nz/Central-Otago-Regional-Identity/Our-Values_IDL=2_IDT=279_ID=1358_.html The four system conditions alongside the principles table http://www.naturalstep.org/the-system-conditions Another version also attached that might be helpful. I like these icons as they are more self explanitory. Let me know if this is at all on the right track. I feel like I could spend a huge amount of time in there adding to bits and pieces but not sure if they are aligned with the reste book so not really that comfortable continuing until we can come to an agreement about the depth of the informtion the book will cover. I will not have any more time to work on this this week - sorry. Ella.

Response to initial comments on rough draft

 * Hi Ella, many thanks for this valuable feedback. The links especially are very helpful in terms of visualising what this stuff we are talking about might look like. If we can write both an overview of how sustainability and business intersect, and then a kind of "how to" for forming business principles (using this examples you point to) I think we would be well on our way. You make an important distinction I think between principles based on science and system conditions, and principles based intuitution and systems understanding. That's helpful for our understanding in what we are trying to do.


 * So, I have copied what you have given us in the email attachments, and am placing them in areas that seem to fit. When we come together this friday, we'll have lots to talk about. Many thanks for this. I think if we get a good overview, a long list of principles, and some tips on how to make up principles, this would be an excellent start for discussion.


 * Regards, leighblackall (talk) 23:22, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Generalise
I think it worth considering to generalise this booklet, so that it does not focus on business - but on frameworks for thinking about sustainability.Get these frameworks right, and then the contextualisation to business can happen in the other booklets. This also makes the sustainability booklet useful for other topics outside of business planning. --Sunshineconnelly (talk) 08:01, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Meeting in Skype between Chris, Leigh and Ella to discuss this idea:
 * Chris thinks we should do it, but include a small scaled down section about business
 * Ella thinks it is good so long as we have the right framework, but wonders if readers will be left thining "is this the right book for me?" - and "am I able to contextualise this?"..

Frameworks
Funnel and 2 perspectives on sustainability are different, but together us frame the issue and the 'treatment'. For the very least, TBL will be refered to for historic purposes (today refered to as weak sustainability), moving us into more recent frames for thinking about treatment (today called strong sustainability).


 * weak and strong sustainability





Restructure
We're deciding to recommend a set of principles based on a survey of the wide range being used by the many groups involved in sustainability. We will publish that survey and our list of principles by 25th of January 2010.

This will restructure the Sustainability chapter:


 * 1) An introduction explaining why sustainability is important
 * 2) A proposal of principles which can be used to approach the problems
 * 3) Examples of sustainable business

I am now copying Leanne Holdsworth's work in defining principles for sustainability that are consistent with major thinktank groups around the world. Leanne has prepared this specifically for the project, contracted by Otago Polytechnic. Leanne will be updating this page (as per meeting notes kept at the Sustainable Business talk page. --leighblackall (talk) 09:38, 7 February 2010 (UTC)