Analysis

 RESULTS

GRI Guidelines	J&J Evaluation	Description
Stakeholder inclusiveness	met	The organization should identify its stakeholders, and explain how it has responded to their reasonable expectations and interests. All stakeholders are mentioned in the report. Especially, suppliers and external manufactures who help J&J manufacture their products. Some of those stakeholders are the customers who purchase their products, such as doctors, including its employees who play a key role in the success of J&J.
Sustainability context	met	The report should present the organization’s performance in the wider context of sustainability. The report displays the goals accomplished by J&J in order to make their organization a sustainable one that is making a positive impact to the planet. J&J strives towards Health for Humanity 2020 goals.
Materiability	unmet	The report should cover aspects that : Reflect the organization’s significant economic, environmental and social impacts; or Substantively influence the assessments and decisions of stakeholders. The report mentioned environmental and social impacts however left out how the company affects the economy.
Completeness	met	The report should include coverage of material aspects and their boundaries, sufficient to reflect significant economic, environmental and social impacts, and to enable stakeholders to assess the organization's performance in the reporting period.
Accuracy	met	The reported information should be sufficiently accurate and detailed for stakeholders to assess the organization's performance.The data provided in the report is accurate and contains supporting details to the context.
Timeliness	met	The organization should report on a regular schedule so the information is available in time for stakeholders to make informed decision. The 2016 and 2017 reports were published.
Comparability	met	The organisations should select, compile and report information consistently. The reported information should be presented in a manner that enables stakeholders to analyze changes in the organisation's performance over time, and that could support analysis relative to other organizations.
Clarity	met	The organization should make information available in a manner that is understandable and accessible to stakeholders using the report. The report is design in a way that is easy for the reader to comprehend.
Reliability	met	The organization should gather, record, compile, analyse and disclose information and process used in the preparation of a report in a way that they can be subject to examination and that establishes the quality and materiality of the information. Johnson and Johnson actually shows evidence of their improvement, and proves that their products are made under certain ethical standards that benefits the environment and society.
Balance	unmet	The report should reflect positive and negative aspects of the organization's performance to enable a reasoned assessment of overall performance. Only positive things is stated about the J&J.

SHADOW REPORTS: Sustainability is an important aspect for a multinational company like Johnson and Johnson.  Social sustainability is equally as important as environmental sustainability. One example of a flawed sustainability effort is the case of Johnson and Johnson baby powder in correlation to increased risks of ovarian cancer. In an article by Berfield, Feeley, and Cronin Fisk it is made known that thousands of women in the last decade have sued the company due their diagnosis of ovarian cancer.  They argue that the product should warn consumers of the risks of using the product. Many female consumers argue that they used the baby powder because it was a custom passed down from generation to generation, and none of these women had ever been informed of the high trends of ovarian cancer. Johnson and Johnson now identifies the dangers as well as the benefits of the products it releases. Millions of dollars of been paid by Johnson and Johnson for compensatory damages (Berfield, Freeley, & Fisk, 2016)

 SHARED VALUE

How is shared value created?
	People	Places	Practices
Health for Humanity 2020 Goals	The Drive policy expanded health care access and coverage in at least three emerging markets (including Brazil, China, India).	Redefining productivity in the value chain and caring about improving the environment. J&J successfully complete more than 60 energy reduction projections, which represent $187 million in capital investment, and it fully expects to reduce its annual CO2 emissions by 129,000 tons and at the same time provide an internal rate of return of almost 19%.	Encourage and engage employees toward their “personal best” in health and well-being via: training of at least 100,000 employees in the principles of ENERGY FOR PERFORMANCE; connecting at least 100,000 employees to their health via innovative digital health tools; and providing access to at least 100,000 employees to both fully implemented healthy eating and fully implemented healthy movement cultures (J&J 2016 Health).

 Materiality Issues

Environmental	Energy management Wastewater management Waste and hazardous management	Johnson and Johnson approaches environmental issues by joining the White House American Business Act on Climate Pledge.
Social	human rights Community relations Customer welfare	Johnson & Johnson approaches human rights by ensuring that there are human rights opportunities in the workplace, clinical research ethics, and improving access to health care.
Corporate Governance	Business ethics Supply change management Transparency of payments	Johnson and Johnson approaches Corporate Governance through their board of directors, which are their highest governance body. The board of directors consist of a diverse group of people that are elected by shareholders annually.

Climate Change 2014

Climate System is a change in the weather meteorology patterns over long periods of time. This could be changes weather conditions such as the amount of precipitation in an area for one year. Also, it could be a variance in climatic conditions over a significant time span. Over recent years, the warming of the climate system has had many effects on the earth such as rises in the sea level, ice and snow cap melting, and warming of the atmosphere. These climate changes have been observed throughout the years and they are due to natural causes or human interaction. With advances in modern industry, the greenhouse gas emissions have been constantly increasing making it one of the largest causes of global warming. The most abundant greenhouse gas emission in the earth’s atmosphere are carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. These gases remain in the atmosphere for many years and make the planet warmer.

If greenhouse emission continues to rise at this rate, the level of carbon dioxide will continue to increase leading to worsening of global warming.  The impact on human society and ecosystem will be irreversible. It is projected that by 21^st century that the surface temperature of the earth will continue to rise causing an increase in precipitation in wetland regions.  This in turn will change the pH levels of the oceans and increase sea level. As days go on, the risks are greater for people and the ecosystem, but underdeveloped regions are more affected by drastic climate change. Africa is one the countries affected with this phenomenon.  Some of the severe consequences are the health, food productivity, and potable water availability.

Many actions can be taken in order to prevent further damage to the atmosphere.  Mitigation is necessary to lessen the severity of the damage that has already been caused.  While adaptation to these environmental changes must be taken into account as well.  Companies must find a way to lower the emission of greenhouse gases.  Energy must also be conserved. The changes must be implemented by domestic and international leaders.  If nothing is done to prevent further damage, the earth will suffer tremendous loss.  

Years of Living Dangerously Season 2 Episode 3

The episode we watched on years of living dangerously talks about African illegal migration and the reasons why many African citizens continue risking their lives in trying to migrate to Europe. When we think on people from one country trying to move to another country the first reason that comes into our mind is that they migrate because they are looking for job opportunities in another country, so they can support their families and themselves. However, years of living dangerously showed us the main reason of Africans migration. According to the episode climate change has a lot to do with African migration.

The lack of rain in Africa is preventing Africa's agriculture to growth and that is the reason pushing all the people in Africa to look for other options migrating being the number one option. According to John Edgler “a child born in the 1970’s compares to a child born today the child from now has 60 percentage more chances to be displaced by natural disasters.”

The episode also showed us the situation of a Mexican family in California that had to give away their dream of having their own farm because they can’t growth food due to the lack of rain as well. So, what this is trying to tell us is that climate change is not just affecting Africa but is also affecting us here in America and all over the world.

California is losing about four trillion gallons of water per year and a big amount of this water was used to support agriculture so, the resources continue to be fewer and fewer. John Kerry U.S. former secretary of state blame climate change on “bad governors and corruption.”

If climate change continues in the rise so the climate migrants would continue to rise as well and is expected to reach from 200 million to 1 billion by the end of this century.

Overall, Years of Living Dangerously shows to the viewer a reality that many of us are not aware of. Climate change is a reality and is time for everyone to take actions to get positive change in our planet. Water is key for life and migrating would get to a point where it would be no safe place to go and that is when all would be over for our planet and humanity.

Climate change is a situation that should concern everyone in our planet. Unfortunately, most of humanity do not think about the future of our planet. Humans are the main responsible for climate change by practicing activities such as: burning fossils fuels and cutting down trees and forest so we can build new constrictions people to live and open new business. Trees absorb carbon dioxide and the earth would continue to get warmer if we remain with practices like the ones we mentioned before.

Climate change is the reason African citizens continue to leave their countries, it is very simple is you don’t have water you can’t growth food and if you can’t growth food and don’t have water you can’t live. The effects of climate change are all over now and a good example is the family with the small farm in California, this humble family had to give up their dream away because the lack of rain.

It is time for humanity to act while we still can. The first group of people that should come out with ideas to help improve this situation are the governors of all countries. All earth citizens should get educate about the importance of the effects of climate change and ways for us to prevent climate change so by working all together we can help to have a better planet to live and a promising future for our love ones.

NASA Climate Kids

The global climate change happening is making the planet warmer and warmer each year. It affects our climate and our weather. Unfortunately it is not just something we can turn on and off. It is something we have to adjust ourselves to. These “adjustments” affect our air, food and water. If one out of the three became unbreathable, infertile, or dried up, the earth will no longer be able to support its inhabitants.

Carbon dioxide is an important gas that traps in the heat from the sun. The reason why too much Carbon dioxide is a bad thing is because it is trapping more heat on earth. And since it is like a greenhouse gas the heat is not escaping. The earth is constantly trapping in heat. The earth warms to 59 degrees. If the earth is to get hotter it will cause more ice caps to melt. If more ice caps melt than sea levels with rise. If sea levels rise than any species that live close to the coast line will have to find other spaces to live.

The ocean is a sensitive body of water. Our earth is made up of 70% of water. Which mean we must pay close attention to the effects of global climate change is doing to it. The ocean absorbs any excess heat from the atmosphere. If the ocean were to get too warm it can affect the food chain under the sea. As well as, if the ocean water becomes too acidic from absorbing most of earth’s carbon dioxide, animals that live in the ocean will become more sensitive to their environment and could die. With the ice caps melting and dining into other parts of the ocean can cause nearby countries to get colder in the winter time. Even the salt in the water can become heavier and that can affect the Ocean Conveyor Belt which carries warmer, less salty water from the equator to the poles, and colder, saltier water from the poles back toward the equator. Colder water and very salty water are heavier than warmer water and less salty water (What is happening in the ocean? 2017).

There is still hope to save the earth. By doing small things like planting a garden and choosing energy efficient cars the earth could still have a chance to regulate itself back the way it is supposed to be. There is still so much people know know or understand about the earth but it is important to ask questions and try to.

From reading from NASA Climate Kids I learned that global climate change is not hard to understand or believe, it is real. Also the site meant for children so if children are able to comprehend the information given than our political leaders should be able to understand that global climate change or “global warming” is a serious thing. Actions need to be taken place in order for this land to be inhabitable. Because the current generation might not care but generations to come could be living in harsh elements.

Richer And Poorer

            Corrado Gini an italian statistician devised the Gini Index in 1912. Gini was only twenty- eight years old when he invented a way that measures economic inequality. The Gini Index explains “If all the income in the world were earned by one person and everyone else earned nothing, the world would have a Gini index of one. If everyone in the world earned exactly the same income, the world would have a Gini index of zero” (Richer and Poorer, 2015). Around the world the United States has the greatest income equality than any other country. From 1975 to 1985 according to the Gini Index, the United States households rose from .397 to .419. These calculations came from the Census Bureau. Making a cross country comparison is difficult, however in 1983 the Luxembourg Income study helped make data collecting a little bit easier by collecting data from more than forty countries on six continents. Studies have shown that the United States has continued to grow when in it comes to economic inequality.

            The Task Force on inequality and American democracy was created by the American Political Science Association. The task force was formed because the more economic inequality grew it was threatening the fundamental American political instructions. “Democrats and Republicans are fighting over who’s to blame for growing economic inequality is that , aside from a certain amount of squabbling, it’s no longer possible to deny that it exist (Richer and Poorer, 2015)”.  Living in a society where technology is essential and the internet is right at an individual’s footsteps it becomes easier for individuals to find information regarding the United States.       Individuals can now clearly see through a search engine the economic inequality going on in the U.S.

            Multiple scholars want to figure out why the United States keeps growing in economic inequality. Two scholars in particular Alfred Stepan and Juan J. Linz tried to figure out why the growth of economic inequality has been going on for so long. The two scholars discovered that there were twenty-three countries with advanced economies as well as a counted number of veto players. They also discovered that the Gini score as well as being under represented in the upper body of legislature causes a greater gap between the rich and poor is greater and congress needs to do more to help bridge this gap as well as stop the growth of income inequality.

Introduction

Our group will be summarizing Chapter 4’s  main focus which was the Triple Bottom Line. The Triple Bottom Line is a practice multiple companies use for a positive impact in their environment and profits. Chapter 5 talks about PRME principles and how SDG’s enforce these principles into businesses. Both Chapter 4 & 5 correlate with the article our group read. The article was “Creating Shared Value” by Porter & Kramer.

Chapter 4 Summary

In this chapter, we were able to understand the three most important elements of sustainability and the importance of these elements to work well to each other to make a positive impact in companies that are willing to invest in a healthier future for our planet.

The main point in this chapter is the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) which consist of people, planet, and profit. The traditional way of a business to measure their performance is by the amount of profit the business can achieve at the end of a period, this is a practice that is being around for years, but many companies are changing the way they measure their organizations. This is when (TBL) comes in. An innovator organization nowadays measure their companies by the positive impact they have made in the society, as well as in the environment and finally in their profit.

People

So, the idea is that organizations pay more attention to what they do for the people, an example could be the treatment a company provides for their employees. It’s important that a company provides employment opportunities to the local community, good wages, health care, plain water, and a fair education.

Environmental

Protecting the planet should be the most important priority all companies should have in plan. Therefore, organizations should be aware and responsible for power usage, avoiding

polluting the environment. A good example of this pillar is the way Walmart supports the environment. According to Kathleen Mclaughlin (chief sustainability officer Walmart) “Walmart is saving about one billion dollars a year, on good energy efficiency projects.” This also shows that being sustainable can increase an organization’s profit by reducing cost.

Economic

It is important that a business can survive and make some profit, so they can continue to invest in sustainability, so going back to the Walmart example we can better understand how being a sustainable company can help increase the organization’s profit by the reducing cost. So, that first big investment in sustainability would bring huge cost savings in the future and will also create an excellent image influencing customer’s behavior in preferring them instead of the competition because they are doing something positive for the planet.

Chapter four highlights the increase of sustainability strategies since the 2000s and the positive impact that has made in corporate success. The Triple Bottom Line believes that businesses should give equal value to the people, planet and economic rather than just looking at the profit. One group member has experienced an environmental practice of the triple bottom line. The company they work for work is Amazon, the Fresh department. That department deals with various foods. The packaging for the products are recycled to save a profit on new packaging. Once, customers are done emptying out the green totes it is free delivery to return the tote.

In my opinion recycling totes is a good environmental thing to do however, some of the totes returned are not returned in good condition. Depending, on how far the totes traveled or if things were left in the tote, it is a waste to even return the tote. This makes Amazon lose money and is not very environmentally friendly due to the condition of the tote and having to throw the tote away regardless.  

The chapter also talks about the KPMG’s Survey of Corporate Responsibility Report. The report monitored all developments of corporate responsibility and sustainably. Existing companies and new ones continue to read this report, so they can learn how they can help become their companies a sustainable one.

Share value is the summary of the importance of the three pillars and the connection between each other. The best idea would be that one day we get to a point were all organizations provide a share value. Share value can only be good for the future of our people, our planet and the financial stability of a company.

Chapter 5 Summary

Chapter 5 states that in order for people to have the ideal world we must take action in making the world efficient. Business and business leaders have already taken the step to positively shaping the world and mobilizing resources to address some of the challenges. Business students probably have to most potential to change the world due to their drive to influence others to make the positive change as well.

            The UN Global Compact is a cross-sectoral initiative bringing together businesses, UN agencies, civil society and labor organizations, with the aim of working together to foster more sustainable and responsible business practices (Molthan-Hill, P. (2014)). The UN Global Compact is the largest sustainability initiative that creates a balance to universal principles of human rights, labour rights, environment, and anti-corruption. There are ten principles and each principle has an aim to make businesses beneficial and an implication that affects the business aspect of things. The principles of PRME were developed to make sure businesses are sustainable and responsible. The SDGs were introduced to make sure that these practices were endorsed.

The Principles for Responsible Management Education PRME.      

            The Schools of business and management are being focusing in the education and mindsets of the futures leaders in this field. The idea of PRME is to develop powerful professionals with ethical corporate sustainability. During the UN Global Compact, the principles of PRME has been working on the transformation and acceptation of the business and management schools around the world. UN Global Compact is promoting values into the Business education such as:

•   Respect and protection human rights

•   Protection of labor rights

•   Protection of the environment and acceptation of technological advances.

•   Engagement for no corruption.

            The principles of PRME also helps to raise awareness about natural resources and human rights around the world. There are six principles of PRME. One is the purpose where the students will be the future generators of sustainable value for business and management. They are educating to remake the world with better economic efforts. Regarding the values of principle, PRME introduces education as a global social responsibility, a frame in international initiatives in the UN Global Compact. The pedagogic framework schools should create educational frameworks and environments that enable an effective learning experiences for future leaderships. Another important principle is research, where the students are pursuing to understand the importance of the role, dynamics and impact on a corporation in the creation of global sustainability. Collaboration is another principle where the schools adopt business corporations to extend their knowledge of their talents in order to cooperate as team with the social and environmental responsibilities. Finally, dialogue, the schools introduce debate and dialogues between the students, professors, business, government, consumers, media and civil society in order to discuss global social responsibility and sustainability management. Successively, improving learning and progress are the three rules in the principles of PRME. PRME has been working in groups to develop resources to increase the awareness related to the education business. The active PRME working groups research about important topics that concern the collegiate education on business. The sustainable development goals (SDGs) for these working groups regard poverty where the objective is to combat this issue introducing high level of education all around the world. Another is corruption, it is one the greatest issues in the world. In this group the students learn about business management ethics and transparency. The goal of the corruption group is also to combat this crime that is affecting countries worldwide especially the poorer countries. Human rights groups aim to educate the business management people to respect human rights in turn combating abuse. Another is business for peace, the objective of this group is to develop values which bring peace into the management education. The climate change group which has three main objectives including policy strategies that provide business students and universities a guide on how change in climate can be introduced into the management education. Teaching and training objective the students are educated to work towards obtaining sustainable solutions and cooperation is the third objective that focuses on the dialogue between business schools and other organizations in order to work together on solutions regarding climate change.

The sustainable mindset working group concentrates on social issues but focuses on the individual. It focuses in developing healthy thought and positive attitude directed to the world. The Gender Equality group creates awareness and promotes integration of gender issues into business schools to educate the students in order to combat it. The Sharing Information Program (SIP), the goal of this group is to create a learning culture in the students increasing and improving the quality for a better development. The last active group is the Management Education for the World Joint Project which has merged with the GRLI (Global Responsibility Leadership Initiative) and World Business School Council to create an agenda for the future management education with challenges and more opportunities.

            In my opinion, providing the students’ knowledge and understanding of the meaning of social responsibility will form people aware and committed to the business and industry. This will form a positive impact, and it will contribute to a better business world.  From my point of view, although the PRME groups face challenges, if they work hand in hand with business and management schools and institutions interested in the creation of a better world, the level of future working professionals who will lead our world will be much better. If corruption is combated and the people are more tolerant and help to preserve our natural resources all these efforts will be a gift for new generations.

The Article

The article "Creating Shared Value" by Porter and Kramer

Not too long ago, the word “Business” started to change its meaning due to different social, environmental, and economic problems. Nowadays business is changing the way our society is dealing with everyday problems and it is because business is caught in a vicious circle caused by lower levels of trust within organizations. This is a process that unfortunately affects people outside the organization as well. According to the article, the problem seems to be the different activities performed by businesses. Companies are focusing more on details that are not really contributing towards the development of the company, and therefore customers are being left out and the company do not really satisfy customer’s needs. The article also states that most of the times businesses ignore different influences that could determine their longer-term success and that is the reason why a lot of them fail in the business environment.

According to the article, the principle of shared value seems to be the solution. The goal is to bring business and society back together by creating economic value. The purpose of this is to not only take business to an upper level but also to help society and be able to build a stronger relationship. On the other hand, innovation is also very important because it will create jobs, build wealth, and improve efficiency. Another important topic is the how shared value is created. It mentions that there are three different ways to do it and if we create societal value we can create economic value as well. This article emphasizes the importance of connecting the success of a business with the societal improvement.                                                                                               

Porter and Kramer (2011) make a very strong case for saving capitalism from itself. The economic and social benefits of capitalism are being questioned after the financial meltdown of 2008. In order to recover trust, Business needs to create value for both shareholders and society. Three key ways in which they can do this include reconceive products and services, redefine productivity in the value chain and enable local cluster development.

Seminar 1: Starbucks

Seminar 2: SDGs8

Conclusion    

As a business student in the age of climate change and large social problems, it is necessary to start rethinking the purpose of a business and capitalism as a whole. Moving to a stakeholder approach rather than just a shareholder value approach is one step. Rather than just one bottom line, we need to think of a triple bottom line of economic, social and environmental responsibility. True sustainability for the business and for society will depend on creating shared value for both. In the next unit you will learn about how companies use sustainability reporting to document their commitment to the triple bottom line. In this class you will be asked to pick a company that operates sustainably and conduct case study research on the company. You will be studying the company to see why and how it moved towards sustainability and how it achieves shared value.

Chapter 6 Review

In 1970 companies started publishing social reports. Social Reports inform stakeholders about the companies activities, products, and services. “This new type of report also included new social accounting techniques such as the value-added statement, which presents the added value generated by an organization and how it is appropriated to the contributors of the value; hence a way to show how the value was created and attributed to a larger number of stakeholders(Student’s Guide to Sustainable Management, Molthan-Hill)”. Even though social reporting was increasing in the beginning of the 1970’s, towards the end of the 1970 social reports started to decline. Reasons for the decline ranged from inadequate target market groups, mismatch between the information of interest of most stakeholder and social reports thy were often scientifically designed and remote from the reality of most individuals lives. In the late 1980s environmental reports were published to explain to stakeholders how the organizational activities impacted the natural environment and how the impacts were managed. Environmental reporting replaced a huge portion of early social reporting activities of companies.

In the mid 1990s sustainability reports started gaining more attention. The sustainability reports reflected on companies claim to depict an overall picture of their ecological, social, and economical sustainability activities and performance to inform stakeholders. Over the years sustainability reports have evolved to support companies who are developing reports as well as communicating externally their performances. The global reporting initiative GRI provided the sustainability reporting framework that is accepted generally. Integrated Reporting is another recent initiative that has enhanced reporting for companies. This encompasses a multi-stakeholder approach that brings in the views of investors, civil society organizations, accountants, regulators, businesses and standard-makes. Publishing sustainability reports online is the world’s largest database. Online sustainability reporting extends much further than printed reports includes various forms of interaction.

Personal Comment

In my opinion Online Sustainability Reports will be taking over and there will be no more printed reports. I believe this because of how the world is continuously trying to go paperless. It would be environmentally more friendly to stop printing reports especially due to how technology has evolved. Companies would be more environmentally friendly by having the reports online to be more accessible to the stakeholders. There is also an open range of communication with stakeholders due to how open the dialogue is with online reports. Online reports are better than printed reports due to technology evolving and more companies are using the internet instead of the paper route. The paper route is in the past and online is the new way to go for stakeholders to view the sustainability reports.  

Chapter 7 Review

Traditional economic and financial approaches promoted profit orientation and the maximization of shareholder wealth as the key goals of the firm (Friedman 1970). Therefore, in this perspective, the role of managers should primarily be to look after the interests of shareholders (Fama 1980).

Stakeholder theory moved attention from the mere economic and financial goals of shareholders to the more complex interests of a variety of social stakeholders (Freeman 1984). More recently, the shared values framework invited firms to rebalance their economic and financial interests in order to create wider social and environmental impacts with their stakeholders (Porter and Kramer 2011).

Prahalad and Hart (2002) proposed that an enterprise-based approach to poverty could contribute to the improvement of the lives of millions preserving the traditional economic and financial goals of the firm. This perspective advocates that by specifically targeting poor customers (the so-called ‘base of the pyramid’, or ‘BoP’) with dedicated products and services, firms have the opportunity to achieve important financial results while addressing poverty reduction.

This approach has enormous potential to end poverty in all its forms everywhere (UN Sustainable Development Goal 1). However, without responsible management, this approach presents the risk of re-creating imperialistic dynamics on the poor of the world. Global managers therefore require responsible frameworks to design sustainable business practices with the BoP. On completion of this chapter, students should be able to Understand the values in designing sustainable business with the BoP, Evaluate the wider social and environmental impacts of enterprise-based approaches to poverty eradication, Redesign the strategic approach to the economic, relational and innovative aspects of the business

Ending poverty as a sustainable goal. Source: Adapted and updated from Prahalad and Hart (2002). Own calculations on data from World Bank (2017a).

Figure 1: The world income pyramid (Molthan-Hill 198)

PRME Working Group on Poverty, a Challenge For Management Education. PRME established this Working Group following the First Global Forum for Management Education. Its vision is to integrate poverty-related discussions into all levels of management education worldwide. The Working Group aims to reshape the social environment in which business management operates, by ensuring that dialogue with all stakeholders informs both managerial and educational solutions. The CEEMAN online platform has a collection of best practices and inspirational solutions for integrating discussions on poverty in the curriculum (CEEMAN 2012). (Molthan-Hill 200)

Rethinking sustainable business at the BoP. Rethinking business models at the BoP

Figure 2: Business models at the BoP (Molthan-Hill 203)

Table 1: A summary of the available strategies for business model design at the BoP

	Focus on
Approach	Value proposition	Value capturing	Value network	Value communication
Adaptation	Scaling-down	Miniaturisation	Subsidisation	Supply chains redesign
Redefinition	Decoupling	Non-ownership	Micro Enterprising	Community-based purchasing

(Molthan-Hill 209-210)

Rethinking stakeholder relations

Source: Werhane (2011). Figure 3: A decentralized stakeholder network (Molthan-Hill 212)

Personal Comment

In accounting, the triple bottom line framework proposed that firms should keep separate accounts to record all of their financial, social and environmental costs (Elkington 1997). In doing so, organizations acknowledge that their activities (and implicitly their goals) are not only economic, but also social and environmental (Slaper and Hall 2011). Drawing from marketing and public relations, the corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature invited firms to consider philanthropy as a key aspect of every business (Carroll 1991). Despite much attention in the late 1990s, the CSR movement failed to recognize social activities as more than just ancillary to the main traditional goals of the firm. The shared values approach represented a turning point in organization studies (Porter and Kramer 2011). This explicitly argued that the improvement of society is part of a firm’s nature, suggesting that social and environmental goals should be an integral part of its strategic mission. Firms should orient their management practices outwardly to identify opportunities that create measurable business and social value. They should reconceive products and markets and redefine their value chains to integrate solutions with social impact. Here, collaboration with social actors becomes critical in order to leverage the power of market-based competition in addressing social problems.

Adopting a multidisciplinary approach, stakeholder theory offered a critical contribution to the debate about the goals of the firm (Freeman 1984). As discussed in stakeholder theory proposes an alternative to business strategies that serve only the immediate financial interests of owners (Edwards and Sulkovski 2014). This framework advocates that firms should satisfy not only the interests of shareholders, but also those of other social groups (Jones 1995). Stakeholder theory shifted the attention from economic and financial goals to wider interests in the attainments of the firm, implicitly introducing the idea that the firm has a moral responsibility in pursuing the well-being of interlocutors in business and society as one of its key goals (Freeman et al. 2010).

The UN Global Compact initiative defines social sustainability as one of the cardinal points of corporate sustainability. Firms must identify and manage business impacts on ‘employees, workers in the value chain, customers and local communities’ (United Nations 2017a). This opens up the boundaries of an organization’s goals to include sustainable social goals and to redesign the moral mission of firms. Building sustainable businesses ensures that multinational enterprises (MNEs) can still do well by doing good and balance commercially viable strategies with a responsibility to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This chapter focuses on how firms can make SDG 1 (end poverty in all its forms everywhere) one of their main corporate goals. (Molthan-Hill 195-196)

GrameenPhone

According to this case, we can see how a business that used to be profitable twenty years ago, nowadays is no longer a way out of poverty. The strategy for business model design used in Bangladesh was really simple. A Village Phone Program was run by GrameenPhone, which consisted in lending money to village women, so women can buy a cell phone and airtime from GrameenPhone, and then villagers would pay these ladies for using their phone a couple minutes to talk to family and friends all around the world. This adaptation strategy was certainly very beneficial for both sides because it activates communities and networks through supply chain redesign and especially it was very beneficial for phone ladies because as stated in the article, they were making $800 profit per month. As we can see, this is the expected result that we been talking about in class. In this case GrameenPhone considered that Bangladesh needed some help in order to improve their living standards, and therefore they noticed that by providing specific products and services, it would help people to make some profit and start a type cycle where they buy a cell phone and then they invest their money on land, or other assets. By doing this, phone ladies are generating more job opportunities and helping others to start a business as well.

Even though this business could be a long-term investment, I do believe that the economy of the whole country will increase in terms of better living conditions. By using the strategy of Community-based purchasing, the population as a whole is helping each other to create profit and just to emphasize it, this strategy is about firms creating formal groups that will try to engage others by providing a service or a product. The key is to study the environment and its needs. Then, come up with a product or service that everyone will use, in this case cell phones, but the most important thing is to make that product affordable so investors, in this case, the phone ladies, would be able to take out a loan and easily pay it back. Unfortunately nowadays this business is not as good as before because now there are a lot more phone ladies and the profit earned each month went down to $22.

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)

In this case Decoupling, Scale Down, and Subsidisation are the different strategies used in order to approach BoP markets. The main goal to accomplish in this case, is to make it affordable so families can give their children access to a computer without having to deal with the lack of energy. I believe that by using decoupling, more and more people would like to engage in this new initiative and results will be reflected in the level of education reached. For example; in rural areas of Dominican Republic, Cuba and Puerto Rico, energy goes off at least two times a day and therefore that contributes to the lack of education in those areas. Now the question is, how is this initiative going to be sustainable?

By using Scale Down, each unit will maintain a low cost and through Subsidisation third parties will be involved. The idea of coordinating with donors and governments so each can pay a portion of the laptop’s price is definitely a way of helping those in need because by using this strategy the initiative will accomplish the goal which was to make it affordable to families pay less than half of the price. By implementing these strategies, the economic and social approach of a business will be able to not only create a change in the market but also establish a new method of innovation.

GreenBiz Virtual

 Joel Makower, chairman and executive editor of Greenbiz Group introduced William McDonough, Chief Executive of McDonough Innovation. McDonough started off with the phrase “the creation of perception of scarcity where nothing exist.” He met with the head of an investing bank and asked him what is the secret of wall street. The investment banker said the creation of the perception of scarcity where nothing exist. This mean that wall street exist to get others moving to think we are missing out.

 Our world has pushed its limit with using fossil reserves and there is not much left. Instead of burning more fuel we must maintain what is left. We need to start thinking of our goods as services so we can reuse them and expand. In order to do must it takes more than one way of thinking. We first need to think of the human health. We are the dominate beings on earth and without we cannot make a difference. Second we think of circular economy. This comes second because circular economy is the action part. There are five goods that makes a business sustainable and make it an abundance of sharing. Good material; safe, healthy biological and technical nutrients. Good economy; circular, sharing and shared. Good energy; clean and renewable. Good water; clean and available. Good lives; safe, creative and dignified. If you do this every day whether you’re a business or an innovator you achieve the 17 global sustainable goals. 

 Joel Makower did a session with William McDonough and Katrin Ley, managing director of Fashion for Good. Fashion for Good is a platform for innovation, working to scale and helping innovators that have solutions for problems we have in the supply chain. Their focus is the fashion industry and sharing the details and information of innovation. They share details down to the molecule. They want fashion that's good along the fives goods. The hope to achieve every supply chain goes by the five goods.

 They have made progress by have six corporate partner but they are still trying to make impact from scale. They are aware that making fashion sustainable will be tough, especially when the average American is use to buying from their usual providers. They are figuring out how to manage. They will have to work with the fashion industry to fashion the clothing then they will have to refashion the garments. Somes solutions are making sure the fibers safe, no dying chemicals , 3D printing, and increase the usage of garments. They want to bring more awareness to the consumes and hope to make people more concerned with this type of issue.

            Their mission is to change the world for the better. McDonough simplified sustainable down to the point that a child can understand. Ley understands that it takes more than just recycling, we must constantly do detailed research to be sustainable down to the molecule. I especially like the five goods. With the five goods every person have live in a sustainable environment. As well as, each good is simplified but on point. For example, McDonough mentioned a mill in India. The water leaving the factory is evaporated water that you can drink. It is solar powered. The people are treated with dignity and grace. The  materials have been assessed to the molecule. And there is price satisfaction. It is possible. Hopefully other business can realize being sustainable is the future.

Video Prince of Wales Summary  

In the prince of Wales video, we get a clear picture of the importance of Integrate reporting from Charles Philip Arthur George point of view. Prince Charles emphases on the reasons why organizations should use integrated reporting. According to the prince, integrated reporting benefits organizations and everything that forms the organization such as its employees, the community where the organization operates and the environment where the company operates. (IR) also, promise a positive future for organizations, a perfect example is Walmart and their big investment in solar energy.

As of today, most organizations only comply with integrate reporting, but according to Prince Charles, the whole idea of integrated reporting is to get to a point where all organizations can communicate to each other the impact they are making on natural capital. So, Prince Charles is hoping for (IR) to become a core value for all organizations worldwide.

The U.K. gov. wants to be an example to the world when it comes to (IR) and they just announced a requirement for companies to prepare a strategy report, this report should help companies to create ways to achieve integrated reporting.

Therefore, Prince Charles has a clear picture of what integrated reporting is about and the reasons why all organizations should start practicing integrate reporting to keep an efficient economic and a promising future for new generations.

Personal Comment

The prince of Wales video helped us realize the lack of practicing (IR) in organizations. Videos like this one are important for business students like us because it teaches the students that you can build a successful organization while helping the environment and the society that forms your company. It is important to invest in your employees and your customers; this type of investments would only create value for your organization.

Susanne Stormer Video Summary

In the Novo Nordisk video, we got the foundation of (IR) for this successful company. Susanne Stormer, Sustainability vice-president for Novo Nordisk explains how the company began their first environmental report in 1994 and then added a second report called the social report in 1998. Moreover, in 2003 the two previews reports were combined creating a sustainability report that would show how the company was doing business in a financially environmental and socially responsible way.

Mrs. Stormer also mentioned who was involved in the development of the sustainability report. The management team developed the whole idea of showing everyone how Novo Nordisk was making a positive impact on natural capital and they presented this idea to the board of directors who supported and approved the idea.

One of the barriers Novo Nordisk encountered was to how to present the data since they had such a long history in environmental and social performance and Novo Nordisk being new in this reporting field. So, Novo Nordisk had to pay the price for the lack of experience in the sustainability reporting field. However, nowadays with more than a decade practicing (IR), they are Pioneers in the field and they now give advice to companies on how to start practicing (IR) in their organizations.

This video shows how having diversity of ideas help to create value for the organization. So, everyone’s ideas and opinions matter when it comes to integrated reporting, this includes the employees of the organization, the management team, the board of directors, finally the customer’s opinions and a good way to obtain those opinions is throughout surveys.

Personal Comment

Novo Nordisk is a company that is a good example for organizations that do not have an (IR) yet. The business world has many organizations that are willing work for the environment and the society but don’t know how to take that first step. It is motivating for those companies that do not have an (IR) report yet when they see how successful companies like Novo Nordisk share their experience in how they are making a positive impact environmentally, socially, and financially, so they can take that first step to get involve and learn to then take the final decision to start their own (IR).

Seminar 1: Sustainability reporting principles.

         The goals for Unilever Sustainable Living Plan in 2016 were kept in terms of improving health and wellbeing, improving livelihood, reducing the environmental footprint and increasing positive social impact. Organizations with the Unilever sustainable living plan operate in their business growth in a socially responsible way. The purpose of this plan is to create a long-term value for stakeholders.

The principle stakeholder inclusiveness.

         Organizations should frequently include and inform stakeholders about current company relations. For Unilever, stakeholders are very important to help drive the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan. They work with the government, customers, suppliers, investors, and civil society organizations to create an environmental that is support, give sustainability solutions and different initiatives and channels of communication. The goal is improving the lives of the world’s citizens and show that there is another way to do business with many shareholders therefore focusing on shareholders too. With this plan, the shareholders have been benefited because they have had a return of 200% for what they have input. As proof, the 18 brands who are involved in this plan are doing good business.  They grew 50% faster and had a 60% of total growth. Unilever is being dedicated to improving the quality of life with the provision of hygiene, sanitation, access to clean water, nutrition, and self-esteem. The role of the stakeholders is based in social responsibility.

Unilever report from 2016, kept the stakeholder’s engagement because they see that the progress of this plan is to continue work for a better world. Without the stakeholders, the aims for sustainability cannot be achieved. The outcomes and process are clearly explained by keeping them informed and updated about sustainability initiatives and channels of communication. The report also talks about the consumers expectations and they are the priority because they are who will consume the product. These stakeholders will focus in quality, price and environmental impact.  It is very important because the Unilever profit depends on the sales of these products. For Example, if the consumer is happy with the product and meets the expectations, he/she will buy more the same product from the same brand.  The consumer may also recommend the product to family and friends; at the same time, the company will increase the revenue.

Sustainability context.

The 2016 Unilever report explains very clearly the context of the commitment to the shareholders. The main idea in this path is work as team doing the right things and each day improving.  Working together will help to build a value in the short-term and also to achieve and improve their business goals. The plans for 2016 USLP were to improve public health and well-being, and ultimately, by the end of the year, they had helped 538 million people. In the energy sector, they cut CO2 emission by 43%, water abstraction by 37%, and in waste disposed by 96%.  The goal is continue growing, and by 2020 help more than a billion people to improve their health and well-being to make better livelihoods. The report also shows that continuing hard work in sustainability helps the business grow.  They also inform that in some sectors they have to work harder because they have to educate the consumers about how using their products will reduce the overall environmental impact. In 2010 the water impact had reduction by 7% and consumers waste related with their products had reduction in 28%.

Unilever is operating in different locations, regions, and national levels. The main goal is continuing to develop a better performance in the broader context of sustainability. This goal could require change in policies to make sure that they are driving towards the global impact. For example, they move the certificates for palm oil to physical certified sources.  Use of raw unsustainable materials has improved from 60% to 51% from 2015 to 2016.  The company has become more efficient in using sustainable materials for their products.  This is important in the case of the palm oil industry because the rainforest is heavily impacted.  Sustainable palm oil provides a better use of the rainforest.

Seminar 2:

Comparing external views with a company’s self-presentation on sustainability.

         In my personal opinion, Unilever is an organization that helps the preservation of the environment by enforcing sustainability.  As the company has grown, sustainability efforts have also been gradually improving.  Stakeholders must be taken into account regarding the improvements in environmentally friendly efforts.  In the case of Palm Oil, they have an engagement with suppliers which is very important because they transform the Palm Oil industry to eliminate deforestation.  The have steered away from “GreenPalm certificate” which were not environmentally sustainable.  The palm oil industry is cause major deforestation especially in the Indonesian rainforest. Due to this deforestation, many species like the orangutan are on the verge of extinction.  Therefore, Unilever has since made efforts in using sustainable raw materials from 60% to 51%.  Greater efforts must be made in the future to continue to improve deforestation efforts.  They are making efforts with human rights and land rights.

         A big controversy with Unilever and its stakeholders is the living conditions of the workers in tea estates in India.  The conditions of that these people live and work under are appalling, dangerous and degrading.   People in these areas do not have access to plumbing and proper hygiene.  Shareholders have made Unilever find ways to improve the conditions of these living environments.  In 2016, on World Toilet Day, Unilever provided help to a large slum in Mumbai which has severe difficulties regarding proper hygiene infrastructure.  Proper toilets were implemented, drinking water was made more accessible, and cleaning facilities have been made more affordable.  This is a huge effort considering that the livelihood of individuals is greatly affected by the living conditions that people have been put in.  Efforts have also been made in terms of educating the communities regarding hygiene etiquette.  They are attempting to have helped 1 billion people by 2020. 

         Stakeholders must also make efforts in having fair work places for their employees.  Unilever companies have been noted to have unfair work environments in terms of pay and unsafe work environments.  Unilever is making efforts to expand human rights and fairness into all of their factories and companies by 2020.  Work wages and work environments are in the works of being improved.

         In the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan for 2016, Unilever and stakeholders address these issues very lightly.  This plan provides a very broad view of the situation.  It does not bring to light the bad aspects and controversies that Unilever has faced in the recent years.  Personally, I believe that in order to be more efficient and really convincing the public that they are attempting to improve their sustainability standards they must also elaborate on the wrongfulness that has been committed.

Why sustainability is now the key driver of innovation

According to this article, nowadays more and more companies are trying their best to not cause any damage to the environment and to the people. In fact, companies are now incorporating new methods of doing business. They also are improving the production process in terms of reducing the amount of contamination and the elimination of elements that will affect people and the development of the business. As a result, companies will not only experience financial benefits, but they will also help people outside the organization which is a way to be ahead of the competition and gain more customers. The article states that the more environment-friendly they become, the more the effort will erode their competitiveness. However, in order to deliver green products, new equipment is required and unfortunately customers will not really pay more for it. In other words, customers do not give much importance to the stability of the environment, even though they do want it to be free from any disaster.

Becoming sustainable is seem as a corporate social responsibility, but unfortunately companies will not receive much benefits from it and therefore this leads to argue with legal authorities and customers. Even though there are different perspectives regarding this topic, research shows that “sustainability is a mother lode of organizational and technological innovations that yield both bottom-line and top-line return.” By taking care of the environment, companies are able to meet the goals of corporate innovation, and it mentions that this is a method that soon companies will need to adapt in order to be a strong competitor in the market. It is clear that innovation nowadays is what determines the stability of a company and therefore companies are seeking for ideas that will help them survive in the market. By innovating the different activities that a company must perform in order to get the product or service ready, companies will be emerging at the same pace as technology and other environmental factors are.

Five different stages a company must go through in order to become sustainable. The first one is: Viewing compliance as opportunity, which basically is the process of studying the environment where the business will be operating and analyzing the different laws and regulations so the company will not experience any legal issue due to the lack of knowledge. It also involves the different elements used in production and analyzing positive and negative outcomes before the product or service is delivered to the customers. The next one is making value chains sustainable, which main purpose is to create eco-friendly raw materials and reduce nonrenewable resources. At this point companies learn to work under certain laws and regulations and therefore they start to develop new methods of production. The third stage is about designing sustainable products and services, and basically the reason is because some companies are operating in very demanding environments where consumers start to prefer new products and giving preference to companies with a continuous innovation process. The fourth stage is developing new business models, meaning finding ways on how companies can provide a better service or product and also how a company can develop a type of cycle where everything can be use in order to generate more profit. The last stage is about creating next-practice platforms, which basically talks about how a company can keep innovating by asking themselves questions and making it possible to create. Also it mentions the importance of using different resources that will reduce the possibilities affecting humans and the environment.

Second article: Innovating for a sustainable strategy

This article has some type of relationship with the previous article because it connects the different scenarios and tries to explain why sustainability is becoming key for the development of a company. The importance of satisfying customers’ needs is as important as satisfying employees, investors, suppliers, governments and society’s needs but of course is not as easy as it looks. By increasing shareholder value and improving the firm’s performance, the company will only look “good” and will not necessarily be financially rewarded. It also mentions that companies that do not take into consideration factors regarding environmental, social and governance issues, may experience serious consequences. It gives an example of how Foxconn, Apple’s manufacturer, used to operate in China and how employees used to work under very deplorable conditions and in an environment that was not exactly prepared for those purposes of production. In this case, the company was only working towards their own benefit and they were only focused on making more profit. The reason is because is if they start adapting a new method in order to not cause any damage to people and to the environment, the company will be expected to pay for any additional equipment needed to reduce pollution or any other contamination. Also they will be expected to pay for the improvement of working conditions. After analyzing the different outcomes, companies rather keep working under the same environment instead of paying for things that will improve their performance. Unfortunately for them this is no longer a smart way to operate in the market, now those companies that become sustainable are the ones succeeding and surviving in the market.

In order to create a sustainability strategy, four different initiatives must be developed. The first one is: Identify material ESG issues. By identifying different issues such as emissions, water use, energy use and abusive labor practices, the company is forced to implement a new strategy and establish new ways of doing businesses, always keeping in mind that they must develop something better than the competitors. The next initiative is to quantify the relationship between financial and ESG performance, meaning developing a strategy that will work towards the benefit of the company and towards the benefit of the employees and people outside the organization. The third initiative is to innovate products, processes, and business models because like I mentioned before these are factors that will determine how good or how bad employees customers, investors and suppliers look at the company. And the last initiative is to communicate the company’s innovations to shareholders and always keep track of whatever decisions are being made.

Sustainability Strategy

Out of the four types of competitive environmental strategies Johnson and Johnson sustainability strategy is mainly eco-efficiency. The beyond compliance leadership strategy focuses on differentiating themselves to provide good and services to satisfy consumers needs through a process that reduces global impacts. Johnson and Johnson  thrives to make products and services that meet the high quality needs of consumers. In addition, the company focuses on efforts to improve  environmental, social, governance and economic influence and impact. This includes advancing global public health, reducing carbon emissions, protecting the environment and conserving natural resources.

Johnson & Johnson critical of citizen and sustainability to create a new version of health. They want to seek new ways to make everyone and everywhere healthier. Their 2020 goals focus on people, places and practices. There are many parts to their goals and the beyond compliance leadership strategy includes increasing recyclability of consumer product packaging to more than 90%. Also to conduct a comprehensive water risk assessment at 100% of manufacturing in research and development locations and implement water risk mitigation plans at the high-risk sites. Another goal is to collaborate with governments, nonprofits and the private sector to foster new models of health that improve economic well-being and healthcare in emerging markets, including Brazil, China and India. In addition, they hope to empower their employees to live out healthy lifestyles.

Johnson and Johnson is creating high-quality products that have value as well as making environmental influence. Their process is deafferenting themselves from competitors as an overall healthy company. These strategies are making important measures to maintaining a sustainable company.

Five stages of sustainability

Johnson & Johnson is an American multinational medical devices, pharmaceutical and consumer packaged goods manufacturing company founded in 1886. Its common stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the company is listed among the Fortune 500. The company Johnson & Johnson identify five stages in the organizational path to sustainability, each producing innovations. In Stage 1, companies “view compliance as an opportunity” and comply with the most stringent regulations across all regions. For example Johnson & Johnson is determined to have the healthiest employees in the world. J&J is marching toward a lofty goal to help their employees be at their personal best when it comes to their health and well-being by 2020. “We know that we have one of the healthiest workforces,” Peter Fasolo Ph.D., Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer says. Here’s how: First, he says, the company's health stats—like obesity rates and triglyceride levels consistently beat the national averages from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Case in point: In 2016, 30% of people nationwide had hypertension, compared to just 9.2% of the Johnson & Johnson population. In addition, he says, “our healthcare costs in the U.S. are, on average, two to three percentage points lower than the costs most major corporations deal with on an annual basis.” So how does Johnson & Johnson plan to make its already healthy workforce even healthier? With a mix of no-brainer and ingenious initiatives that are paying off for employees and employer alike. (25, 2. A. (n.d.).

In Stage 2, companies make “value chains sustainable” by working with suppliers and retailers to develop more sustainable practices and products. J&J recognize that their impact and the value they create as a company extend well beyond our own operation. There are many opportunities to maximize the positive impacts and minimize the risks along each stage of J&J’s value chain. J&J utilize the Priority Topics Assessment results to analyze their priorities in context to their value chain. The results of the Priority Topics Assessment informs their reporting, their priority topic management, reputation insights, and analytics and communication activities.

(Priority Topics & Value Chain. (n.d.).

In Stage 3, companies recognize consumer segments which prefer sustainable products and services and begin to design or redesign products for them. Johnson & Johnson has a global, regional and local business presence through more than 230 operating companies in 60 countries. J&J direct business activities have a multiplying effect that ripples through local economies. They implement and evaluate programs that drive social impact in areas influencing the health of communities, including strengthening health systems and improving individual health behaviors and outcomes. Responsibility for community impact and development is held by numerous enterprise, regional, and local J&J teams, particularly Worldwide Government Affairs & Policy (GA&P) and Global Community Impact, as well as Global Public Health. For a company that draws one-quarter of its global revenue from products introduced within the past five years, innovation is key. Collectively, these products represent 59 improvements in material selection, 55 in packaging materials and 39 in energy usage and more than $8 billion in revenue. Worldwide Government Affairs and Global Health Policy have commissioned and led more than a dozen econometric studies estimating the economic and social impacts of Johnson & Johnson in select markets to equip the Company for smarter engagement on local health and health policy issues.

In Stage 4, firms “develop new business models” by rethinking both process and product. A new business model is when companies meet customer needs by creating both new products and new processes. Johnson & Johnson business model innovation leads to calculate risk and success. J&J finds new ways to connect with their consumers by considering what needs are meant to be met. When they entered into South Korea with the new EYE DEFINE STUDIO by ACUVUE® J&J found themselves in a situation where their ability to reach people had stalled in South Korea. Then, J&J asked themselves “Could Business Model Innovation (BMI) help to stimulate growth?” (04, 2. M. (n.d.). So J&J set out to create the perfect test pilot for. They got to know their consumer in ways they never have before. They asked people what they want and built something just for them. J&J envisioned a pop-up store within a beauty store in a shopping district in Seoul, South Korea. In listening to locals J&J quickly understood it wasn't just about selling the benefits of enhancement contact lenses but about helping people overcome preconceived notions and expectations of contact lense stores.

In Stage 5, companies must “create next-practice platforms” by questioning the assumptions underlying their current business practices. Johnson & Johnson debuts its new Center for Device Innovation at Texas Medical Center (CDI @ TMC). It's a state of the art innovation hub equipped with cutting edge amenities controlled by a surgeon and medical device entrepreneur who has dozens of patents to his name. CDI @ TMC is in collaboration amon Johnson & Jonson Medical Devices Companies, Johnson & Johnson Innovation and Houston’s Texas Medical Center, and is the world's largest medical complex. This medical complex will develop breakthroughs in medicine designed to make surgery minimally invasive as possible, as well as bringing the most cutting edge medical technology in the world today. Their shared goal: develop breakthrough medical devices designed to make surgery less invasive, as well as innovate ways to bring cutting edge procedures to underserved populations around the globe. (08, 2. K. (n.d.). This plan is just one of many that J&J has invested in for the advancement of global medicine.  

Johnson & Johnson’s Approach on ESG Issues Using a Materiality Map

In the article The Performance Frontier they explain how materiality is determined. “The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) has identified five broad  categories of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues that can affect a firm’s financial performance and therefore be highly material to investors (Eccles and Serafeim, 2013). From one industry to the next, the materiality of any issue varies. That is why the SASB takes the different types of stakeholders and evidence of economic impact based on any evidence. “Companies can use a similar approach to find out which ESG issues are most material to their investors if SASB assessments for their industry are not yet available (Eccles and Serafeim, 2013)”.

 Johnson and Johnson is a medical equipment pharmaceutical industry. There is a materiality map for the medical equipment and pharmaceutical industry. Based upon the SASB Materiality map for both the pharmaceutical and medical equipment industry. Analyzing the SASB materiality map we discovered that for the ESG issues both the pharmaceutical and medical equipment industry had similar ways of addressing the ESG issues. Based on the SASB Materiality Map solutions for the environmental issues consist of energy management, wastewater management, waste and hazardous management. Energy Management is a solution that includes planning of energy production and energy consumption. Next,  wastewater management is a solution includes finding an efficient way to convert wastewater back into the water cycle with minimal impact on the environment. Finally,  waste and hazardous materials management is a solution that includes managing as well as preventing any items or agents that are deemed harmful to either humans, animals, or the environment. These are the solutions on the Materiality Map that most pharmaceutical and medical equipment industries use to resolve environmental issues.

Johnson and Johnson approaches environmental issues by joining the White House American Business Act on Climate Pledge. This pledge aspires to reduce absolute carbon emission 20% by 2020 and 80% by 2050. The pledge also would like to produce 20% of electricity from clean/renewable sources by 2020. Due to Johnson and Johnson being a global business they also try to lower their environmental footprint through innovative approaches. Johnson and Johnson also manages their energy through a formal energy management program that started 30 years ago. Johnson and Johnson are continuously working to improve the environment around the globe. The next issue that is apart of the ESG are the social issues.

 Based on the SASB Materiality Map solutions for the social issues consist of human rights, community relations, and customer welfare. Human rights are a right that is believed to belong to every person no matter what. Johnson & Johnson approaches human rights by ensuring that there are human rights opportunities in the workplace, clinical research ethics, and improving access to health care. Johnson & Johnson have a commitment to respecting human rights which is located in the Universal Declaration of Human rights. Johnson and Johnson also follows the principles, guidelines, and policies that exemplify human rights for employees. Johnson and Johnson provide employees with the freedom to create a formal employee organization that will represent through the enterprise. Johnson and Johnson value the basic rights of everyone involved in their company.

 Corporate Governance is the final issue that is a part of the ESG. Based on the SASB Materiality Map, solutions include business ethics, supply chain management, and transparency of payments. Johnson and Johnson approaches Corporate Governance through their board of directors, which are their highest governance body. The board of directors consist of a diverse group of people that are elected by shareholders annually. Shareholders, employees, and others have the ability to contact the board or any directors by writing them c/o Johnson & Johnson.  

Based on the SASB, the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues that the medical equipment as well as the pharmaceutical industry are displayed with ways to handle the issues. Johnson and Johnson is a pharmaceutical/ medical equipment industry that have their own way of handling them. The company Johnson and Johnson have the Climate pledge which is an act with the white house that reduces absolute carbon in the future. The company also values human rights for their employees by allowing them to establish an organization. The company also has ethical practices they follow through their board of directors. Johnson and Johnson is a company that cares about the ESG issues and are handling them accordingly.

Introduction

Johnson & Johnson is part of the few ten percent companies who are considered walkers when it comes to those companies committed to doing sustainable practices. Johnson & Johnson success in the business world is the origin of creating an outstanding high-quality product and continue to innovate in their products to such a point of creating a product value for all their customers. On top of the excellent products Johnson & Johnson have available in the market, they are now investing in what is the present and future of our planet, the world citizens, and their own company.

Johnson & Johnson is a company that called our group attention and need to continue to investigate in their company to find out about how they are really helping the environment, society, and their financials. Therefore, our group would be conducting a single case study on Johnson & Johnson to analyze and comprehend their sustainable strategy. In order to obtain the data, we need to then convert it into information to better understand Johnson & Johnson sustainable strategy our group would analyze their sustainability report, company articles, and social media which could be nowadays the more effective source of advisement in the whole world.

Literature Review:

Johnson & Johnson targets supply chain for health care sustainability (article)

According to Clark, A. Al Iannuzzi senior director of environment, health, safety & sustainability for Johnson & Johnson, though in the necessity for Johnson & Johnson to be a more sustainable responsible company and the supply chain was key in the improvement of Johnson & Johnson’ environmental, social and economic progress for the present and future.

The article also mentioned that a good example of Johnson & Johnson improvement in sustainability is the impact in areas of waste, energy, water, materials, packaging, social impact, and innovation. These also show that when a company becomes sustainable it would also become more innovate with their products and services to a point where their customers would have the need to obtain sustainable products, and this can be an excellent business opportunity to increase profits while helping the environment and creating a product value for all their customers.

Climate Change (article)

            This article concentrates in the effects of climate change in our planet. Greenhouse gases continue to spread, since CO2 can’t be absorbed due to deforestation. So, all the heat would contribute with global warming. Some of the consequences of global warming is raised of ocean levels this is happening because the glaciers are melting, this also affects the habit of some animals such as the polar bear.

Johnson & Johnson is a company that cares about the environment and the planet, that’s why they are now investing in obtaining renewable energy. This type of investments is huge but in the long run it would help to increase revenue thanks to the reduction in the cost of manufacturing their products.

Creating Shared Value (article)

This article explains how business because so interested only in the well of their organizations and kind of forget about the importance of satisfying the value needs of their customers. It is important for organizations to do things for the benefits of the society such as caring about the society having a healthier lifestyle. Johnson and Johnson create value for their customers and a good example is the fact of donating medicine to improve children health. So, investing in your customers and your employees is a good way to create share value and a great way to bring businesses and customers back together.

Social Media

Social media’s play a key role nowadays in the success of organizations. According to the Statistics Portal up 2.46 billion people used social media in 2017 and just in the U.S. 81% of the population uses social media. Those numbers are in fact the demonstrates that people are always getting information of what is going on around the world, it is a tool that can show who is helping the environment and the society and who is not.

The main two social media use by Johnson & Johnson are Facebook, Twitter. In these two platforms, Johnson & Johnson post what they are doing to be a social and environmental caring company. A good example posts about how Johnson & Johnson is empowering children through education.

Johnson & Johnson also used social media to receive feedback from their followers. Feedback can help improve in their present and future to continue improving the lifestyle of the world population. When a person in this situation a follower obtain information about how this company is trying to help the environment and society, the person would obtain a good feeling about the company and would gain a product value and would finally feel good about buying Johnson & Johnson products.

Research Method

Our group decided to do a case study method to conduct the research on Johnson & Johnson.  We would gather information regarding Johnson & Johnson’s involvement in sustainability by researching on company articles within the last two years, as well as; social media posts, watchdog organizations and the (GRI) and (IR).

Going over (IR) allowed us to understand how Johnson and Johnson are helping protect the environment and society, but on top of that, it gave us a step further in comprehending what is the actual impact of having a sustainable company when it comes to finances.

We have decided to analyze all qualitative data obtained regarding Johnson & Johnson is a sustainable responsible company. The reason we chose this type of data is that we get to understand how Johnson & Johnson sustainable practices are positively impacting in people’s lives, especially those that don’t have the resources to have a decent lifestyle. A good example that shows how the good practices of Johnson & Johnson are impacting society is the more than one billion donations of Vermox doses to treat over one hundred million children annually at risk for intestinal worms and helped decrease the infections by twenty-six million.

Those type of actions from Johnson & Johnson are the ones that motivated our group to look closely at the qualitative data in terms of helping society with real actions instead of just promises.

Conclusion

Overall, our research on Johnson & Johnson sustainability practices has convinced us that this company is investing in their customers. This research also showed us that this long-term investment brings its benefits later for the company and it would help to cut the cost of manufacturing the company products. In addition, we could technically see how Johnson & Johnson cares about protecting the planet, and they want to help society to have a decent lifestyle, where they can have access to the basic needs that any human being has the right to have access such as a healthier life, and a healthier environment for this generations and the ones to come.

How Six Americans Changed Their Minds About Global Warming

            Many people do not believe that the climate change is a reality. Some people think that climate change is caused by natural process and not by human factor. In fact, climate changes are actually mainly provoked by humans.  Today a high percentage of Americans are being educated about dangers of the climate change.  More and more people are coming to accept the reality of climate change.  Some countries in the world are working hard with regards to this issue; although, some world leaders continue think that it is myth, for example, Rev. Richard Cizik.

            Climate change is not a thing of today; it a consequence that has been provoked for many years.  Previously, when someone spoke out about climate change he/she was labeled an insane person.  People in power, such as a politicians and religious figures, never pay attention to these allegations and proceeded to ignore the facts.  These people are the minority because today many countries in the world are working on improving the climate change challenge. Now that natural disasters are causing damage to the ecosystem and flooding has devastated communities, people are becoming more aware of this issue.  Ms. Rukavina who was a nonbeliever of climate change is a clear example that the people need to be educated regarding Global Warming.

            Humans do not reflect on climate change until they affected by it.  Every day there are more people affected in the world.  People who work in coal mines know that this job deteriorates the environment, and due to mining, the territories where cattle were cultivated and raised have been deforested for the coal mine practice.  Mr. Sturgill who had suffered the impact of this practice, now understands the importance of preservation of the environment and the effects of the climate change.  Many people are gradually having eye opening experiences.

            Changes in temperature of the planet have affected the lifestyle of people in many ways with people in poverty and children being the most affected. These people live in areas more exposed to the effects of the climate change because these areas are more prone to floods and many of them are from countries where this phenomenon has devastated many people.  If the people are educated and act now about this issue, the new generations will enjoy a better life because the most disadvantaged people are the ones that are most affected.

            One of the forms to educate people is by explaining to them the importance of the recycling and the benefits it has for the environment and ecology. The huge quantity of garbage deposited in landfills is one major cause of environmental pollution. If people are taught to recycle, the environmental changes will be drastic.  By recycling we increase the amount of still usable raw material, and the processes to create products, transport, extraction, manufacturer, energetic expense will be decreased by taking advantage of recycled resources.

            Many are people indifferent or do not believe in the Global Warming.  Many of them do not accept that we are in a global epidemic and that every day, risks are greater and greater.  There are different concepts about this issue, some people believe that the climate change is something normal, and they assume that it is simply a way for companies to profit. Other groups of people try to minimize the problem, and they don’t care about it because they leave the responsibility to officials that are working on the matter. But the worst is that there is group of people that is indifferent to this problem that should concern us all. This group of people is the one that causes the most damage because they have no intention of cooperating to help solve the problem.

Global warming is very evident and countries around the world are working harder each day.  These countries work for eradication of the poverty and the welfare of the people, but the climate changes are affecting this effort. The political leaders should contemplate a budget to fight for the conservation of the environment.  If these leaders invest more time and money in campaigns for the preservation of the environment, world citizens will be educated and will become more aware of this phenomenon that affects us all.

Business Case Study 1: Interface Flor

The methods of business that take, make, and dispose are not contributing the making the world a more sustainable place. They are producing more landfill that sits and pollutes the earth. Other business are heading in a new direction in the supply chair they are creating a circular economy. A circular economy is the process of remaking, reusing of materials to hopefully eliminate waste all together. Interface Flor, a carpeting manufacturer, focuses on circular economy to create shared value. In their process the cut out waste all together. They did that by reusing the excess material cut off from the carpets. The three stage process of recreating the new material to be used again. Interface Flor is able to close the loop entirely. In addition, the use of recycle products such as limestone into their products. Also they cut 60% of the energy used with their intelligent converter by only conveying their carpets when the tiles need to be transported. As well as, consumers of Interface Flor can rent their carpets and return them after. Then the company will repair and maintain it and reprocess it. This method helps make more of a profit and cuts waste.

Interface Flor’s goal is to be 100% sustainable by 2020. They already have been using green methods since 1998. Their goal is for all their materials used into producing the carpets will be 100% recycled and renewable.

Interface Flor became who are they because they reshaped their processors, thinking, and the whole business to become sustainable. The use the sustainable product design principles of renewable and local materials, modular design, and energy saving. They were successful in closing the loop of producing  waste. The reuse their own carpets and use other local recycled materials. They use rented carpet and repair it so it can be used again. They save energy by only conveying carpets that are ready to be shipped.

In my opinion Interface Flor set a high bar for other companies by being able to completely cut out waste. Other companies should consider rethinking and reshaping the way they do business to have more outcomes like Interface Flor.

Business Case Study 2: Nike

Nike is a high performance shoe and apparel company. Nike realize sustainability products are the future and with that they chose to change the way the product their merchandise. In the case study the focus was on how Nike produces their popular line of trainers. They believe in performance over sustainability; which means they would rather have a high performance products than just an environmental one. They wanted to make a shoe with less toxins, less waste, environmentally friendly, and sustainable product innovation. They took these designs and imputed them into their best selling products. For instance hey try to use as much material as possible so there is minimal waste of the material. In order to get the full life cycle of a shoe Nike set up a recycling program to reuse and the different materials can be used for other sports purposes. In addition Nike also makes their apparel out of plastic. This methods helps minimize the amount of plastic that ends up in a landfill.

Nike considers the choices and the impacts of those choices. They take the extra time to make sure their ethos of their product line takes an extra looks to being sustainable. They set the bar high to reach their goals and once they do they set the bar again.

Nike’s competitive capabilities focus on the quality of their product. They prioritize what goes into their shoes and apparel to make it sustainable. They considered factors is to be high performance and sustainable so their solutions was to recreate the the materials that go into their products to have a high performance and environmentally friendly outcome. Nike’s recycling shoe program considers what consumers can do after they are tired of their shoes. In the programs the shoes are chopped up and used for other sports purposes. They helps reduce the amount of shoes that get tossed in the trash and seat in landfills. The use plastic materials to recreate into apparel which have an outcome of reduces the amount of plastic in landfills.

In my opinion Nike has some of the best quality products in the sports apparel industry. Their methods of innovation is going to make an impact on our culture of progressing in the way we value, use and reuse our shoes.

Chapter 12 Summary

As we all know profit is the main priority of the majority of organizations around the world.  We don’t blame them because we are coming from some generations that raised seen how companies just try to make tons of money with their products and services. However, our minds are finally understanding the consequences of obtaining those big profits. Nowadays, we can see the effects in the planet and society of those big companies that manufacture their product thinking just about the money they would be making and never considering the causes in our planet of the way they manufacture their products. Climate change is a good example of improper operation management. However, there is also the opportunity for all organizations to start making a positive impact to the planet’s environment and a perfect way is to practice a sustainable operational management, which is what this chapter is about.

If a company wants to have a sustainable operational management, they need to change the way they see their five performance objectives. According to the chapter those five performances are: cost, quality, speed, dependability, and flexibility All companies always think about how much would cost to manufacture their products instead of placing cost at the end and instead think about how they can manufacture their products in a way that can’t reduce the negative impact to the environment. Most of those organizations that do not follow a sustainable operational management are blind about what benefits can bring to their company if they become sustainable. A good example is Johnson & Johnson, “they completed more than 60 energy reduction projections, which represented $187 million in capital investments, and it fully expects to reduce its annual CO 2 emissions by 129,000 tonnes and at the same time provide an internal rate of return of almost 19%” (Cheeseman 2012). This type of changes in their operations has created an excellent image for this company because it shows that they care about the environment and those type of actions incentives individuals to buy their products. In addition, J&J reduce their cost in manufacturing their products thanks to the way they are obtaining the energy they need to manufacture their products.

There are Three different approaches to improve the performing objectives mentioned before.

The first approach is called Trade-Off and during this approach, a company continues to work with the same resources they have but the management team might change some policies to satisfy their consumer need. Like the example provided in the book where they explain how analyzing how a pesticide can kill birds which are part of the environment. So, looking for new ways would help to improve a company in being sustainable.

The second approach is called Technology. This approach is about to continue to innovate with new technology that can help reduce the negative impact in the environment of companies manufacturing their products. Like for example the solar panels that allow organizations to use natural energy obtained from the sun.

The third approach is called Systems. In this approach, organizations should consider how can their products be recycled once they complete the full use of the product. extending the product durance could also be a good way to prevent the manufacturing of more of the products since they will last longer. however, this type of practices is not well welcome for companies because longer life in products means less purchasing from their customers, so it could get tricky. Of course, it all depends on the personal point of view.

The chapter also talks about Green and Lean Manufacturing. In this practice, operation managers try their best to only order the right amount of materials they need for their operations. The whole idea of Green and Lean Manufacturing is to manufacture only the right number of products that are needing to satisfy the demand. Following this idea would help reduce the number of raw materials been transported from one place to another, it is important to highlight that with all types of transportation collaborate with the rise of greenhouse gases to the environment. The application of lean and green practices would guide to organizations being more environmentally responsible.

Life-Cycle Assessment is the stage all operational managers analyze the whole process of manufacturing a product to find out how much water and other raw material have to be used from the very first creation of the product till its final disposal stage.

Sustainable Product Design is a method where organizations think very deeply about how the can design a product that can be sustainable. It could be the product being sustainable like for example a hat made out of recycling material or a brand-new product that can be then recycle and use in a different way. This could be a very effective way to attract all of those consumers that love trying innovation.

Therefore, our personal opinion about this chapter which we believe could be one of the most important chapters in the book because of the fact that it helped us realized that reducing the cost of manufacturing a product doesn’t always mean obtaining a bigger profit. There are other aspects to take in consideration than just the profit, thinking about how we are manufacturing the products and how is affecting the environment is a very important one that comes with other benefits such as cost reduction, products innovations, and new consumers which means more sales and probably bigger profits while helping the environment. So, having a sustainable operational management is a most that would help organizations to earn respect and money.

 Chapter 13 Summary

The Concept Of Supply Chain Management        

In chapter 13 of the Business Student’s Guide to Sustainable Management readers begin to understand the concept of supply chain management. “The management of upstream and downstream relationships with suppliers and customers to deliver superior customer value at less cost to the supply chain as a whole (Christopher 2011: 3). Upstream to downstream show the flow that materials go starting from the source and ending at the point of distribution. Outsourcing has grown rapidly in supply chain management because organizations commission a third-party supplier to execute activities such as offshoring and global sourcing. Consumerism keeps increasing which makes supply chain activity have a greater impact on social, environmental and economic sustainability issues.

Social Sustainability In The Supply Chain

            Social Aspects of supply chain management question how the working conditions of supplier factories in developing countries. As global supply chains started increasing fears increased as well. In Europe and North America opportunities for a well regulated job with high level security waThe media starting exposing child labour, forced labour, poverty wages, excessive overtime and general exploitation of workers in the supply chains of some famous brands.

Modern Slavery In The Supply Chain

            The exploitation of a person who is deprived of individual liberty anywhere along the supply chain defines modern slavery. Examples of modern day slavery includes child trafficking, child labour, debt bondage, and forced labour.  Since 2015 under the Modern Slavery act organizations must produce an annual statement of the steps they’ve taken during the financial year. This secures that in the company’s own operations or supply chains there is no slavery or human trafficking taking place.

Environmentally Sustainable Supply Chain Management

            Green supply chain management is an environmental thinking strategy that practices saving energy, reducing carbon emissions, service delivery, and logistics by using alternative energy sources. “There is a lack of consensus regarding the key drivers to instituting a sustainable supply chain whether legislative, commercial or environmental (Ginsberg and Bloom 2004)”. Achieving a sustainable supply chain initiative is implemented in two ways that are imposed by suppliers, legislation, or code of conducts

Reverse Supply Chain

            “The reverse supply chain is a growing phenomenon in sustainable supply, as legislation, cost pressure and shortage of materials that make it more viable for all kinds of recycled items to find their way back into the supply chain - sometimes as completely different products - in a phenomenon known as cradle to cradle design (Lovins 2008)”. The reverse supply chain includes packaging materials for reuse, reclaiming fuel, water, or waste to be recycled. The design for reverse supply chain entails that it is just like any other supply chain and it exposes a trade off between environmental and social benefits.

Supply Chain Traceability and Transparency

            Traceability is “The ability to identify and trace the history, distribution, location and application of products, parts and materials to ensure the reliability of sustainability claims (Molthan-Hill, Petra 2017)”. Data systems are an approach for traceability that enable businesses to maintain knowledge of the supply chain steps. “Transparency in the supply chain involves making details about the provenance of products and materials available to customers and stakeholders, and is enabled by tracking technologies and the internet (Molthan-Hill, Petra 2017)”. To protect businesses against substitution and counterfeiting analyst predict that businesses who reveal product origins will build trust and reputation that will protect the business. A concern in supply chain management is corruption. Corruption comes in forms of financial incentives, gifts to buyers that influence selection decisions, personal relationships, incentivising buyers, officials, and etc. When companies address corruption they are developing a sustainable business environment. Experts advocate for transparency, greater simplicity as well as re-education for suppliers and employees on the codes of conduct.

Below is Table 1 of that links ten principles to aspects of sustainable supply chain management.

Table 1

Principles of the Global Compact		Supply chain response
Human rights
Principle 1	Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights	Adopt effective supplier selection policies Ensure even distribution of value-adding activity and reward throughout the supply chain
Principle 2	Make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses	Establish supplier codes of conduct and monitoring beyond tier 1 suppliers Implement supplier development programmes
Labour
Principle 3	Businesses should uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining	Incorporate freedom of association into supplier selection criteria and code of conduct
Principle 4	The elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour	Adhere to the Modern Slavery Act in the UK and voluntary codes elsewhere
Principle 5	The effective abolition of child labour	Implement monitoring beyond tier 1 suppliers
Principle 6	The elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation	Incorporate equal opportunities into supplier selection criteria and code of conduct
Environment
Principle 7	Businesses should support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges	Map all stages of the supply chain and identify areas of highest risk or impact Work with suppliers and customers to address high-risk areas
Principle 8	Undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility	Adopt recognised traceability standards for materials and upstream processes Manage waste, resource utilisation and emissions
Principle 9	Encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies	Collaborate with suppliers to invest in, develop and adopt new processes and technologies
Anti-corruption
Principle 10	Businesses should work against corruption in all its forms, including extortion and bribery	Ensure that procurement processes are fair and transparent Establish codes of conduct and educate suppliers and staff to implement high standards Simplify supply chains to aid traceability

Life Cycle Assessments

Johnson and Johnson uses the Earthwards process to ensure that products will have a positive impact on consumers, the planet, and the bottom line. It addresses environmental, social, and governance matters and focuses primarily on evaluating the product and making it environmentally friendly. The product that has been recognized by this process is the Neutrogena Naturals – Purifying Facial Cleanser which successfully achieved improvement in three of the seven categories. These categories were made by Johnson and Johnson in order to achieve their goal which is to reduce environmental impact. The seven categories are: Materials, Packaging, Energy, Wastewater, Social, and Innovation. As mentioned before, this product improved in three categories; Materials, Packaging, and Social and that is enough to successfully emerge from the Edwards process. After conducting a Life Cycle Assessment, Johnson and Johnson believed these three categories needed to be addressed first due to the fact that this product had an impact on climate change and cancer causing therefore a new method of production needed to be adopted. Many chemical elements such as Allantoin, and Triethanolamine were being used in excess and that was causing skin cancer. Also it was proved that the water they used was not healthy.

Now the product is made mostly of natural components, the container can be used again, and now they purify the water before using it.

Materials: Natural ingredients derived from plants are used in order to make this product. 94% natural is the average of the line.

Packaging: It contains 30% post-consumer recycled content.

Social: It promotes clean water projects.

It is important to emphasize that the Earthwards process has four steps; Satisfy prerequisites, Life cycle screening, Identify potential improvement, and Review. The product, in this case the Neutrogena Naturals is expected to score a high grade on each of these steps in order to be considered as a product that is designed to protect the environment, and the people. In this process the product is basically studied and the company find ways to reduce any negative factors such as water waste, energy waste, toxic material and others.

In their main website, Johnson and Johnson states that they are a company that recognizes that each of their products has a footprint, whether it is the energy used to operate a medical device or the materials required to package a consumer product. However, the earth, the place where they get all the resources to produce or to deliver a product, will not keep up with the demand in twenty years from now. Our planet will suffer serious consequences and the environment where we live will be totally contaminated.

Their solution to this problem was to develop a new strategy that will help them eliminate waste and use resources more efficiently. As previously mentioned, they came up with the Earthwards process, which is a team of experts that analyzes every product and find ways to make it environmentally-friendly. In regards to this question; yes, they have used sustainable product design principles for a lot of their products. Their more recent products that received recognition from the Earthwards process are: The Clean and Clear – Acne Triple Clear, and the Intelence – Etravirine Tablets. For each of these products they created green chemistry ingredients and they actually were the first ones to use metal free pump. They reduced 74.8% in solvent material, and 74.8% reduction in waste from manufacturing. In the packaging process, they reduced 31% of energy waste. It is also important to point out how other products such as medical devices products reduced 77% water used for sterilization and disinfestation. As you can see, Johnson and Johnson is definitely working towards the benefit of the earth and the people. Their goal is to find different methods of production for every product and eliminate anything that is affecting the planet.

Lean Systems

Johnson and Johnson use the lean systems approach. The lean systems approach is minimizing waste to reduce cost, just-in-time production, continuous improvement, and value stream. They make efforts to close the martial loop to have a circular economy. They are rethinking the way to crate value to their customers. By innovating and pursuing opportunities Johnson and and Johnson are accelerating in the way they do business. For instance, Project Phoenix is a program to help recycling cooperative in emerging markets improve their operational processes, develop a stronger social infrastructure and create a sustainable market for their materials, which Johnson and Johnson purchases. (Cite) With this program the company hopes to generate value from waste. Another program, Care to Recycle, shares ways of encouragement to recycle. It gives helpful link that direct people where and what to recycle. The Closed Loop Fund  invest in improving recycling infrastructure and increasing the recycling of products and packing in the U.S. The Health Plastics Recycling Council encourages the health care community to dispose their used products in a viable, safe, and cost-effective recycling solution. With this program the goal is to reduce the amount of plastic products and packaging used in the healthcare community. The Sterilmed is a medical device manufacturer that reprocessed medical devices to become new and reprocessed. The medical device will go through the SUD reprocessing cycle to be cleaned, refurbished, tested, and shipped as a new sterile, high quality product. By doing this the company cuts cost, reduces the amount of medical devices in a landfill, and reduces the operating waste disposal cost by 70%.

The term “sustainable business” is associated with various corporate resources that includes issues that impacts the company’s environment, help to program employees to  live a better and a healthier life, customer safety programs, community development programs and various fair trade practices (Borkowski, Welsh, & Wentzel, n.d.).

Sustainable Supply Chain Practices

Johnson and Johnson sustainable supply chain practices focuses on customers. Customers play a major role helping patients and consumers around the world to live a healthier and happier lives. J&J main priority is to meet customers’ needs and demands. They work with other external parties like hospitals, pharmacies, retailers, wholesalers and distributors to reach as many people around the world. They aim to create high quality products and are available at any point of the time for their customers. Johnson & Johnson are all set to achieve their 2020 Citizenship & Sustainability goals  that will create a positive shift for the company. The company is aspiring to change the way they look at key citizenship and sustainability issues and focusing more on material impacts,  such as targeting additional reductions or improving year by year. These goals are measure specifically to reflect Johnson & Johnson’s long term planning to make people everywhere across the global healthier. The company has focused on identifying three main factors: People, Places and Practices 10 The three priorities are identified as three pillars: These three pillars are a significant component in creating value through innovation, promoting global reach, being excellent in execution and reaching purpose. Mainly, the company views citizenship and sustainability as a basic component to helping billions of people worldwide.

Local sourcing

Create health care access to three emerging countries (China, Brazil, India) and demonstrate improvements           in health services, economic,       productivity. The first pillar “People”, targets individual’s health and  safety. Johnson and Johnson has been operating for over decades now and have created massive customer loyalty, and it’s just right that they give back to the people who are affected in different misfortunate circumstances. They are trying to make           sure people are living a healthy and a sustainable life. This shows that Johnson & Johnson are aware of the problems and circumstances of the world. People in the less developed countries are getting affected everyday with different sickness, poverty and climate issues, it is nice that corporations like Johnson and Johnson are actually investing billions on making these circumstances better. This is  the perfect example of a proper “CSR” company. However,    the only concern with this section      (“People”) is that customers are not aware of these that the company is providing to the people. The more customers they reach, the better responds, help and even reputation will be achieved by Johnson and Johnson. This is more about focusing within the company to eliminate different problems such products and ingredients, environmental issues and many others. They believe that, first change should come from within the company than this will affect the other surroundings of the company. However, being a huge multinational company they      should be aware with other factors such as waste that they should tackle in order to be more sustainable.           

Reverse Logistics

Any logistics involved after the point of sale to recapture value and ensure proper disposal of returned product, is called reverse logistics. This aftermarket activity involves activities like refurbishment, replacement, remanufacturing, scrap and even excess inventory, recycling programs, hazardous programs, proper equipment disposition and asset recovery. Many firms now take the material back through supply chains as an important capability in logistics. Strategic weapons places emphasis on business functions such as finance, marketing but also logistics. Johnson & Johnson unfortunately has a instance in 1982 and 1986. In 1982 J&J Tylenol poisoning case was a example of how important reverse logistics can be. Tylenol was laced with cyanide and seven people died. The market value fell by one billion USD during that time. The same case happened again in 1986 but J&J was ready with efficient reverse logistics system. J&J recalled the product from every possible store and not just the places where it had been traced back too. J&J then came up with a tamper proof packaging and was able to establish its brand. Not every company focuses on their returns policy, but the investment in reverse logistic system is higher than before and quite substantial making a company stand out and become more profitable.

Ethical Labor Policies

The final pillar            of Johnson and Johnson’s sustainability strategy is “Practices”, this section of the strategy mainly emphasizes on different ethical measures that happens within the    company. This may include customer relationship, compliance, procurement      and supplier management, risk management and   many others. Just like the previous pillar, this pillar also focuses on         the internal aspect of the company. However, Johnson and Johnson should pay more      attention on their subsidiary companies producing their products. Johnson & Johnson has been doing business in many countries across the world. In every single location, their employees are responsible to know the rules and regulations that applies to their business. One of their many employment requirement is to be a responsible corporate citizen and demonstrates care and respect to their colleagues and to whomever they do business with, Not being able to follow this, results in civil criminal penalties and fines, imprisonment and other commercial actions will be directed towards the employee.

    Why is It So Hard for Democracy to Deal with Inequality?

            The Democracy and Inequality are issues that for many years have been in debate around the world. It has always been believed that democracy contributes to economic growth and the eradication of poverty and inequality. During the last few years, the democracy is a process of many changes were the political parties are giving importance to inequality but unfortunately, they have not reached any agreement to address this social problem. The left parties believe that they represent the working and lower middle classes and the right parties assume the they represent them, but in reality, these are more political interests for the time of their campaigns to win votes and achieve their goals.

            This article underlines greatly the differences in the left and right parties of the world.  Originally, these parties were identified very specifically by the socioeconomic structure of the participants of these parties.  Originally, the right republican party in the United States was identified as high-class, wealthy elite.  This has not changed much as times have progressed.  However, the left democratic party was originally identified as voters with minimal education and low incomes.  The article reports that slowly, gradually the democratic party has become a party of higher educated voters -college degrees and more.  This gives rise to a party that is considered more elite.  Thomas Piketty, a French economist, he has deemed the republican and democratic parties the “Merchant Right and Brahmin Left”.  The Brahmin Left is explained as the intellectual elite; an elite that has gained their high status through education and knowledge.  The Merchant Right is described as a society of high income and high-status people. Although Pickett dubbed the democratic party an intellectual elite, the party does still include participated and voters of the working class. Exit polls show this change.  For example, in 1996 59% of democratic voters were not college educated.  In 2016, 54.3% of Hillary Clinton’s voters were college graduates.  There is a gradual trend towards higher educated people in the democratic party.

            With such progression noted in the democratic party, it can be assumed that inequality in society can be permanently expelled.  Adam Bonica’s economic theory states that “inequality should be at least partially self-correcting in a democracy as increased inequality leads the median voter to demand more redistribution”.  However, it has been noted that this is not so simple.  This mechanism has failed to work.  Theorist have constantly explained that very rich top percent of society still have a majority influence on politics.  The article reports that in the last 30 years, an increasingly high number of people have donated money to political campaigns.  In theory, this seems appropriate that more people of various statuses are contributing to the democracy of the country.  However, in recent years, courts have raised the bar on how much donors may contribute allowing “mega donors” to contribute huge amounts of funds to campaigns.  For example, the top 0.01 percent of the population contributed 16% to elections in the 1980s.  By 2016, the percentage of the 0.01 top population grew to about 40%.  This blatantly states that money buys influence.  This plays a role into why democracy has been unable to deal with inequality.

            The democratic party has changed for the better, in my opinion, because more people who are better educated are influencing the voting polls.  This, however, is not solving the issue of inequality.  Theoretically, as society progresses, inequality should diminish. This is not the case.  If politics continue to be “bought” with large sums of funds by the elite, how are the working class and low-income populations going to benefit from this? More influences from minorities are necessary.

 Circular Economy

A circular economy is the “Economic model taking into account the environmental impact of all its stakeholders and that favors all methods of reducing consumption of raw materials and energy by improving their utilization and promoting responsible consumption (infineo-economiecirculaire.com)”.  Johnson and Johnson is a company that does follow the principles of the circular economy. Johnson and Johnson try to follow the principles of the circular economy by reducing the raw materials they use and find alternatives to landfill disposal of their waste streams. “Over the past year, our total waste increased from 171.7 million kilograms in 2015 to 177.9 millions kilograms in 2016, an increase of 3.6%, reflecting an increase in our nonhazardous waste generation (jnj.com)”.

On the GoodGuide app they have rated Johnson and Johnson products. Rogaine products are the top rated products on the app associated with Johnson and Johnson that have a 8.8 average rating. On the other hand Desitin is the lowest rating brand products of the Johnson and Johnson company with an average rating of 1.8. The GoodGuide app gives details on the rates of each individual product, ingredients, alternative products, and gives readers information about the brand.

Conclusion

            Team 5 analyzed the case studies of Interface Flor and Nike. In which we discovered different methods those businesses used. Our team summarizes chapter 12 on the sustainable operations management, as well as chapter 13 which is on the sustainable supply chain management. The main points in both chapters were the main focus of the summary. Topics of circular economy, operational management, and lean systems were discussed. The focus was how businesses need to focus on the topics discussed in order to create an impact.

From Green IT to Sustainable Innovation

This case study focuses on the study of Hewlett-Packard (HP) and how a company can go from being Green IT to Green IS to Sustainable Innovation. To delineate the augmenting relationship between Green IT/IS and sustainable innovation as well as to reveal the challenges and opportunities related to sustainable innovation (Michel 2010.)

Green IT is concerned with greening IT. Greening IT is reducing the impact of IT on energy consumption and CO2 emissions. To do so the IT artifact and on greening all the stages of the IT lifecycle. The main stages are manufacturing, use, and disposal. Green IT focuses on the environmental part of sustainability but not on shared value. The driver of change is regulating the impact on the environment and energy spending. The nature of change is reactive and aimed to eliminating waste, increasing efficiency, and lowering energy costs. The dimension of sustainability of Green IT is environmental sustainability.

Green IS focus is on the environment. It helps manage organizations environmental footprint by greening IT. Green IS stressed the importance of information systems than information technology in dealing with the environment. The driver of change is cost and regulatory compliance reporting. The nature of change is reactive and proactive. The aim is to cut cost and be environmental sustainable.

Sustainable Innovation is a new business approach to create innovative developments to create long term shareholder and stakeholder value. It sees every opportunity was a development in the economy, environment and society. The driver of change is technical and social innovation. It differentiates from other business practices and is proactive. Unlike Green IT and Green ;IS it aims to be social and environmentally sustainable.

The case study explored the different greening IT/IS and sustainable innovation efforts of HP for the past twenty years. HP moved through each phase of an approach to sustainability. From Green IT to Green IS to sustainable innovation. Each phase built onto the other.

Green IT: 1990-

Green IT focused on reducing IT footprint. In the 1990s and so on several regulatory events to place that put the attention on greening the business and manufactured technologies. Green disposal was a program to recycle the e-waste that were produced annually. In 1991 HP started a Europe wide recycling scheme in response to German recycling laws, that forced manufactures to take back all transport packaging, re-packing, and sales packaging as well as to collect waste, while prohibiting incineration (Michael 2010.) In 2002 free recycling programs began in California that banned electronics in landfills. California legislation set up a program to safety discard e-waste. In 2002 the European Union passed a recycling program, the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment, that requires manufacturers to collect e-waste for free. In 2004, HP announced that they will be taking more of a financial burden of recycling from its customers and local governments. HP also announced free recycling from programs in the US. Also, to stop sending old equipment to developing countries. In 1992, HP partnered with Environmental Protection Agency to use the Energy Star Label to create a new energy efficient computer line.

Green IS: 2000-

In 2000, HP gained the ISO40001 Certification of Environmental Management System. The ISO4001 is a voluntary international standard that specifies the requirements for an environmental management system needed to manage effectively a company’s impact on the environment (Michael 2010.) HP attributed to managing environmental footprint.

Sustainable Innovation: 2003-

In 2003, HP contributed to the $Can to Toronto’s Schulich School of Business at York University. They made the contribution to promote the university’s research and education of next generation global business leaders. In 2004, CEO, Carly Fiorina made a change and rethought and redesigned technologies and manufacturing processes. HP up held state regulations regarding recycling and imitating industry initiatives. HP was globally responsible in following the Supply Chain Code of Conduct by assessing and managing stakeholder impacts along the supply chain. HP also involved with multi stakeholder innovation of sustainable products.

In conclusion, each phase HP built on the other. Each one was an extension on to the other creating social, environmental and social value. Green IT and Green IS focused of the environmental value by regulating waste and cost. Sustainable Innovation focuses on the creation of environmental, social and economic value which makes it and better focus for creating more opportunities.

Sustainability Information System Summary

The article Sustainability Innovation Systems focus on the importance of investing in IT for companies to become more sustainable. We are now in the 21^st and new technologies continue to develop all over around the planet. Some companies have taken that first step to invest in technology to create new sustainable products and services, while others prefer to stay classic and continue to develop their products in old fashion ways that just hurts the planet’s environment.

This article explains that if a company takes sustainability seriously and invest money, time, and dedication they can help reduce the negative impact on the environment that comes from manufacturing different products or providing services. On the other hand, sustainability practices can also help a company reduce cost and they can also become innovate by creating new products and services according to the people’s needs since nowadays people are more conscious about global warming and the importance of doing something to help the environment.

The article also mentions the categories of IT roles and investments and they are as follow: Transactional assets, informational assets, Infrastructural assets, and strategic assets.

There are five stages of sustainability, they are compliance, value chain, redesign, new business models, and strategic assets.  The main idea of sustainability innovation system or (SIS) is to propose accurate investment in each of the stages to obtain the best result from each stage.

Stage one mentioned the importance following rules and regulations to comply and prevent penalty fees or other negative consequences. But most importantly companies have the obligation to comply with the environment. Companies can take compliance as an advantage by following all rules and regulations and a very good idea could be to go over the companies’ policies to come up with new policies that would help the company be more sustainable, this is a perfect way to be ahead of the game compare to your competitors.

In Stage two companies can make their supply chain sustainable, by coming up with ideas that can reduce the negative impact of manufacturing and distribute their products and services. A good example of supply chain sustainable is to make sure you are getting your raw materials from companies that are following sustainability ways to obtain that material. Also, paying attention in what could be the best way to deliver those raw materials from point A to point B to reduce the number of times you need transportation for those materials, this is a good way to help reduce CO2 emissions and this would also help the company to reduce the cost of extra transportation fees.

In stage three is important to run segmentation analysis to identify what do your customers have in mind. Once you did that, you can redesign your products and services to make them more sustainable. The article provided a good example of the Clorox line “Green Works”. These products are made with plant- and mineral-based cleaning ingredients, biodegradable ingredients are using to make these products and the Clorox try their best to use environmentally sustainable packaging when possible.

Stage four is about continuing to innovate and think about your product or service and come up with ideas to make it more productive and attractive while being sustainable.

In stage five companies need to focus on creating new platforms to make the one they already have even better. A good example is Uber. Uber begin added Uber pool to their app. When a person uses Uber pool, they are sharing their ride with other riders that are going towards the same destination they are going to. when an Uber customer uses Uber pool they get more affordable rates which work for them, it also works for Uber, the Uber drivers and it works for the environment because it reduces the number of cars traveling with just one passenger.

Our group thinks that investing in IT is crucial to help organizations to be more sustainable. New technology won’t stop coming out and all organizations need to be on top of the game, so they can have an advantage compared to their competitors. Investing in your company to make more sustainable can only bring the company positive outcomes, new products, new customers, and it would make a positive impact on the environment.

Investigation of Sustainability, Innovation Systems and Stages of Sustainability Maturity

       Sustainability is resource that many companies have been adopting to help the society and our future generations (Brundtland 1987). Even though, companies work hard they still have obstacles to achieve their adequate sustainability. Many companies see sustainability as an opportunity for innovation by which they take advantage to solve social problems such as poverty, climate change, and inequality, and their mission is shared values (Porter and Kramer 2011). Important companies around the world are supporting and integrating this strategy in their businesses. Doing so, their finances have increased and at the same time it has been an innovation (Eccles and Serafeim 2013; Nidumolu et al. 2009).

IT (Information Technology) is the new key to support business strategies of sustainability. With this new stratum of sustainable companies are focusing in Green IT problems.  Their goal is the reduction of carbon footprints in the companies.  Although, research has centered its attention on Information Technology oriented more towards strategic business sustainability (Harmon and Demirkan 2011; Boudreau et al. 2008).  These systems are more focused in sustainability innovation systems which have an important role in the strategic inversion to allow business sustainability in each stage of maturity (Abraham and Mohan 2015).

The objective of sustainability is oriented towards innovation and the companies will find a way to take sustainability as value or mission to develop and guide innovation which will offer them aggressive advantages. Companies classify five stages as a direction oriented towards sustainability. In the first stage, companies see sustainability as a hope and try to abide with rules and regulation in all regions. Stage two, companies focus in the sustainable value and they work with suppliers and retailers. The central idea is to work together to develop sustainable ways. Stage three, companies observe customer needs and begin to develop sustainable products according their needs. Stage four, after companies observe customer needs they develop new business ideas and reevaluate their products and business mechanism. Stage five, companies develop new business design comparing it with the previous one (Nidumolu et al. (2009).

According to the company’s business demand, managers take decisions on IT investments that depend of their objectives or aspirations which are aimed at improving their business and in this way, they justify the inversion (Schein 1999; Zuboff 1988).

Stages of Sustainability Maturity

·      Automate: IT investment help companies to streamline their business processes and reduce hiring more employees and at the same time helps to make the work more efficient and faster, for example the self-pay machines in the stores.

·      Informate: the IT investment help companies and managers to obtain more accurate and timely information related to their customers and suppliers. For example, retailers can evaluate the purchase of a product in his store and then he analyzes how much more he needs to keep for the other stores.

·      Transform: IT investment helps companies to reconstruct their assets, effectiveness, method, development, and relationships. These changes can help to change the actual business processes or figure and allow the company to develop new a product or service. For example, FedEx overnight delivery model.

Additionally, infrastructure investments should be actualized including human and technical assets, servers, network, divides, share database which will provide a new floor that allow companies to institutionalize technical services established before in the automatic, information, and transform assets (Dao et al. 2011; Aral and Weill 2007).

           As soon as companies are involved in the sustainability strategy and the stages of maturity framework, they start making investments in IT to develop their sustainability strategy (Abraham and Mohan (2015). Depending on their work plan and the stages of maturity, each department will apply and invest in the adequate IT assets which will be mechanisms of innovation. In each of the maturity stages the work plan has a goal and IT investments will help to develop and fulfill them such in the stage one with the Green data centers.

           To develop a study between sustainability and assets was necessary to adopt a subjective research method (Yin 2009; Ghauri 2004) and this study is an empiric investigation that focus in depth of the real life. (Yin 2009, p. 18). The principal idea of this study is to analyze the sustainability strategy associated with Information Technology Systems. This study also analyzes the history of sustainability of the company by amassing data. In the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry two companies were selected for the study Johnson & Johnson and Biogen, according to GRI they have been recognized as sustainable companies between 2009 and 2015. The information found was surprising because the stages of maturity of sustainability were growing.

Biogen is a company that works in the investigation to innovation in therapies for people with neurological, autoimmune and hematologic diseases. In 2016, this company was in list of the most successful organizations in sustainability according with Corporate Knights Global. They recompilation of data show that in the years 2009, 2012, and 2015 created a shared value (Porter and Kramer 2011) by which they apply commercial principles for social needs. Additionally, Biogen also has influenced in the performance and cut of waste in the chain value and at the same time work with universities, ONG and governments.  In 2014, Biogen reduced the carbon emissions with sustainable projects. In 2013, they advance, and they concentrate in a new strategy “R&D IT” which become the promoter of new products and the company is reconstructed. After, digital techniques and data are organized they introduce the personalized medicine and it possible for IT explanation. When these steps are classified as informate, transform, and locate them in the third and fourth stage of sustainability. This means that Biogen is working in the stages of maturity by taking advantage of Information System Technology which is a potential for growing company.

Johnson & Johnson is a multinational company that offers medical devices, pharmaceutical and consumer goods. In 2015, the earnings were over $70 billion. In 2017 was selected by Corporate Knights Global as 8^th out of 100 most sustainable company. According with the GRI reports J&J is a company devoted TBL by which create a share value (Porter and Kramer, 2011) because apply their business to the society needs. J&J has directed its business in global health and transparence. IT has been for this company a key for new strategies of sustainability such as websites for stakeholders and mobile divides to inform women in pregnancy status. The J&J sustainability has been focused in social and environmental data from the whole company, and the supply chain with the idea that this information is available for the interest of all.

Johnson & Johnson has developed the stage 2 in more than half in sustainability making value chain. They share data on environmental and social impacts such as training or complains through value chain. The stage 3, was applied offering information about sustainability to external stakeholders by websites, blogs and texting service. The newest device is giving an opportunity for a new business model by which offer their services to whoever is interested. The Johnson & Johnson case showed a base debilitated in sustainability innovation systems framework because in the stage automate and infrastructure are to do the value chain, Information is shown in all stages, but it does not make the next step. Mobile devices offer new business to support all the stages.

For many years J&J and Biogen have come working in initiatives of sustainability and the invested made in informate roles. Each company had different points of view regarding to infrastructure, automate and transform roles. These two companies have differences with respect to IT sustainability strategy.  The two companies showed interest in the four strategies, but J&J concentrated more in stage 1 and 2 (63%) they focus more in their business operations. Biogen interest was in stages 3 and 4 (58%) and they have more interest in new products business models for sustainability.

In my opinion, helping companies with empirical support they can develop better each stage to achieve maturity sustainability. Making IT investments, companies will help managers maintain an information qualified about all activities of the company. Thus, companies adopting this technological innovation achieve their sustainable goals. Green IT plays an important role in this process because it helps to the company for a transformation oriented to the environment protection. GRI reports can be used to analyze the sustainability of a company.

New Leadership Has Not Changed Uber

This case certainly caught our attention because Uber is a company that has rapidly emerged in the last couple years due to their efficiency and effective service provided to their customers. However, the article points out how a self-driving Uber killed a pedestrian, which led the company to a series of scandals in many parts of the world. The article identifies three main problems caused by this company. The first one mentions Uber’s purpose which is to subsidize fares and flood streets with its cars, by doing this, traffic increases significantly and leads to the second problem which is the increase of carbon emissions. Finally, public transportation and city taxis are also affected since Uber provides a better service at a cheaper price.

It clearly seems that Uber’s strategy is smart because their goal is to offer the lowest prices in the market until their competitors give up on their business because is not being profitable. Even though it seems like Uber’s annual losses are constantly increasing, they are aware that this is part of their strategy, so they keep it like that to be the only ones at the top in a couple years from now. Many people believe Uber is the best option, but the question is; based on what assumption, passengers believe Uber is better? From my perspective I believe Uber is not really addressing environmental, social, or governance matters because at the end of the day more and more cars are taking over the city and of course that is causing a negative impact on the people, and the planet just like the three issues mentioned before. The company believes they are not causing any damage and one of their long-term projects is to come up with flying taxis, which I believe it would revolutionize the market but at the same time, their strategy must be very strong and become more sustainable to succeed.

As a conclusion, I agree that new methods such as finding a balance between the number of cars operating at a certain time and traffic should be applied so that way the city is not congested, and the environment is not polluted. I also agree that things should work equally for both, for the ride-sharing companies and for the traditional taxis and as the articles mentions, especially in terms of background checks for drivers and insurance requirements. Other regulations such as fair treatment to drivers also must be taken into consideration because as the article mentions, sometimes drivers don’t even earn the minimum wage and instead of winning, they are losing and therefore they quit the job after a year.

Relevant article:

In my Ethic class I did a presentation on the Volkswagen case and it kind of relates with this one because just like Uber, Volkswagen was not actually addressing any environmental issues and as a result, they are still suffering the consequences due to their lack of professionalism. They were one of the top automakers in the world but once they lied to their customers, profits went down. This company incorporated a defeat-device to their cars, so the vehicle can improve performance only when the car was being tested. The United States Environmental Protection Agency noticed that this German automaker was violating some of the policies and regulation and therefore they had to go through a big issue and respond for almost 11 million cars plus customers suing the company. I believe there is a connection between these two cases because both companies are not putting too much effort on becoming a sustainable company and because Uber is not treating drives fairly and on the other hand, Volkswagen, basically did not care about the environment and its customers.

Chapter 11 Summary

Introduction

    To ensure success in the 21st century there needs to be a transformational change. “Fortunately, a movement towards open innovation, propelled by emerging crowdsourcing technology platforms, is engaging our collective intelligence and commitment in developing the needed breakthrough innovations (Molthan-Hill, 2017)”. This chapter is primarily focused on strategic contexts from a business perspective, innovation, and crowdsourcing. These are then applied to advancing business sustainability.

The Strategic Context

“Business leaders can no longer ignore shifting investor, customer and employee expectations or the existing and potential consequences of climate change and threats to business-critical natural resources (Molthan-Hill, 2017)”. Business leaders have increased in being progressive with cost savings from energy, water, materials and waste reduction, and competitive advantages with sustainable technologies/ products. Sustainability challenges have multiple opportunities that true leaders can take advantage of to create shared value for stakeholders and investors to see their business help solve the world’s problems. “If businesses are to remain competitive, reduce risk, meet customer and market expectations, attract and retain top talent, and bring inspiring, innovative products and solutions to the marketplace, we need to reinvent our industrial system to be more environmentally, socially and economically sustainable (Molthan-Hill, 2017)”. To stop human climate change, loss of biodiversity, poverty, injustice, violence, and other global problems there needs to be a transformational change. Redesigning business models, product designs, production processes, human resource practices and lifestyles can start restoring ecosystems and contributing to helping people/communities flourish. “There are improvements, for example, in: Impact assessment, disclosure and reporting (as of 2015 over 5,000 companies are reporting their carbon-related impacts and risks to CDP (www.cdp.net) and, in 2013, 93% of the global 250 largest companies reported on their sustainability impact, performance and plans) (Molthan-Hill, 2017)”.

Open Innovation

    Innovation is generally defined as a new idea, device or method, and as the act or process of introducing new ideas, devices or methods (Merriam-Webster 2017).  Innovation is generally defined as a new idea, device or method, and as the act or process of introducing new ideas, devices or methods (Merriam-Webster 2017). Innovation is how an idea or invention is utilized in a new product or solution to create a desired impact. Michael Katz for example defined innovation as “The successful generation, development and implementation of new and novel ideas, which introduce new products, processes and/or strategies to a company or enhance current products, processes and/or strategies leading to commercial success and possible market leadership and creating value for stakeholders, driving economic growth and improving standards of living. (Katz 2007)”. There is many benefits from examining frameworks of analysis on the overall approach to innovation and how leading corporations are innovating the innovation process itself. Corporations look to their research and development departments for new technologies and product development and process improvements for operational improvement.

Crowdsourcing

    There are six different types of crowdsourcing mentioned in the book. The first type is Crowd labour. Crowd labour can be described as “external labour to complete a job or task, for example Wikipedia, translating works into many languages or accessing content writers via sites such as crowdcontent.com (Molthan-Hill, 2017)”. Next, would be crowdfunding which raises capital from the public through various financial resources on different sites. These sites include Kickstarter or Indiegogo. The third type of crowdsourcing is Crowd Creativity which recruits creative designs to develop things such as corporate logos. Crowd innovation which is the fourth type of crowdsourcing, develops solutions to a problem. “For example, The Ansari XPRIZE offered $10 million to the team best able to build a reusable manned vehicle capable of carrying three people 100 km above the surface of the Earth and back twice in the span of two weeks, effectively launching the commercial private space industry (Molthan-Hill, 2017)”. Crowd wisdom is the fifth type of crowdsourcing that shares information and distributes knowledge. Citizen science is included by soliciting public input collecting data, analyzing, and app development. Crowd mapping obtains geographic information to create collaborative maps that are meaningful. Customer crowdsourcing gathers customer needs and feedback. Crowd governance try to publicly input on policy-making and decision-making by engaging on building the community as well as support participating governance.

“A recent report, The State of Crowdsourcing 2016 (Roth et al. 2016), found that those Interbrand ‘Best Global Brands’ already using crowd-sourcing in a significant way between 2004 and 2014 increased their usage by over 30% from 2014 to 2015, that the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector is leading the application of creative crowdsourcing (followed by consumer electronics), and that the fastest-growing application is ideation (crowdsourcing for ideas). The report found the 20 leading major brand consumer products companies using crowdsourcing, in order of most use, are: Coca-Cola, Danone, Nestlé, Pepsi, Samsung, Hewlett-Packard, Ford, Nokia, Toyota, General Electric, Microsoft, Google, J&J, Budweiser, Chevrolet, Shell, Intel, Phillips, Santander and Nescafé (Roth et al. 2016).² Let’s look at what is driving this increased interest in crowdsourcing. (Molthan- Hill, 2017)”.

2030 Sustainable Development Goal

    The UN Secretary General invited individuals to define a new set of targets for the Millennium Development Goals back in 2012. The goal is formally known as Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. At the UN High Level Panel back in 2013 the organization ONE advocated for openness to ending poverty. “By April 2013, ONE Africa Director Dr. Sipho Moyo reported that almost 120,000 people had signed the ‘Open for Development’ petition (Moyo 2013), while 144,000 had given their ideas to the ‘You Choose’ campaign about what development should look like in their countries (Nkombo 2013). This input was delivered directly to world leaders, who were also told that ‘ONE’s You Choose survey is being adapted to contribute to the UN’s My World process of soliciting citizens’ views on the future of development’ (Moyo 2013) (Molthan-Hill, 2017)”.  

Geller recommended that there needs to be encouraged participation through both digital and physical outreach activities to strengthen fairness and improve participation from HDI (Human Development Index). Geller had a list of recommendations after Analyzing the e-discussions reports. From the reports it was revealed that perceptible demographic imbalance exist among contributors to the MY World survey. This is a dissonance between the characteristics of participants in the e-discussions and the voices in the resulting summary report. Crowdsourcing 2030 Agenda is a powerful example of a more engaging and democratic political process.

Johnson & Johnson Sustainability

Johnson and Johnson take the initiative to be economically, environmental and socially responsible. J&J have come to the point where the company is advanced enough to create innovative approaches for their multi-shareholder and stakeholders. As a healthcare company J&J believe innovation is progress towards human progress. Therefore, J&J is a sustainable innovative company. J&J have made efforts towards rethinking and redesign their products, technologies, and value chain. The company cares about improving the environment as well as making a social impact. The company sets up programs in developing countries. The company also looks for new ways to improve their technology such as their medical devices to improve the outcomes of their consumers. Overall J&J thrive to create value for their stakeholders.

In stage five of sustainability J&J has created a next practice platform. The new Center for Device Innovation at Texas Medical Center is J&J’s new collaboration with Johnson and Johnson Medical Devices Companies, J&J Innovation and Houston’s Texas Medical Center now in 2017 J&J ranks one of the top five companies in the U.S. across all industries for investment in R&D showing commitment to innovation and creating value. J&J created medical devices designed to make surgeries less invasive. In addition, these medical devices perform procedure that can make a difference around the world. The information technology assets or resource prescribed are strategic assets. The CDI @ TMC increases innovation for the company and enters the new market of bring the new cutting-edge procedures to developing parts of the world. J&J focuses on creating new ways for humans to progress in their health and making their products and service accessible to all parts of the world.

“Empirical Investigation of SIS” takes annual reports that are a reliable due to data resources for academic and practice purposes. For whoever wants to conduct longitudinal empirical investigation study on sustainability information systems. J&J 2017 Annual Report, 2016 Health for Humanity Report used for their Citizen & Sustainability is their most recent approach and reports that have been prepared in accordance with the Sustainability Reporting Guidelines (G4 Core). However, for some indicators, a response is provided only in the 2015 Citizenship & Sustainability Report GRI index itself. Recent research and practice have placed more attention to information systems’ capabilities to enable strategic business sustainability (Harmon and Demirkan 2011; Boudreau et al. 2008).

J&J moves its focus forward in making future products and toward Information Technology investments to be made in information assets such as social media information systems, crowdsourcing and data driven analytics. For J&J Health for Humanity 2016 Report, had 2020 Goals, I searched through their GRI index, Annual, in their Health for Humanity reports using the keywords “IT”, “ICT”, “Information”, “Information Systems”, “Information technology”, “Internet”, “system”, “Information” to collect my analysis. The focus of sustainability IS at J&J has been to collect social and environmental data across the enterprise and its supply chain and to make it widely available to all its stakeholders. The automate systems too have been in service to this information role. For some reason there is no discussion in these reports on a transform role for IT such as the one that Biogen adopted. One would expect to see that happen going forward. A long-term view of stages of sustainability maturity shows more than half of J&J’s sustainability IS have been used to make value chains sustainable. They are used to collect and share data on environmental and social impacts such as training and grievances across the value chain. More recently in 2016, mobile devices are providing a new business model for delivering services to dispersed stakeholders such as mothers in Indian villages or grassroots entrepreneurs.

This J&J GRI seems to provide weak support for the sustainability innovation systems framework. Automate and infrastructure roles are exclusively played in making the value chain sustainable. Informate roles are played in all states except creating next practice platforms for the future. Mobile devices are creating opportunities for new business models and expecting that transform assets will begin to appear to support this stage. J&J have invested in multiple assets for sustainability initiatives to meet 2020 goals. J&J invested in 30 initiatives is the most of the initiatives that J&J ever invested in are performed informate. Their investment in information IT assets is creating sustainability. J&J has a variety of priorities for infrastructure, automate, and transform roles. J&J invested in a few automate initiatives. J&J viewing IT to play a more supporting role. J&J splits their focuses 63% or more on Stage One and Stage Two, improving sustainable performance of its current business operations.

J&J invested in a couple informate roles aimed at stage two and started to implement infrastructure or automate roles for stage one. Their initiatives assess risk in healthcare compliance, developed a database which enables location on sustainable sites that met requirements. Sustainable value chains received the most focused initiatives, showing that their emphasizing on utilizing IT that has improved sustainability performance operations. For infrastructure J&J has one initiative on standardizing and simplifying IT systems. J&J initiatives on automate roles are directed on automatic data storage and retrieval, for their informate roles they invested 11 initiatives. Sustainable products and services is a informate role J&J has initiated for Stage Three They invested 8 informate roles for multiple tool to engage and interact with stakeholders, for example corporate blogs, health info sharing, and tools like text4baby and mobile apps to reach out and share information with patients, or tools to help sectors are brand product sustainability on their websites. Stage Four, J&J’s  invested in a new business model that plays three informate roles. J&J’s informate roles are mobile phone tools to share and reach mothers that are in impoverished communities and developing countries like India, also systems to collect and reports health outcomes adding to systems connecting entrepreneurs.

Introduction

For the beginning of Unit 7 we learned about Systems Thinking. “Systems Thinking  refers to holistic thinking where we consider the big picture and the impacts of our actions beyond our immediate environment.” Thinking like this takes problems and reduces them into smaller pieces. This leads to better progress in various areas that need to think outside of the box. Working together towards a common goal  with a set of components makes up a system. is a set of components that work together towards a common goal.

Ch. 16 Systems thinking and sustainable management

Systems thinking and Reductionism

Systems thinking, also known as holistic or systemic thinking, includes all operations in a company’s decision-making progress. The operations work together to reduce problems and increase impactful outcomes. System thinking prevents silos in the company. Reductionism approach focuses the problem of the organization. The reductionism approach is used to increase productivity and solve engineering and scientific problems. Reductionism could cause silo mentality. It also focuses on small aspects of a situation that causes problems. Managers have a difficult time taking a systemic approach to understand if where and how the chosen ‘slide’ fits within the overall picture. Managers tend to want the quick solution or move to another issues that is bigger and avoid systems thinking. This will cause more short term problems, time pressures, the unavailability of data, information processing limitations and lack of experience which could hinder the success of a holistic approach (Molthan-Hill, P).

Boundary/The environment

System boundaries are set to contain the most important elements and their interactions involved in organization’s challenges to separate them from others considering less pressing (Molthan-Hill, P). A boundary is an artificial construct that is not fixed, obvious or natural. Boundaries is scope and scope is how wide or narrow the system is. Boundaries reflect interest and social power relations. Boundaries can be closed which means they have little to no interactions with the environment. The problem with a closed system is it not being connected with outside elements. According to the Gaia theory, everything is connected like a butterfly effect. When a butterfly flaps its wings in one part of the word a hurricane will happen in another part of the world. When boundaries are open the inside and outside elements are important. This can mean that it is important for organizations to be aware that impacts of their business. Companies and individuals tend to focus more on their operations, without considering their natural, business and social environments, the long-term survival of their organization could be at risk.

The system

Dynamic systems are mental constructs that work with a purpose. A system reflects the view of its owner. Whomever creates the systems reflects their ethical values. Systems exhibit a feedback loop. A system can have positive or negative feedback. Positive feedback can cause a snowball effect and the vicious circle which can spiral out of contra m and even threaten the entire system. The negative feedback mechanisms tend to control or slow down the overall process.

Diagrams

Diagrams are used to better understand and display information. There are different types of diagrams used depending on the preference. A system diagram displays inputs, outputs, processes, boundary, environment and feedback loop. The spray diagram is use for branching out information. This information can be expanded and connected to related topics. A mind map is an example of a spray diagram. A rich picture displays card to like diagram that has numerical information and also shows people’s feelings and emotion. The sign diagram which is a way of displaying positive or negative elements. The flow charts display instructions in stages such as how to do or put together something.

The future of systems thinking and management

Living and non-living elements will forever connect and interact with each other. Because of this we have to think of a way for both to live and grow in harmony. If we continue to ignore the high stakes of not taking care of the environment when there won’t be much left in the future. That is why it is important to use holistic thinking approach and include all communities in which it operates in the decision making processing on issues pertaining to the organization. To consider system boundaries are open or close to the environment. And to fully understand purpose of the system. To understand better organizations can use diagrams to communicate issues in a way that can be effective. By doing so the future of systems thinking and management and start to build a holistic and sustainable future.

A Guide To Using Diagrams

This is certainly a very interesting video that started by discussing the ways in which we communicate in our society. I did not think diagrams would actually help us to explore different environments and learn more about it by breaking up topics into different events or ideas. The purpose of this video is to use diagrams in order to make the topic more understandable and for that, an example about farming was used in order to explain how different problems, bad decisions or even natural events lead to more problems, and unwanted situations. It could also be something good leading to greater things but in this case the video focuses in how a local community is clearly affected by the lack of investments in the farming environment and therefore it leads to other consequences such as no tourism, soil erosion fragility, and no crops. The next point that the video emphasizes is about making more investments in order to solve the problem but some policies and regulations are seen as obstacles to solve this problem. Other topics such as how the future looks like and the amount of contamination produced by certain activities such as fishing need to be analyzed and find out how it connects to the major problem which is the impoverishment of farming. By connecting different events and ideas, a solution will be reached because diagrams help us to realize what are the negative factors affecting the success of a product, service, or can also help us find out a solution to better the environment.

Another example of a spray diagram was shown and it basically explains the same but with a different topic. The main topic in this case is mobile phones and it is represented by six main themes which are manufacturing, packaging, transport, use, infrastructure and end of life. Each of these themes involved different situations and different events that are either affecting or contributing to the success of the main topic. Each theme also tries to address every issue because the goal is to find out ways on how to become more sustainable. A system map is another type of diagram in which a topic is discussed and many other themes are involved and analyzed. Each theme mentions the different roles of the elements involved in the topic and the purpose is to identify negative factors so those can be eliminated. The video also discusses how an influence diagram works, and it puts food waste as an example and realizes that large portions are one of the major negative influences on food waste and therefore the purpose of using diagrams is to keep breaking the topic into smaller pieces so we can understand it better. Last but not least, the video goes over how a multiple cause diagram works and it is a little bit different from the influence diagram because in this diagram one situation leads to another or it can go backwards depending on change and cause.

MindMap

• Operations Management
• Sustainable Operations
• Life Cycle Assessment
• Lean Systems
• Sustainable Product Design
• Circular Economy
• Sustainable Supply Chains   
• Sustainable Strategy

Why 2017 was the Best Year in History (Article)

The article “Why 2017 was the best year in history” is about a journalist that choose to talk about the good things that happened in the world during the year. As the journalist individual says in the article “we journalist focus on bad news” he believes is time to recognize the positive things such as: the more than 325,000 people that obtain access to electricity as well as potable water, another good example provided was the more than one hundred million children that are enjoying a healthier life thanks to having reach to vaccinations, as well as diarrhea treatments and other positive situations that helped our children’s.

This journalist even mentioned that it is ironic how he says 2017 has been the best year in history when we have a crazy president and we can enter a nuclear war with North Korea. But them. He emphasizes the drop in the percentage of children dying than before.

Usually, when we watch the news or read an article about countries and their people in the Middle East, we read negative things probably relate to terrorist attacks and deaths. However, the article highlights the story of Sultana, a young Afghan who was forced to drop out of elementary school. But Sultana showed the desired to continue with her education and thanks to her mother’s support and the internet, she was able to study online. Nowadays, Sultana is in school at Arizona State University.

Overall, Nicholas Kristof the journalist wrote this article showed the reader that good things also happen on our planet, that we have good people and that it is important to recognize those people and situations. It is good to maintain an equilibrium in the news given to the people. The society should know that there are people trying to make a better world and we can do the same in our side to help obtain a better result in order to have a healthier society and a healthier world.

Personal Opinion

Our point of view about this article is regarding the magnitude of power that journalist can manage and how they managed. All types of media manage negative news most of the time because the journalist that search for the news only focus on the negative situations that happen in our world. Our society is so used to hear, read, and watch bad news that it became normal and more like a daily routine. This article showed the reader that good things have been happening in our world, but the media and the journalist won’t tell us about it. Unfortunately, it sounds like bad news sell more than good news, however, articles like this one allows the reader to have a different perspective about what really is going on around the world and society, leaving a need for the reader to continue to investigate and do things to support to obtain the goal of having a better society and a better world. Finally, we take from Mr. Kristof that every new year could be the best year in history, but that depends in our actions and our attitude.

Systems Thinking Applied To Johnson & Johnson

System thinking is combination of segments that work together to develop a specific goal. Johnson & Johnson has come using natural resources for the elaboration of their products such as medicines, medical supplies and baby products. The components for the fabrication of its products are obtained from our planet, and Johnson & Johnson has focused all its efforts on the preservation of the environment. They believe that our planet cannot continue satisfying with their demand, and their goal is to eliminate the concept of waste and look at how the material loops can be closed.

Johnson & Johnson considers that the waste can be used to innovation, and they are looking for ways on how to remodel the concept, open up business and creating a value for their customers even with having limitations on the use of natural resources.  Johnson & Johnson is developing an ascendable project that helps people be less wasteful, for example the Phoenix Project. This project is based on helping people form recycling companies to improve the operative process, make a more solid infrastructure, and develop a sustainable market for the materials which Johnson & Johnson will use for the manufacture of its products. Another program where Johnson & Johnson is applying the System Thinking is with his program Care to Recycle in which they try to persuade and educate their customer how recycling is beneficial for our planet and how they can help to preserve it for the future recycling the empty battles of one their products such as Listerine Rinse. With this program Johnson & Johnson created Donate A Photo app where people can share images of how they are helping to protect our planet.  With each photo uploaded, they help nonprofit foundations such as Students Conservation Association.

Additionally, Johnson & Johnson is part of the Closed Loop Fund which is dedicated to making recycling infrastructure better every day and at the same time increasing the recycling concept in United States. As a Health Care Provider, Johnson & Johnson also works with its partners to create and build a safe strategy and a reasonable cost to provide an efficient recycling solution to the hospitals.

Concluding, the goal of Johnson & Johnson is to reinforce and raise awareness among its customers on the importance of recycling their products.  Their goal is 90% in main markets and at the same time create strategic alliances to strengthen efforts and infrastructure in places where recycling is least practiced. Johnson & Johnson is working hard to create more sustainable products and better production strategies.