What Is Environmental Sustainability? Goals, Strategies, and Industry Examples

Environmental sustainabilityrefers to doing business that does not impact the environment, community, or society adversely. It is broadly classified as the effect of any business on the environment and the effect of business on society. The failure to maintain environmentally friendly sustainable practices leads to environmental degradation and social injustice. An environmentally sustainable business takes strategy to conduct its operation, taking environmental, economic, and social factors into mind.

Environmental Sustainability Goals

Business organizations take environmental sustainability as one of the main objectives to protect the environment for future generations. They adopt the SMART goals approach (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) for attaining sustainable business practices. The primary goals of the sustainability practice can be specified as below.

• Waste management is one of the primary objectives of sustainable businesses because this waste is dumped into the landfills or ocean, which further contaminates the environment and creates harmful impacts on the living body.
• Reduce the resource consumption to avoid the degradation. Increasing the reliance on renewable sources for a greener environment is the objective of sustainable business practices.
• Implementation of cloud and IoT technologies within the business processes ensures the real-time monitoring that further helps in waste management and reduces energy consumption.

Environmental Sustainability Strategy

An environmentally sustainable business strategy aligns business goals by considering the triple bottom line(profit, people, and planet). Keeping this in mind, one can achieve an environment-friendly, profitable business strategy. Besides this, the strategy includes the constant monitoring and upgrading of itself to align its function with the sustainable practice.

Industry Example

Many organizations have implemented sustainable business practices successfully within their everyday operations. Sustainable business examples are as follows.

• Any manufacturing process that involves only using renewable materials in the business process is practicing sustainable business.
• Any business that optimizes the supply chain for reducing the greenhouse gas effect is a sustainable business.
• The energy industry is adopting a shift towards the renewable sources of energy, such as solar, wind, and nuclear sources, to maintain environmental sustainability.
• Industries that are building partnerships with ESG partners (environmental, social, and governance) to give priority to achieving sustainable development goals are examples of sustainable businesses.

The public interest in environmentally sustainable business has been increasing day by day, and many businesses are shifting their focus to environmental sustainability in their day-to-day business operations. Climate change, global warming, and rising sea levels are the major concerns at the present time, and it is our responsibility to take initiative to protect the best interests of future generations. Organizations like Ingenero helps businesses create simple, long-term plans to protect the environment.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is ESG?

ESG is environmental, social, and governance factors that a business adopts as a predefined standard for maintaining its social responsibility.

How will environmentally sustainable practices help us?

It will help us to protect the environment by controlling harmful waste contamination, resource depletion, and preservation of biodiversity.

What are the four pillars of sustainability?

The four pillars of sustainability are human, social, economic, and environmental concerns that a business should always consider while conducting operations.

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