Read 4 article and write comments of two or three sentences

ex) why you agree or disagree with the point that they mentioned 

1) Embracing accountability can unlock significant gains

This lesson learned means when a firms decide to embrace its’ accountability or its’ social duty, this firm has huge potential to earn significant profit. It also means it’s more likely for firms that embracing their accountability to earn more money. For example, some big companies like GE have already embraced their duty in terms of environment. In 2005, GE announced an initiative called ecomagination. Ecomanination’s main trust is to create clean technologies to help GE’s customers reduce their environmental impacts, including carbon emissions and excessive consumption of valuable resources. And the ecomanination has provided GE with huge potentials of earning profit. For example, despite the economic slowdown following the great depression of 2008-2009, GE’s wind energy business has already generated over $30 billion in revenue.

Focus on mutual gain, not on short-term profits

It means when companies faced with seemingly intractable TBL challenges, companies should focus on mutual gain not on short term profits. As we learn from previous chapter, the TBL or a firm’s sustainability is about creating long term value for the firms. And in order to achieve the sustainability, a firm should focus on long term profit not on short term profit. And mutual gain is more about long term profit, because with mutual gain, firms need to benefit others first. Still, use GE as an example to illustrate this principle. The ecomagination that GE initiate in 2005 is a program that benefit both the whole society in terms of environment and the GE’s profit. As we can see, ecomagination is not intent to increase the revenue of next quarter but to help the customers. And of course, the benefit it provides with GE is long term.

Corporate culture can be crucial

The corporate culture of a company can be crucial for companies in achieving their sustainability or finding solutions to TBL challenges. Good corporate culture can create opportunities for everyone including the firm itself to gain. The world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart has long had a troubled relationship with organizations that advocate sustainable business policy. As a result, the corporation has been unable to win regulatory approval for a store location in Boston, which would bring Wal-Mart a huge loss of market shares. Then in 2005, CEO H. Lee Scott decide to transform the company from an environmental offender into a corporate leader. And this change the corporate culture of Wal-Mart. Then many environmental activists give Wal-Mart credit for its efforts in reducing pollution. 

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2) Focus on mutual gain, not on short-term profits. It is important for companies to think about things that would possibly affect the company in the long term, even if it might cost them more right more, instead of thinking about immediate gains. All company want to be able to survive as long as they could, earning more and more money on the way. There are many trendy restaurants that has opened up in New York, but not many stayed. I think that it is because many businesses try to come up with new interesting items to hopefully catch customer’s attention. To do so, they come up with relatively mediocre stuffs but try to advertise it as being new and fresh. But interest will eventually will fade away. By focusing on the long-term, e.g. Controlling quality, customer service, businesses have potential to stay longer: 

Political skills matter, definitely. Knowinh how to engage and reach out to your audience, to make them believe in you and want to support you is evidently important. Like President Trump, I think that one of the reasons why he is a successful businessman is because he knows how to use political skills in his businesses. You need to be convincing and inspiring too, so that people believe in you, so that people trust you with their money enough to want to invest in your ideas. 

Middle managers can make it happen. A company cannot survive with only high-rank officials. For leaders to be able to lead, there must be followers. When reading about it, I thought of transparency, specifically transparency in company management. When a company involves everyone when dealing with things, you’d be able discover more ideas and ways to solve a problem. Other than that, more people can also possibly make things happen faster. 

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3) The Age of Sustainability refers to the current sustainability movement which includes but is not limited to the environment, community relations, labor practices, responsible investments, and employee benefits.  This new era that is discussed in the text is noted as being a necessity for businesses that are responding to the demands of stakeholders.  In addition, Savitz explains the many types of trends that businesses are following in order to contribute to the way the business environment is evolving in regards to corporate responsibility. 

In Savitz’s explanation of “A Networked World,” he goes on to discuss the immediate connection a business has to the public and how this can help and hurt a company.  Because of the instant access that people have to social media, news, and various websites, anything can be put online whether it is true or not which can affect the reputation of a company.  This trend is very important as it pushes businesses to sustain their customer relationships and continue to maintain their reputations within the industry.  Information that is circulated about one company will also allow other companies to follow as noted in the text about Greenpeace’s campaign to stop the use of toxic chemicals in sportswear which was later followed by Nike, Adidas, and Puma. 

In addition, the trend “A Socially Conscious World” goes hand-in-hand with the previous trend I mentioned as well as Savitz’s explanation of the age of sustainability.  Savitz speaks a lot about younger generations to highlight the importance of their knowledge and impact they have today for the future.  The constant use of social media that younger generations have grown up with has given them an understanding of social and environmental issues that need to be changed.  Social media as well has university taught classes on sustainability leads many to social activism and understanding the importance of ethical business practices. 

Lastly, “A Corporate World” touches on the greater impact that businesses have on social and environmental issues than the government may have.  This shift of power relates back to the whole idea of the age of sustainability where businesses are responding to demands faster and more efficiently to fulfill their corporate responsibility.  For example, the text speaks about the damage from Hurricane Katrina and how large companies such as Wal-Mart, Home Depot, PepsiCo, and FedEx were able to respond faster to the needs of the public than the government was.  This shows that businesses need to maintain this corporate responsibility as a way of being a more sustainable company.

 Comment:

4) When reading about “A Freer World”, the first thing that popped into my mind was the case of Tracey Norman and the Clairol brand, that I heard from another class. In the mid-70s, the model was hired to front one of their hair box-dye color, but when they found out that she’s a transgendered woman, they promptly fired her. But in 2015, I suppose as a part of their plan to reinvent the brand’s image, they re-hired her, for the same women’s hair box-dye job that she lost 40 years ago, but this time as a transgendered woman. I think this really shows how important for companies and brands to look at the market and see what people is interested in, and reinvent yourself fit in. 40 years ago, when people are more conservative and not as inclusive,, Clairol knew that they had to make the choice to let Norman go, but now that the country has become more socially sustainable, Clairol also knew that they had to follow the trend so I think the trend of the world being ‘freer’ looks not be going anyway soon, so businesses should follow.

Similarly for “A Socially Conscious World”, the text mentioned about how “twenty-five-year-olds grew up watching reports of social and environmental disasters” so they should be more aware of what is going around in the world, in comparison to the previous generation did at that age. Even if many millennials don’t act on it to help the world, and largely is because they think it doesn’t affect them directly, but they are still absorbing information. It is so important for companies to continue to help raise awareness about the different problems the world is facing, not only to help the world, but to also raise the public’s awareness about themselves too. In recent news, Uber’s immigration response has cost them dearly and in turn, Lyft’s announcement about their pending donations to the ACLU has definitely raised the company’s image, in turn helping massively with the sales. Not that this news is related only to millennials, but i think that for a company to be socially conscious and aware definitely has its benefits.

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