| A sustainable business philosophy involves adopting
the idea that business is responsible for the products and services they
provide from inception to end use. In our industry for example, this
means looking at everything from the materials we use to building our
facilities to the way we impact the lives of our employees.
Not only is the planet demanding that we clean up our act, but
today's consumers are demanding that companies be environmental
responsible and offer consumers’ environmentally friendly products.
Stanford University completed a detailed client satisfaction survey for
example, and found that sixty-six percent of clients are willing to pay
more for a company's products and services if they believe the company
is environmentally and socially responsible.
We have adopted The Natural Step guidelines for
sustainability as our own. The Natural Step lists four system conditions
that are necessary in order for society (and business) to be
sustainable.
The Four Principles of Sustainability
To become a sustainable society we must...
1. concentrations of substances extracted from the earth's crust |
1. eliminate our contribution to the progressive buildup
of substances extracted from the Earth's crust (for example, heavy
metals and fossil fuels) |
| 2. concentrations of substances produced by society |
2. eliminate our contribution to the progressive buildup
of chemicals and compounds produced by society (for example, dioxins,
PCBs, and DDT ) |
| 3. degradation by physical means |
3. eliminate our contribution to the progressive
physical degradation and destruction of nature and natural processes
(for example, over harvesting forests and paving over critical wildlife
habitat); and |
| 4. and, in that society, people are not subject to conditions that systemically undermine their capacity to meet their needs |
4. eliminate our contribution to conditions that
undermine people’s capacity to meet their basic human needs (for
example, unsafe working conditions and not enough pay to live on). |
For more information on The Natural Step, click here.
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