Understanding Sustainability
We describe sustainability as doing business in a manner that contributes meaningfully to a healthy environment, to strong communities, and to economic prosperity, now and in the future. It can be measured in three ways, economically, environmentally, and socially. Companies economically sustainable have strong codes of conduct, willing to comply with government regulations and set timely and effective management policies. Companies who are environmentally sustainable focuses on ecologically reasoning such as reducing the percentage of pollution based on their consumption. A company that’s socially sustainable cares about the community in which it operates and engages itself in many humanitarian causes. More companies are pulling to be fully sustainable and cover all these measures to ensure they have great ethics.

Can it be profitable?
Many people wonder how companies maintain profit while being sustainable. Though being socially responsible doesn’t mean that these companies are losing profit. Instead CEOs of these companies realize that the value of their company increases due to identifying and responding to the demands of society. There has also been an increase in SRI, socially responsible investing. Even now companies can’t afford to not be social responsible with scandals or negative publicity. Companies strive to be cost effective using strategic planning whiel still maintaining to be sustainability, but many times this is masked by profit margins. Wal-Mart brings to term the quote, “An obsession with "the lowest price" without regard for any other issues, consequences or hidden costs is an act of self-destruction.”

Why do companies want to become more sustainable?
Most companies chose to become sustainable to reach new markets and reach a new efficiency in production of product. More consumers are becoming aware of these three measures therefore companies are molding to fit this consumer-driven economy.

The Problems

Environmentally
Greenwashing is prominent in the “Green Movement” amongst companies claiming to be environmentally friendly. A dictionary definition of greenwashing: “Promoting green in the abstract, literally re-painting your signage with the color green, while simultaneously making sparse, vague claims about environmental action.” This is the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company. The website http://understory.ran.org, has write ups called “Greenwash of the Week” which exposed major companies of greenwashing. Bank of America currently has come out with an “eco-credit card” for Canadian consumers. Once a purchase is made instead of getting points to receive free plane tickets and cash, the cardholder receives MBNA. These are used to buy carbon offsets, which in turn reduces the amount of carbon/greenhouse gases released in the atmosphere. Though it seems pretty environmentally sustainable, the MBNA reports that only .5% of total purchases are given to them from Bank of America. Bank of America themselves are the largest backers of the coal industry, so this act it a bit hypocritical. Even on Bank of America’s website in small print it read, “MBNA does not guarantee the overall effect of the carbon offset purchases to actually reduce carbon emissions.” This is a real life case of greenwashing.
McDonalds wants everyone to know they’re going green…ish. The fast food monster is swapping the red in their logo for green in an effort to convince Europeans that they care about the environment. To be fair, the company has made some important strides – like using environmentally-friendly refrigeration and converting used oil to biodiesel – but this is still fast food relying on distinctly un-green factory farms for their supplies, to say the least.

Socially (Random Examples)
Economically (Random Examples)
Wal-Mart (Then go on to put Walmart in those categories of all Three) I didn’t quite finsih
Wal-Mart is an easy target for just about anything. They have made significant efforts in reducing energy use and waste throughout their operations. However, their entire business model relies on people buying cheap, imported products and driving to their stores to get them. Also, since they are such a massive business, many of their initiatives could be driven by cost and public relations rather than environmental concerns thus needing improvement on all sections of sustainability. Other than needing help in the environmentally sustainable field, socially Wal-Mart is already known for bun barring small rural areas and taking busy from mom and pop style stores, in many cases these shops even up closing and shutting down due to the large effect and low prices of Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart also continue to pay its employees the lowest wages with no benefits to keep its low prices every day strategy going.

Whether it is obvious that a company is greenwashing, or just unsustainable all around, the real problem is trying to fix it in some way. Environmentally it’s harder to control some of the chemical and distribution processes involved without compromising a company’s core competencies. Since there are three different phases of sustainability if you can improve any of those, if not all three, you are more likely able to improve as a company and claim the title of sustainability. How are companies able to move forward to being sustainability, what are the necessary steps to improve the current condition of the company to follow the current industry trends of 2010.