BA 302 Business Process Management - Sustainability

Summary:

All business processes and actions have environmental effects. They all use environmental resources either consumptively; e.g., fuels or materials, or nonconsumptively; e.g.,  landfills, water & atmospheric pollution, hydroelectricity or both. Whereas these effects are easily recognizable in many manufacturing processes, they are less overt in service activities. As environmental resources grow scarcer, their price tends to go up. Hence, once way for businesses to reduce cost is to (re)examine their use of these resources in the production process. Unfortunately, many negative effects of using resources are not borne by their users. Instead, these negative effects or 'externalities' are distributed over parties not directly involved with the economic transaction process, causing what is known as the 'Tragedy of the Commons.' This implies to both physical and social resources.

As environmental stress increases, all forms of business would be wise to consider their environmental, economic and social footprints. Not only can a reduction of footprint reduce production cost, it also stimulates continuous process improvement, a drive towards dematerialization (in itself not unproblematic), and a positive image both inside and outside the company. Of course, the tragedy of the commons remains.

Central concepts:

• Triple bottom line.
• Externalities.
• Tragedy of the commons.
• Carrying capacity.
• (Energy & carbon) footprints.
• Privatization -- government control -- hybrids.
  
• Dematerialization.
• ISO 14000.