Sustainable Development Assignment on Triple Bottom Line

Question

Assignment requirements: Write your assignment in a report format using academic language. Use your research (correctly in-text referenced) to provide evidence and support for your beliefs and arguments. Your report must have the following sections:

• Title
• Introduction
• Different sections for the 5 different reporting requirements. You may use subheadings if required.
• Reference List

Marking Structure:
1. Review the general concepts of triple bottom lines (TBL) and sustainable development (SD)

2. Discuss the significance of TBL in sustainable development by considering the primary features of TBL such as accountability, measurability, benchmarking etc.

3. Discuss the concept of sustainable construction (SC) and the key considerations in sustainable construction

4. Prepare a sustainability report for a multinational construction company using Global Reporting Initiatives (GRI) reporting framework You may assume a hypothetical construction company that is operated across many countries and you are the head of sustainability in the company. Your sustainability report must have the following reporting contexts:

• Introduction of your hypothetical company. Include a name, location, business etc.
• Strategies and analysis
• Organizational profile
• Reporting parameters
• Governance, commitments and engagement
• Management approach.

You must also explain what content, boundary, and indicators (if any) are established in your report and why you have chosen to use them (a relevant GRI introduction can be found in the learning materials)

5. Discuss the challenges and issues in reporting sustainability

Answer

Introduction
Review Concepts
Definition of TBL and SD: TBL or Triple Bottom Line is also known as 3BL is associated with three main parts- Social, Environmental and Financial. A few organizations have adoptee the TBL framework to discuss the work and the performance in a broad way to increase the business value system. In traditional business, the bottom line refers to be either profit or loss of the company. From last 50 years the environmentalist is trying to get the justice with the help of social justice advocates to make a broader definition of the bottom line into public consciousness (Ahi and Searcy, 2015). The concept of TBL meets the demands that a company’s responsibility is to stay with stakeholders, not with the shareholders. The triple Bottom line has consisted of social equity, economic and environmental factor. The phrase 3P or People, Planet and profit describes the triple bottom line and the goal of sustainable development.

Sustainable development is the idea that refers to the system makes the process of development and make sure that the environment is not getting harmed. There are four basic steps need to be followed while working on the idea of sustainable development (TILT, Unerman and RINALDI, 2014). These are:

Environmental: The concept of sustainable development works in the ecology or on the environment where we reside. The basic idea comprises the basic elements of nature- water, air, and soil; these should not get harmed in any respect. It also includes the human ecology took the ethics to govern humanity and are of primary importance. Sustainable agriculture also plays an important role and an important element to be included in the sustainable development. It refers to the indulging of environmental practices like mixed farming, agro-forestry, multiple cropping, etc

Political: To make the indicator of sustainable development, the idea of politics comes into the play, which is affecting the practice of public policy making. The scientific reasons make the aid o measuring the efficiency of the policies of the public by developing metrics for the sustainable development.

Economical: To provide better facilities for human beings, new ideas were being introduced to take care of nature economically and efficiently. Actually, the ecological factors are affecting directly over humans and on the society, which makes the retardation of the growth. The factors that responsible according to ecological aspects and needed to be added to the factors of sustainable development are:

1. Environmental economics
2. Manufacturing
3. Technology
4. Energy
5. Transport
6. Business
7. Income
8. Architecture

Importance of TBL over the traditional Economic bottom line:
Economic variables deal with the bottom line along with the flow of money. It may affect the expenditures, taxes, business diversity factors. Few categories, which may get affected after the changes in the economic bottom line, are:

Economic: The economic credentials are counted based on managed and calculated tax; it is totally abiding by the government rules. It is calculated based on the total amount of tax and services to be paid to the government of any country in a financial year. The amount of taxes reflects the aspects of sustainable development socially.

Environmental: The environmental aspects are made according to the sustainable development and are calculated by collecting the data on the natural resources and according to the pattern of usage. According to the reports, the number of resources being taken for the project purpose is being counted on the sustainable development and it is being reported that the officials are taking the report of the resources being wasted or the resources being used in the development by the constructor.

Social: The social aspects of the lifestyle are to be a part of the social community. By analyzing the social conditions of the country it can be calculated and to make some determination on the small scale of a community. The basic structure that affects the social conditions are the indexes of salaries, welfare, it also includes the data and conclusions. The social development is totally dependent on the basis of skilled jobs and also for the authority to take care of the employees and ensure the work of policies is the same for all.

Food: Food is categorized as the most important aspect of the sustainable development and the factors that are considered as the security to maintain the community. In case the needs are insufficient, it may be considered as the situation of lack of food and security that’s an important parameter of famine.

Agriculture: The idea of sustainable development is indirectly dependent on the matter of agriculture, though agriculture is related to food. The practice of sustainable development, in this case, depends on the biodynamic farming or mixed farming or crop rotation processes; here sustainable development is used to decrease the use of chemicals and fertilizers on the crops to make more products.

Education: It refers to the skills and knowledge of the individuals. It is counted on the basis of the literate and illiterate people in a population of any country and also the main requirement is the basic elementary education of those peoples. It is also considered about the fact that any particularly skilled people or how many skills doe any person have that they are going to get more priority.

Arts: Arts are considered as an important idea of the sustainable development because it is directly related to it and also reflects the indexes of the major community. By practicing art, it is very easy to make the calculation of the restoration and a few stress management methods are done. In this art, there are different extra-curricular activities like playing music, painting, and many other creative manners which are very helpful.

Governmental: The aspects from the governmental offices are related to the policies that are made for the people. It includes the policies like that are beneficial for the people through the sustainable development. In the policies, there are few more benefits given for the people like Minimum wages policy to everyone, Right to education given to every child and Food Security for every people. The citizens are informed to follow the certain rules and are responsible for every mistake because all the money are coming from those taxes and protection of public property, the government will do all the necessary things but people had to follow the rules and regulations set by the government. The government will be responsible if any issues occurred during the implementation of these policies and any kind of violations made by anyone will be punished or it’s a punishable offense.

Strong and Weak Sustainability:Strong sustainability refers to the ‘human capital’ and ‘natural capital’; both are complementary but non-interchangeable whereas contracting the weak sustainability it is an idea within environmental economics which reflects the ‘human capital' but it can substitute or replicate ‘natural capital'. In case of weak sustainability, human capital incorporates those resources like infrastructure, labour and knowledge and the natural capital comprises of environmental assets like fossils fuels, biodiversity, and other ecosystem services. In very weak sustainability the stock of man-made capital and natural capital remains constant all time. Strong sustainability accepts the condition that there are certain conditions or functions which couldn't be duplicated by human or human-made capital.

The significance of TBL in Sustainable Development: After defining the TBL or Triple Bottom Line and the sustainable development in the above part, let’s now discuss the significance of TBL in the sustainable development (Chamberlain, 2017). The survey was designed to ensure adequate representation as well as the diverse type of jurisdiction. The ideas of the sustainable development and the principles of TBL are totally correlated to each other. To explain the relationship a few calculations are made by analyzing the level of sustainable development, which is practiced by organizations and also by the government globally (Calabrese, Costa, and Menichini, 2016).

The significance of TBL in Sustainable Construction:
Definition: Sustainable construction is aimed to meet the needs of the present days for housing with the help of sustainable development. It is done without comprising or changing the abilities of the future generation.

Discussion on SC using each bottom line:One can use sustainable construction by understanding the 3 P in the following way:

People: During the discussion of sustainable construction it is found that the need of contractor, manufacturer, and suppliers are solitary. Accordingly it will make some impact over those people who were affected by the environmental performances and their duties in such a way so it remains protected. Depending on the construction process makes the effect on those parts of lives and their surroundings too. But it is very important to keep in mind that the process of construction shouldn't harm the lives of those people. The local community is getting affected by the basic problem in a positive manner by hiring local labourers, contractors, designers as well as the shortage of products and suppliers in an adequate way. The people those are not involved in the construction due to a long time is taken to complete the construction getting affected indirectly. This can be reduced by improvising the transporting methods and the processes being done in the construction. The most important part of the construction is to keep the environment-friendly and safe for every person working on the construction site. The labourer’s safety is very much important and should be the first concern to look at.

Planet: To maintain the environment a good harmony is very important. Every step of the construction should be taken seriously and with great priority to protect every single environment close and visible. Construction should be planned from the beginning of the day next to the design and up to eventual completion. In the construction process, the waste reduction, water management, and recycling are the key points to be followed. In the matter of sustainable construction, the process is very important to e discussed in detail. It is suggested to use the environment-friendly products and to also to keep the financial part in mind so in every respect the construction get over and all the aspects must be followed.

Profit: In the case of sustainable construction, the company must be sure regarding the undertaking of the project and the profits should be ensured after following all the aspects of sustainable construction. The profit in sustainable construction is not limited and the project should be overall good for the development of the company as well as the globe in general.

Consideration of lifecycle approach: To get the whole picture it is very important to extend the thinking of the life cycle approach to take in all three parts of the sustainability. The three main parts are the i) environmental, ii) economic and iii) social. It means in this phase, the social issues, environmental and economic discussions to be done (Feng, 2013). This life cycle approach is preferred as the best technique to make the assessment and the potential environmental impacts of that product. It is a costly technique as all quality needs to be maintained in this project, for better alignment the researchers are researching for the better alignment of the process and to make it more perfect.

Good construction and SC: The main objective of the sustainable construction is to make the environment ecologically friendly by using harmless products to nature. To improve the construction process recycling plays an important role. Depending on the site of the construction, the profit can be obtained from the construction by providing maximum comfortable conditions in an efficient way. When designing the development of the construction, the factors to be analyzed like management of water, transportation or to promote the maximum savings on the energy of preservation of limited resources like coal, fossil fuels, etc. By using the right materials and by avoiding serious threats it can guarantee a healthy and comfortable the necessary criteria to attain the optimal comfort.

Sustainability Report
Sustainability report can be defined as a report of the organization or the company about the financial, ecological and the social impacts, which is caused on daily basis. It is also reported the present value and the governance model and exhibit the link between its plan and its assurance to a sustainable world economy (Gouchev et al., 2017).

Sustainability report can help the companies to measure social, environmental or their economic performance. After that the company set their goals so that they can manage the change more successfully. This Sustainability Development Assignment helps the organization to communicate their sustainability performance and its impact, which can be both negative and positive.

Introduction:Every year the company SD Construction publishes the sustainability report to make people understand how the company is working on the sustainability development. In this Sustainability report, SD construction will make the report according to the GRI (Global Reporting Initiative). This Sustainability Development Assignment will describe the work done by the company on the sustainability matters. This year the report will follow the current guidelines of the GRI. As the SD construction has signed the UN Global Compact, the sustainability report also helps the UN to see the improvement of the company on the ten principles of the UN global.

Besides that in the sustainability, the report of the company the annual report is also mentioned in the same report. Apart from that, more information is also available on the website of the company just visit www.SDconstructionworld.com.

Overview of the company: SD construction is one of the leading companies in the world. The field of expertise of the company is Construction as well as the civil engineering. The company is having more than 25000 employees across the globe. The company generates the revenue of 55 billion US Dollars. SD construction is a versatile company as it handles the small local projects as well as multi-dollar company projects. The head office of the company is in the Skane, Sweden. Moreover, the company has many offices around the world. The company has 40000 shareholders, also the company is having 15% female employees.

Figure: Organizational Overview

Strategies and Analysis:
The company will adopt the competitive strategy. The company will aim for the market in which many people need to build the houses. Therefore, the company will aim to provide high-quality houses for their clients at a reasonable price. To achieve that amount of quality the company needs up to date machinery for their construction activities. The company does everything based on the core values and the vision of the company. SD construction operates their business in a developing and reliable manner. Sustainability is the very much vital issue for the SD construction as because the company is getting the competitiveness in the changing world and the world is affected by the urbanization and digitalization. Since the company has the sign, the UN Global impact the company has focused on the growth of the sustainability. The company has included it in every part of the operations. It has included in one of the six group strategies to develop the business, which is mentioned below:

1. An operation that is cost-effective
2. To develop the SD construction’s customer relations
3. To provide the best workplace
4. Long-standing profitable procedure
5. To put the Sustainability in the operations of SD Construction
6. Brand name should be seen and heard.

The company has divided the management into three parts, who looks for the safety, quality and the environment. All the three management has certified by the ISO and their guidelines. The company concentrates on the development and it offers the best workplace in the industries that provide the safety among the employees. To achieve this it requires systematic working to strengthen the safety culture of the company. The company also plans to offer the most satisfied customer base as well as it will make a profit among them. The company always do surveys to get the correct feedback from the customers. SD construction plans to cut the prices of the operation to get more profit and to sustain the business. The company also work in the ethics, against the corruption, this will help the company to build the relationship of confidence, and it will prevent the brand damage as well as it will save the companies environment.

The company’s operations are influenced by and influence other parties too. It is important for the company to find the challenges that can affect the company, society, employees, and the customers. To understand the expectation of the stakeholder the company organizes the get together with the stakeholders. The meeting focused on how the stakeholders can come up with the company to contribute to a sustainable society.

“The CEO of SD Construction said that the company is getting a strong housing market conditions in Sweden as well as the world. As many countries are focusing on the house building for their citizens. It shows the company will get the new projects and the company will get the opportunities in the future. This will make the stable market for the company. The financial position of the company is getting stronger day by day”.

Organizational profile:
History of company:As per the documents of the company, SD Construction has been established in 1988 that means it has been 30 years since the company has started its operation. By then the company has overtaken many big names in the same field. Moreover, the company is capturing a huge market under its belt, and now become one of the biggest names in the construction business. One of the biggest achievements of the company is that it is able to hold their employees for a longer period.

Operational Structure: The CEO who is at the top of the management operates the company; under him, there are many employees or managers, which operates their individual department. there is a separate department for the BAC that is Business area construction, civil engineering and for the business area for project development.

Figure: Operational hierarchy

The scale of organization: After its launch, the company has increased its brand name, as well as the company, is getting many projects. Since then the company has around 4000 projects including the designing modelling as well as the construction that is a huge amount. The company has generated around 55 billion in revenue and it has around 25000 employees all over the world. The company has made many trusted clients in Sweden as well as in the world. The company also got the appreciation from the Swedish government for their work.

The range of the Products: SD constructions deliver the various ranges of projects and services for their clients. The company provides designing and modelling of the building as well as the construction. The clients of the company are from many backgrounds like aviation, education community as well as the commercial sector. As the company has many offices around the world, it is easy for them to take any proposal from any countries. SD construction offers various services and support to the customers.

Reporting Parameters of SD construction:

Table: Reporting Parameters of SD Construction

Governance, commitments, and Engagement:The company follows the rules and regulation of the country. The company needs to follow those rules, as it will affect the company business if they do not follow. They are also maintaining the internal and the external environment where they are operating their business. Besides that, it can be seen that the company also follows two more governance that is corporate governance. In the corporate governance system the owner, make the decision of the company whether it is directly or indirectly, as well as the company is having a set of rules and regulations or policies that the BOD or the executive administration decides it. Apart from that, the companies should follow the external laws and regulation such as the company Act.

Figure: Corporate governance in SD construction

The company is currently engaged in many governments as well as some private projects, which show the positive relationship with its clients, apart from that the company also commits in the social welfare by providing educations for the young people as well as the making community building for the locals. In SD construction, the company holds an annual general meeting for the stakeholder s where they choose the correct decision by voting. The shareholder asks a question about the projects as well as they give their opinion regarding the business.

Management approach: In the company management team, is one of the important part of the company. The management team carries out all the important decision and the activities. In SD the management, the team does construction activities like the construction as well as the maintenance of the sustainability work. In the management team, there are the board of directors as well as the team of management who design and construct the plan of the company. SD Construction management approach or we can say the goal of the company is to do the work in the budget and to do in the provided time. Any project is done in the same way to ensure a huge amount of profit. For that, the company provides the training to the employees.

General challenges in using the Triple bottom line for sustainable development
Sustainability is considered the goals of the company. John Elkington is the founder of the theory of Triple Bottom line as John wanted to know about the performance of the American corporate business in the mid of 1900s. He designs the accounting framework called Triple Bottom Line (TBL). The TBL does not even calculate the profits and the return on investment it also calculates the environmental and the social dimensions.

TBL is an accounting framework that includes three proportions of performance. That is social, environmental and the financial. The Triple bottom line also includes the 3P’s that is people, planet and profits.

There are few general challenges while using the triple bottom line in the sustainability development. First will be the measurement of the TBL:

TBL can be complex while measuring. The company measures only the intangible assets such as loyalty or status can be unclear, and it challenges to connect changes in these areas to split actions in the short term (Sridhar, 2012). the management should take several choices to make constantly, again and again in order to expand their measurement and reporting system.

Social Measurement: The first limitation, which the TBL faces is the social measurement, before understanding the limitation in details the beginning of the Global Reporting Initiative and its guidelines need to be discussed to understand the framework to reveal this restriction. GRI is the largest and broadly accepted structure for reporting the corporate sustainability. The GRI has its own guidelines of G3. These guidelines can be applied to the organizations of different size and different locations (Saleh and Alalouch, 2015). TBL does not allow to prioritizing the requirements among the different stakeholders. TBL does not even provide any formula or any methods in its framework that can combine across TBL principles. Moreover, there is no quantitative outline that is combined or provides across the legs of TBL. The approach of TBL incorporate in terms of reporting has increased the questions as well as the confusing in revenue maximization.

Lack of integration: The TBL approach does not address all the concerns, which is articulated by the peoples who the beneficiaries are of calculated and project-level responsibility. These concerns hardly ever fit into the economic or in the social categories (Yusof, 2018).

Challenges and opportunities in SC: Sustainable construction is the division of the construction industry. Green construction and eco-friendly ethics are combined together to make a healthy environment. The key principles of SC are as follows:

• Increasing reuse of resources
• Reducing Resource usage
• Using recyclable and renewable assets
• Securing Nature
• Creating Healthy and safe environment
• Creating quality in constructions

SC considers three major aspects namely social, environmental and economic issues. The most important factor is an economic issue which includes reducing maintenance or operating costs, creating jobs, increasing production and competition (Park and Chertow, 2014). The environmental issue deals with the construction, deconstruction, design, and operation or maintenance those impacts on ecosystem such as water resources, lands, waste discharges, air discharge and many others. The social issue deals with the improvement of life values.There are several challenges in SC, such as:

Corporate Sustainability: Companies cannot avoid their environmental responsibility. However, in order to increase production as per demand, often they violate some policies (Ioannou and Serafeim, 2017).

For constructing the new building and increasing the living area, so many natural resources are harmed on daily basis. Contractors, manufacturers, suppliers – all of them are somehow impacting the environment (by destroying trees to make construction structures).

Environment: To make a sustainable construction, the negative operational impacts must be minimized. It can be done by effective planning and designing the construction site.

In case of SD Construction, The proper drainage system, storing rainwater, reduction of waste, recycling the materials are some factors in creating a sustainable environment. Additionally, some specialist workers must work to make an effective SC (Keeler and Vaidya, 2016).

Society: It is important to make the building after considering both positive and negative impact in the society. Local workers and contractors must work to make a successful proactive structure. In addition, the transportation of raw materials should be carefully monitored. The material suppliers should be careful about noise pollution (Pacheco-Torgal 2014). All these factors can have an impact on the operations of SD Construction.

Choosing raw materials: The materials must be wisely selected for SC on purpose. These materials can involve:

• Fire resisting steel
• Steel made roofs and pipes
• Recyclable concrete and copper structure

Incident and accidents: An accident can happen in any part of the world. To minimize risks, effective risk analysis must be done. Safety guidelines and precautions must be followed in the construction site to keep the work site safe for the workers. Also, some incidents can happen intentionally or unintentionally which have severe effects on nature (Ogunbiyi, Goulding, and Oladapo, 2014).

Challenges and issues in reporting sustainability
Sustainability Reporting is intended which increases the public trust and efficiency and reduces the chances of risk. It also helps to increase the confidence of the stakeholders. There are several challenges and issues in reporting the sustainability (Holden, Linnerud, Banister, Schwanitz and Wierling, 2017)

Many companies such as SD Construction still face some challenges in sustainability initiatives because the management is not able to apply it in all of its construction and services. In the case of the SD Construction, it is hard not to spread pollution as the company is related to the construction and while making building it will spread pollution. This will take a lot of challenge on the association to meet the ecological criteria (Hussain, Rigoni and Orij, 2018). The company must think about other solutions to reduce the impact of the work. The company and its management must do some work or programs for the safety of environments. However, not all this work will improve their performance in the sustainability initiative, as the company has to work in building materials, which causes air pollution. The company has to face these least challenges and issues. These are some of the issues while reporting the sustainability (Mokhtar, Mahmood and Che Hassan, 2015).

Conclusion
Based on the Sustainability Development Assignment, one can understand the importance Triple Bottom Line strategy, Sustainable development, and Sustainable construction. The Sustainability Development Assignment also focuses on the GRI (Global Reporting Initiative). There are a number of companies that are working on the sustainable development. The organizations are getting success after doing work on the sustainable construction. The company has to implement reusable raw materials for construction. The planning must be effective so that the nearby environment could not get affected during or after construction. The company has to take some initiatives to reduce harmful materials used in construction purpose. The main purpose of this Sustainability Development Assignment is to make an eco-friendly construction with proper drainage systems and also should not pollute the air. So it is recommended by this Sustainability Development Assignment to use renewable resources for making a sustainable construction. Sustainability development assignments are being prepared by our experts from top universities which let us to provide you a reliable engineering assignment help service.

References
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