PROs and CONs of Sustainable Development: Which One Wins?
Sustainable Development (SD) is often seen as something that can be harmful for an organization at first sight. There are several reasons for this (
disadvantages of sustainable development).
1. Organizations that want to achieve SD are responsible not only for economic issues, but also toward society and the environment. In other words, organizations’ requirements increase by the additional social and environmental responsibilities. Many organizations find it difficult to deal with these additional requirements, at least on the short term.
2. Because privilege is being given to the society’s and stakeholders’ desires, the benefits to the direct shareholders decrease on the short term. As a result, such SD is seen as something that negatively affects an organization’s profits on the short term.
However, these threats in no way exceed the
advantages of sustainable development, or the disadvantages of not adopting SD, according to Nejati, Shahbudin and Amran (2010) :
1. First of all, not caring for SD and thus for society and stakeholders will negatively affect your organizational image/brand, even in the long run.
2. Besides, adopting SD brings considerable opportunities and advantages to organizations. These benefits can range from enhanced operational effectiveness, risk management and brand image to improved access to physical, human and intellectual capital.
For above reasons, adopting sustainability creates competitive advantages that positively affect organizations even in the long run.
Source, Nejati, M., Shahbudin, A.S.B.M and Amran, A.B. (2010) “Sustainable Development: A Competitive Advantage or a Threat” Business Strategy Series Vol. 11 Iss. 2 pp. 84-89
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