Assignment Sample on Strategic Management and Sustainability
Introduction
The report is focused on discussing the major challenges faced by the environment and people. The global challenges addressed in the literature review include poverty, climate change, water scarcity, increased pollution, inequality, and many more (Salvia et.al. 2019). Poverty is a major concern and it can be solved by implementing business innovation so they get proper food, water, and shelter to survive. Other than that, the emission of harmful gases and the way it affects the environment are also discussed. In this context, the challenges faced by people are also discussed in brief. Various opportunities that can be adopted to reduce these impacts are stated elaborately. In the last section of the literature, recommendations are also proposed to solve the issues.
Literature review
In today’s developing era, global challenges are rapidly increasing and it is essential to solving these issues. According to Global Challenges for the Next Decades, (2020) humanity is facing significant global challenges that are transitional in nature and it is mandatory to resolve these challenges by providing adequate solutions. It is impossible to predict the future as the global and financial crisis are rapidly enhancing and private sectors need to focus on that by using SDGs developed by members of the United Nations. The Sustainable Development Goals will help in achieving a better future while concerning the major issues such as extreme poverty, inequality, climate change, and injustice. Every organisation irrespective of its nature and size can adopt SDGs so it can reduce its environmental footprint and enhance sustainability.
Furthermore, UN Global Compact asks organisations to adopt operations to conduct business responsibly and then adopt opportunities to resolve the challenges faced by society and the planet using business innovations as per Pedersen, (2018). Global challenges- ranging from water scarcity, climate changes, food crises, increased poverty, and inequality can be addressed by business sectors by managing the market demand through business innovations. With the rising demands of people, the negative effects on the environment are also increasing to meet their requirements. Building a more sustainable global economy can help in re4ducing the impact of global challenges.
The first global challenge that needs to be solved is climate change and the operations performed by companies and the private sector contributes to it massively. On the other hand, various significant global challenges are also discussed in brief by addressing current practices, opportunities, and challenges below. It can be seen that frequent droughts, storms, heat waves, rising temperatures, and rising sea levels are affecting the lives of living beings negatively declared by Muff et.al. (2017). The private sector plays a crucial role in reducing the negative impacts of climate change by adopting various innovations and creativity.
Current practices
Many business sectors use plastic packaging that can affect the environment negatively. Plastic waste is found everywhere that is thrown by humans into landfills. There are numerous negative effects of plastic as it takes millions of years to decompose. Other than that, plastic is the major product responsible for fracking and it is very bad for the planet. Plastic waste is responsible for polluting water, soil, and air with chemical gases. During the decomposition process of plastics, it generates harmful gas that is responsible for increasing GHGs and that directly increases global warming as per Shen et.al. (2020). Global warming increases the temperature of the earth and contributes to increased heat waves. Plastics create underground cavities that merge sinkholes and responsible for raising the pressure in the rock formations. It also results in enhancing the earthquakes. Many organisations just throw plastics into landfills and use massive plastics for packaging purposes.
Another global challenge that can be analysed adequately is inequality in different private sectors. Gender inequality is the major concern that needs to resolve by organisations effectively so every individual can have access to fair and equal rights. For example, diverse organisations pay fewer wages to female workers as compared to male workers elaborated by Dashper, (2019). In Sub-Saharan Africa, females are meant to complete household works and they don’t have proper rights to get an education. It is a significant global challenge faced by many females in different regions. Other than that, inequality can be seen in the context of the livelihood of people. For example, individuals having a healthy lifestyle have access to more opportunities and poor people don’t even get proper food and shelter. Many business organisations hire people based on the lifestyle and status of people rather than their skills and talents.
Furthermore, the water crisis can be considered as another global challenge faced by many regions. Due to increased pollution and industrial waste natural resources of water are getting polluted and increasing the water scarcity in many places. For example, plastics, household, and industrial waste are released into natural water that affects the quality of pure water, and increases water pollution. It leads to resulting in making that water unfits for drinking so it is essential to take major actions against that. On the other hand, fast-fashion and many clothing industries are also responsible for the increased water crisis stated by Bick et.al. (2018). In preparing 1 Kg of the cotton huge amount of water is used and that leads to increased water scarcity in many regions such as India and China. The water used in textile dyeing is left into pure water and that makes it impure. These current practices in many industries and other sectors are responsible for the increased water crisis.
According to WHO, billions of people live in extreme poverty, about 10% of the world’s population survive in poverty. Poverty is also described as the significant global challenge faced by many regions in the entire world that needs to be addressed adequately. In the opinion of Vilar-Compte et.al. (2021) poor people don’t get proper access to water, food, and shelter. The proportion of inequality also rises due to poverty as people treat poor people unequally. For instance, poor people don’t have access to proper education and they are not able to feed their families properly. They don’t get proper employment and in many business organisations, people are getting a job based on their status of living. On the other hand, the global crisis such as Covid-19 has affected poor people significantly and many people in different regions were unemployed.
Concerning this, global health issues are also increasing and a major population of poor people lives in a crowded and unhygienic place those results in the spreading of communicable diseases at a faster rate as per Vuuren, (2021). In this context, SDGs are developed so business practices in the private sector can be improved, and adopting innovation help in solving such global challenges faced by the world.
Challenges
Based on the current practices and concerns it can be declared that there are various challenges faced by the world. The significant global challenge is to manage the climate changes so the environmental effects can be reduced. It can be seen that there is a rise in global temperature that is very harmful as it results in the melting of glaciers and increasing global warming. According to Balatsky, (2019) the business practice that gives rise to this includes the emission of harmful gases from industries and the release of chemical gases such as methane, carbon dioxide, and many more. Another biggest challenge is the release of waste into water that pollutes water and air both. Many clothing industries release their leftover dyed water into natural resources that pollute the water and make it unfit for drinking. It is the reason for increasing water scarcity in many regions such as China, India, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Furthermore, poor people don’t get proper water for drinking and this affects their health. It is directly concerned with the issues that raise the likelihood of poor people getting affected by the major disease as per Loundenback, (2016). Other than that, religious and gender inequality is also a global challenge that can be solved by using SDGs adequately. Many business organisations assign different rights and treat poor and rich people unequally. After that, poverty is the major global challenge that needs to be solved as it can resolve the issues of inequality to a great extent as well.
Opportunities
It is worth reminding about diverse sustainable development goals that can help in reducing the effects of global challenges faced by the entire world. SDG 6 is developed for ensuring the sustainable management and availability of water and sanitation for all. The organisation can adopt various practices so they can reduce the misuse of water and the water crisis can be decreased. According to Global challenges and opportunities for the private sector, (2017) it has been seen that about 780 million people don’t have access to drinking water, about 2.5 billion people live in poor sanitation are and around 6.8 million people suffer from water-prone diseases. It is the responsibility of the government and private sectors to reduce the improper use of water so the major population of the world can get access to safe water as per Gude, (2017). For instance, industrial wastewater is not released into natural resources of water. They can reuse that water so the water pollution can be decreased.
Furthermore, SDG 10 is focused on reducing the inequality faced by different individuals. The private sector must follow this SDG and allow every employee to enhance their talent irrespective of their caste, sex, religion. They must provide them with adequate training and development programs so every employee can perform their task with high efficiency. Other than that, employers must provide equal salaries to male and female workers so they can have access to equal rights
Figure 3: Sustainable development goals.
(Source: Sustainable Development Goals, 2020)
Another opportunity is to reduce the poverty so the global challenges can be reduced. SDG 1 aims at reducing the poverty or constructing a world with no poverty. Private organisations can involve in social programs to solve this issue and it can affect their profitability as well. They can provide proper water, food, and infrastructure facilities to some slum areas so societal development can be enhanced elaborated by World Bank Group, (2018). They must develop their business models in such a manner that their profit share goes for the development of poor people. Poor people can be offered proper education so they can get employment and feed their families adequately.
Moreover, business innovations can help in reducing the climate change effects that are done by many private sectors. Companies have the opportunity to use paper packaging instead of plastic packaging so the use of plastics can be reduced as per Degnan and Shinde, (2019). Other than that, they can reuse and recycle plastic waste instead of throwing them into landfills. Proper healthcare facilities must be provided to poor regions so the fast-spreading of communicable diseases can be stopped to some extent. Proper business innovation and creativity can reduce these global challenges to some extent if private sectors adopt SDGs and follow them effectively. They need to develop programs to guide every individual about gender inequality and religious inequality so every people can get proper rights as per Global challenges and opportunities for the private sector, (2017). In Sub-Saharan Africa, gender inequality can be reduced if people get proper education about equal rights. In this way, there are numerous opportunities to solve the global crisis and enhance profitability.
Conclusion and recommendations
It has been concluded that business growth and innovations can help in reducing the global challenges faced by the world. The UN Global combat has also developed SDGs that can be helpful in resolving such concerns effectively. Poverty can be reduced by providing them proper education, food, shelter and water.
It has been recommended that government and private sector can organise various social programs to face such challenges. Other than that, water scarcity can be reduced if the pollutes water is reused and recycled by using innovative technologies. The companies can reuse the polluted water so every region can get proper drinking water. At last, reducing the use of plastic and emitting harmful gases properly can help in reducing the climate change
References
Books and Journals
Balatsky, E.V., 2019. Global challenges of the fourth industrial revolution. Terra Economicus, 17(2), pp.6-22.
Bick, R., Halsey, E. and Ekenga, C.C., 2018. The global environmental injustice of fast fashion. Environmental Health, 17(1), pp.1-4.
Dashper, K., 2019. Challenging the gendered rhetoric of success? The limitations of women‐only mentoring for tackling gender inequality in the workplace. Gender, Work & Organization, 26(4), pp.541-557.
Degnan, T. and Shinde, S.L., 2019. Waste-plastic processing provides global challenges and opportunities. MRS Bulletin, 44(6), pp.436-437.
Muff, K., Kapalka, A. and Dyllick, T., 2017. The Gap Frame-Translating the SDGs into relevant national grand challenges for strategic business opportunities. The International Journal of Management Education, 15(2), pp.363-383.
Pedersen, C.S., 2018. The UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) are a great gift to business!. Procedia Cirp, 69, pp.21-24.
Salvia, A.L., Leal Filho, W., Brandli, L.L. and Griebeler, J.S., 2019. Assessing research trends related to Sustainable Development Goals: Local and global issues. Journal of cleaner production, 208, pp.841-849.
Shen, M., Huang, W., Chen, M., Song, B., Zeng, G. and Zhang, Y., 2020. (Micro) plastic crisis: Un-ignorable contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Journal of Cleaner Production, 254, p.120138.
Vilar-Compte, M., Burrola-Méndez, S., Lozano-Marrufo, A., Ferré-Eguiluz, I., Flores, D., Gaitán-Rossi, P., Teruel, G. and Pérez-Escamilla, R., 2021. Urban poverty and nutrition challenges associated with accessibility to a healthy diet: a global systematic literature review. International journal for equity in health, 20(1), pp.1-19.
World Bank Group, 2018. Overcoming poverty and inequality in South Africa: An assessment of drivers, constraints and opportunities. World Bank.
Online
15 Global challenges. 2020. [Online]. Accessed through: <http://www.millennium-project.org/15-global-challenges/>
Global challenges and opportunities for the private sector. 2017. [Online]. Accessed through: <https://www.unops.org/news-and-stories/speeches/global-challenges-and-opportunities-for-the-private-sector>
Global Challenges for the Next Decades. 2020. [Online]. Accessed through: <https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/articles/15-global-challenges-for-the-next-decades/>
Loundenback. T. 2016. The 10 biggest problems in the world today. [Online]. Accessed through: <https://www.businessinsider.in/strategy/the-10-biggest-problems-in-the-world-today-according-to-millennials/articleshow/53831626.cms >
Senthilingam. M. 2016. Impacts of Climate change. [Online]. Accessed through: <https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/research/research-action/features/how-climate-change-affecting-your-health>
Sustainable Development Goals. 2020. [Online]. Accessed through: <https://www.sensors.cam.ac.uk/images/newsletter/2017/11_2017/global-challenges.jpeg/image_view_fullscreen>
Vuuren. J. 2021. Six critical global challenges. [Online]. Accessed through: <https://www.gviusa.com/blog/6-critical-global-issues-what-are-the-worlds-biggest-problems-and-how-i-can-help/>
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