Management for Sustainability

Question: For most of the first 10 weeks of the session, students are required to maintain a Learning Journal in the Blog section of Interact. A total of 8 entries are required for Weeks 1-6 and Weeks 9 10 respectively. Requirements for each entry are included in the relevant Weekly Modules. Weekly entries should be no more than 250 words and address the issues specified in the modules. Additional marks are awarded for regular participation in discussion forums for the relevant topics in Interact, hence it is strongly recommended that students keep up with the topics on a weekly basis. Dropping behind will result in discussions being missed and marks being dropped. Answer: Week 10: Reflection about Video In this video, the author has outlined about the basic principles of marketing through critical assessment of the sustainable goods and services, explained about the marketing strategy and practices and finally described about the effective social marketing. Sustainable Marketing Strategy provides an insight to the global players that how they can develop their career in the field of global marketing management(Jones, Clarkeà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ Hill, Comfort, Hillier, 2008). All the important information embedded in the video has provided a view that how leaders can pursue about social and sustainable marketing strategies and can overcome the issues related to the global environment crisis as well as growing constraints of the products and services in the organization. The concerns of the leader surrounds only for the task that how to market the product according to the sustainable principles(Sharmaa, Iyerb, Mehrotrac, Krishnana, 2010). The thing that is commonly examined by the marketers is that sustainability constructs practices and theories existing in the international marketing management environment. It involves the climate change models, mitigation and adoption measures as well as developing skills used for the critical evaluation of the quantitative trends data and issues related to predictive modeling. It is good for the students and proud for the teaching team as they have used the views of well-known experts of the industry and renowned academics. Students will get the opportunity to take part in team building and leadership events during the tenth week programme(McDonagh, 1998). We were really pleased by the lecture of the teacher and mainly by the feedbacks and ideas provided by them. The video has provided an overview of differences and developments of the sustainability marketing. Based on the overview and perspectives of the marketing, it will be easier for the marketers to determine a broad view ab out the social, environmental and economic outcomes about sustainability marketing(Mitchell Wooliscroft, 2010). Week 12: Case Study Background Environmental Changes have been undertaken at the vehicle plant situated in UK. This organization is the part of larger multinational automotive manufacturing company. Change Drivers On the global level, the organizations are committed for the sustainability of the environment. They were mainly aimed to continue with their manufacturing facilities with minimal negative impacts on the environment. In accordance with their long term vision, they were holding an environmental pledge that is to minimize the environmental impacts of the manufacturing and vehicles. For making such achievements, the environmental policies of the organization were focused on the elimination of the pollution. The process is continually striving to achieve such objectives based on 5R's: Reduce (for example: reduction the use of natural resources such as water, electricity, gas etc.) Reuse (for example: 99.9% of the European Packages are re-used) Refine (for example: wherever possible, avoid the use of CFCs, water-based paints etc.) Recycle (for example: recycling of as much material as possible- plastics, water, paper, rubber, steel etc.) Retrieve Energy (for example: exhaust gases reheat other production processes). Organizational Initiatives to Increase Sustainability As the plant has aimed to foster the environment policies, a series of initiatives are introduced to engage the employees in environment friendly activities. It involves: Creation and implementation of different environmental programs which provides the opportunity to take part in varied environmental activities. Creation and opening of nature walk sites through making a balance between lakes and local wildlife trust. Introduction of annual event for making an open invitation to the families to spend a day and can carry down with some fun loving activities. Recycling of waste water. Installation of solar PVs in front of the plant. Introduction of some future projections such as harvesting the water, introduction of benefits to the employees such as insulation of solar panels. Staff engagement in Changes The vehicle plant highly prioritizes with staff engagement in the environmental activities through encouragement of employees. Presently, around 98% of employees were involved in the environmental programs which have been introduced last year. Out of total, 50% of employees have completed their second level program. Such initiatives has fostered the creativity of employees and made them more environments friendly. References Jones, P., Clarkeà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ Hill, C., Comfort, D., Hillier, D. (2008). Marketing and Sustainability. Marketing Intelligence Planning, 26(2), 123-130. McDonagh, P. (1998). Towards a theory of Sustainable Communication in Risk Society: Relating issues of sustainability to marketing communications. Journal of Marketing Management, 591-622. Mitchell, R. W., Wooliscroft, B. (2010). Sustainable Market Orientation: A New Approach to Managing Marketing Strategy. Journal of Macromarketing, 30(2), 160-170. Sharmaa, A., Iyerb, G. R., Mehrotrac, A., Krishnana, R. (2010). Sustainability and business-to-business marketing: A framework and implications. Industrial Marketing Management, 39(2), 330-341.