Starbucks Study - 15613 Words

Starbucks - international business concept and Starbucks in Germany von: Peter Strehle Table of Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 Starbucks’ International strategies 3 2.1 Competitive Forces 3 2.2 Entry Strategies 7 2.3 Success factors 11 2.4 Problems of globalisation 12 3 Starbucks in Germany 14 3.1 German Coffee Market 14 3.1.1 Coffee Shop trend 14 3.1.2 Coffee - unquestioned front runner in the beverage consumption of the Germans 14 3.2 Starbucks’ Joint Venture with KarstadtQuelle AG 15 4 Conclusion 18 5 Appendix II 6 Table of References IX 1 Introduction Starbucks Corporation was founded in 1985 by Howard Schultz. The origins of Starbucks reach back to 1971, when the Starbucks†¦show more content†¦The majority of Starbucks’ sales were made with company-operated retail stores, but also 15% of the sales were made by specialty operations such as selling coffee beans to hotels and airlines or revenues from licensing agreements. Starbucks also has a joint venture with PepsiCo and an alliance with Dreyers Grand Ice Cream with whom they introduced the Frappuchino-line. In 1995, when the US market almost reached saturation, Starbucks Coffee International was forced to concentrate on international operations.The strategy to enter a foreign market was mainly joint venture, in some markets they also used licensing as entry strategy. In 1995 the first joint venture was formed with SAZABY INC. to enter the Japanese market. More Asianpacific countries and later European countries followed. Starbucks Mission Statement: Establish Sta rbucks as the premier purveyor of the finest coffee in the world while maintaining our uncompromising principles while we grow. The following six guiding principles will help us measure the appropriateness of our decisions: †¢Provide a great work environment and treat each other with respect and dignity. †¢Embrace diversity as an essential component in the way we do business. †¢Apply the highest standards of excellence to the purchasing, roasting and freshShow MoreRelatedStarbucks Case Study : Starbucks1148 Words   |  5 PagesStarbucks Case Study Throughout the United States and Asia, Starbucks is renounced for their expertly crafted coffee, so much so that an immensely large portion of the nation at least recognizes the logo and the name. This success to this day keeps producing higher returns for investors especially over this last third quarter of 2016. The third quarter had set many new records with Starbucks for both the American markets as well as the Asian markets causing a big boom for the company and sparkingRead MoreStarbucks Case Study : Starbucks904 Words   |  4 PagesSTARBUCKS CASE STUDY Starbucks was started by three former students of the university of San Francisco named Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl and Gordon Bowker. Their plan was to sell high quality coffee beans and roasting equipment but did not expect the success that their company would achieve in the future. The first Starbucks store was opened in March 30, 1971 in seattle, Washington. Their first store was located at 2000 Western Avenue and it sold roasted whole bean coffee till 1976. Soon they shiftedRead MoreStarbucks: A Case Study1718 Words   |  7 Pagesï » ¿ STARBUCKS A venti issue: blending together a solution to satisfy the needs of customers, new and old.† Customer satisfaction is a key component to any successful business, especially one in the coffee industry. Starbucks started as a small coffee shop in Seattle in 1971. Howard Schultz, the chairman and chief global strategist, joined the marketing team in 1982 with a vision—a vision to capture â€Å"the live coffee mantra.†[1] Until the early 2000s, before StarbucksRead MoreStarbucks Case Study794 Words   |  4 PagesStarbucks Case Study - What factors accounted for the extraordinary success of Starbucks in the early 1990s? Building a successful brand with multiple stores opening. Selling whole beans and premium priced coffee. They also new and understood their target market. Unlike many other coffee shops they sold the lifestyle around the coffee and made it an experience for their customers as apposed to it being just an addition to a donut in the morning. They made it a lifestyle choice and somethingRead MoreStarbucks Case Study948 Words   |  4 PagesCase Study: The Globalization of Starbucks From the famous green and white logo, to the coffee house style environment, Starbucks has built an empire located on every street corner. We also cannot forget the red cup debacle just this Christmas! Starbucks is a true icon in the world of coffee. Starbucks created a true lifestyle for the world that some small businesses can only dream of. Starbucks currently has more than 21,000 stores in over 65 countries and was founded in 1971. The originalRead MoreCase Study - Starbucks5149 Words   |  21 Pages|Case study | |[pic] | Content Executive summary ---------------------------------------------------------------------2 History of starbucks----------------------------------------------------------------------2 From little beans big things grew ------------Read MoreStarbucks Case Study5067 Words   |  21 PagesStarbucks Case Study [pic] Overview First Starbucks was a Private Company, from its inception in 1971, to it s initial public offering in 1992. We believe that there since the beginning, Starbucks strategy has been one of growth. They have demonstrated all dimensions of a growth strategy: Internationalization in expanding into new countries and the global market. It has shown concentration in being creative and relying on it s core competency of making high quality coffeeRead MoreStarbucks Case Study1455 Words   |  6 PagesIntroduction Since its 1992 IPO, Starbucks has continually focused on growth. Initially, the growth was targeted to enable Starbucks to achieve their goal of becoming the leading North American retailer of specialty coffee. The early success they achieved resulted in Starbucks expanding their original goal to that of becoming the most recognized and respected coffee brand in the world. By way of example, this case study focuses on a request by McDonalds to serve Starbucks coffee at its restaurantsRead MoreStarbucks Case Study1452 Words   |  6 PagesStarbucks Case Study 1 MKTG 220 September 18th, 2012 Table of Contents Case Review3 Determining the Root Problem4 Identifying the Problem Components4-5 Generating Alternatives5 Evaluating Alternatives6 Choose an Alternative7 Implementation Plan7 Alternative Choice8 Work Cited9 Case Review Starbucks is one of the leading coffee retailers in the world; according to their company profile they are operating nearly 18,000 retail stores in 60 countries. They serve millions of customersRead Morestarbucks case study951 Words   |  4 PagesCase study: Starbucks Evolution of the company Starbucks when established in 1971by three founding members; it was known as Starbucks Coffee, Tea and Spices. They were not selling beverages instead they sold coffee beans. By the next year itself they opened a second one in same Seattle, Washington. In early 1980 the management change took place while one of the founding members left Starbucks and Jerry Baldwin became a CEO. When Howard Schultz joined the company and took charge of marketing

Annotated Bibliography On Digital Libraries - 1822 Words

I. INTRODUCTION The rapid increase in the volume of digital libraries due to cell phones, web cameras and digital cameras etc, needs and expert system to have the effective retrieval of similar images for the given query image [1]. CBIR system is one of such experts systems that highly rely on appropriate extraction of features and similarity measures used for retrieval [10]. The area has gained wide range of attention from researchers to investigate various adopted methodologies, their drawbacks, research scope, etc [2-5, 14-18]. This domain became complex because of the diversification of the image contents and also made interesting. [10]. The recent development ensures the popularity of CBIR, since it has been applied in many real world applications such as life sciences, environmental and health care, digital libraries and social media such as facebook, youtube, etc. CBIR understands and analyzes the visual content of the images [20]. It represents an image using the renowned visual information such as color, texture, shape, etc [11, 12]. These are often referred as basic features of the image, which undergoes lot of variations according to the need and specifications of the image [7-9]. Since the image acquisition varies with respect to illumination, angle of acquisition, depth, etc, it is a challenging task to define a best limited set of features to describe the entire image library. Similarity measure is another processing stage that defines the performance ofShow MoreRelatedThe Current Mla Format And Guidelines1511 Words   |  7 PagesMrs. Pruitt’s Research Paper Guide Paper Requirements †¢ The length of the research paper must be no less than 1,500-words and no more than 2,500-words. The 2,500-word limit does not apply to notes or to the annotated bibliography. In-text citations are required. If your sources are not acknowledged, your paper will receive a zero and will be required to be rewritten for a lower grade because this is considered plagiarism. No more than five quotations are allowed in your paper. †¢ The researchRead MoreTop Three Trends in your profession and associated industry Annotated Bibliography1499 Words   |  6 Pagesï » ¿Briana Berry Week 4 February 16,2015 Top Three Trends in your profession and associated industry-Annotated Bibliography The top three trends in the Cyber Security field are salary, career advancement, and the need for predictions of the future in how information is exchanged. Cyber-crimes are becoming more popular and because of the many attacks that are happening much more frequently it has caused for a higher demand in cyber security professionals. Companies spend millions of dollars to correctRead MoreSample Bibliography : 20 Important Benefits Of Music1035 Words   |  5 PagesAnnotated Bibliography â€Å"20 Important Benefits of Music In Our Schools.† National Association for Music Education, 21 July 2014, www.nafme.org/20-important-benefits-of-music-in-our-schools/. This source is an online article from a credible source: The National Association for Music Education (NAFME). The actual author is unknown. This source presents twenty significant advantages of music in schools. The advantages presented are actual facts due to studies performed. This article is important to myRead MoreThe World Of International Studies1172 Words   |  5 Pagesprocess. Christopher Kinsey wrote an incredibly informative article on the fundamentals of Private Military and even touches on a few closely related issues, for example, nuclear regulation was diccues twice through the article. Georgia Southern s library website contain some very usful links and even some videos on techniques regarding how to add diversity in a research paper. One such tip was to find two different articles with completely opposite viewpoints and I believe the tactic to be very usefulRead MoreReflective Essay : Charter Oak State College Essay3135 Words   |  13 Pagesmy career, and life. O ver the last eight weeks and after more than one hundred hours, I have improved my knowledge and understanding of developing analytical essays, research papers, and reflective essays. I have included the following works in my digital portfolio:  · Week 1 Self-Reflective Essay  · Week 2 Critical Analysis Essay  · Research Paper  · Discussion – Arguments by Analogy  · Discussion – Research Strategy Summary  · Discussion - Stereotypes ReflectiveRead MoreWritten Defense For Webpage : The Constant Connection1211 Words   |  5 Pagesin their businesses.† Before I did any research, I started to fiddle around with the visual aesthetic of the web page. My web page developer was Wix and they provided me with many free images that were directed towards the theme of business and digital technology. My outlook when making decisions was how do I make my audience feel that this web page will not deceive them? How do I create a professional and comfortable ambiance for my audience? 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References 10 PART A Introduction With era of globalizationRead MoreHenry Ford : The World s Most Influential Leader1659 Words   |  7 Pagespurchase their own Model T. By the end of the decade, the Model T truly became the most massive automobile in American and what Ford has envisioned. ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY PRIMARY SOURCES MY LIFE AND WORK. AMERICAN DECADES PRIMARY SOURCES. ED. CYNTHIA ROSE. VOL. 3: 1920-1929. DETROIT: GALE, 2004. 560-562. GALE VIRTUAL REFERENCE LIBRARY. WEB. 19 JAN. 2015. THIS SOURCE IS AN INTERVIEW WITH HENRY FORD HIMSELF. THIS SOURCE CAN CONTRIBUTE TO THE THE INTRODUCTION BECAUSE IT INCLUDES HOW HE STARTEDRead MoreUses and Abuses of Biochip Technology1704 Words   |  7 Pageschip that serves to retain information. Although technology guarantees many perks, it also bears an immense burden of responsibility. It is important to evaluate the potential abuses of technology that parallel the potential uses. Annotated Bibliography Caruso, Jeff. Biometrics benefits, challenges aired. Network World 21.44 (2004): 17. ProQuest Direct. Manhattanville Coll. Lib., Purchase, NY. 8, Dec. 2004. http://proquest.umi.com . Jeff Caruso writes for a weekly trade journal

Shakespeare’s Audience Research Synthesis Free Essays

The uneducated lower class audience was interested in the violence Shakespeare’s plays consisted of. The Elizabethan era’s culture was violent and cruel. For example, if an individual did not enjoy plays, they could witness a â€Å". We will write a custom essay sample on Shakespeare’s Audience: Research Synthesis or any similar topic only for you Order Now public execution by hanging, beheading, or any number of gruesome ways. † (Wave ; Davis, 109). To keep his violent audience entertained and engaged in his plays, Shakespeare had to include an ample amount of violence throughout them. Sometimes, audience members would become fatigued. To really excite and give them a rush to awaken his audience members, he would spontaneously throw in ction scenes right after, or in the middle of a tragic, or comedic event. One example can be found in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Not too long after Romeo and Juliet are married, a fight occurs, and after Romeo heard Tybalt has killed his beloved friend, Mercutio, he tells Benvolio â€Å"†¦ La] fire-eyed fury be my conduct now!†¦. for Mercutio’s soul! â€Å"(Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare). Romeo, who had remained calm throughout Tybalt and Mercutio’s dispute, later kills Tybalt to avenge Mercutio. Directly after their marriage, a calm and Joyous scene, Shakespeare has an abrupt ction scene imputed to thrill his audience. Although the lower class enjoyed a good comedy, they also went to the theater to watch the newest foray into suicide, debauchery, and murder. Once again in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, he has a thought out plan that seems well, transform into a violent and disastrous one. After Juliet sees her lover has killed himself, she is left alone by Friar, while she is awaiting Friar, she becomes frightened by the watchman entering the tomb and says â€Å"O happy dagger! This is thy sheath; there rust and let me die. â€Å"(Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare). She was fearful of the watchman seeing she was still alive, and in turn committed suicide. Shakespeare mislead his audience through a bloody, twist ending, which was exactly what they would have enjoyed watching. The lower class members of Shakespeare’s audience enjoyed his anatomical humor. He wanted his audience members to have sterling Junctures while watching his plays, so he included an abundance of sexual innuendos. Shakespeare was at times too â€Å"bawdy, sometimes vulgar, many times pushing the bounds of good taste. † (Cork Milner). Shakespeare at some points was abrupt and too direct with ome of his Jokes, but audience members still enjoyed them. Shakespeare is known for his masterful way with words. Some say he was clever at playing around with them. One area where he used this talent is when he inserted sexual innuendos into and find that the clever wit of his sexual innuendo not only has comic significance, but is used to develop character, themes, and plot as well. â€Å"( transmedialshakespeare. ordpress. com). While using sexual innuendos to appeal to the lower class, Shakespeare was also using them to mold parts of his plays, which is why people often refer to him as one of the greatest play writes of all ime. He used every bit of his plays to his advantage, and through the use of sexual innuendos, he was able to mold parts his plays, while still entertaining his audience. Sha kespeare knew how to give his audience members individually what they came for because â€Å"Shakespeare realized sexual Jokes, especially double entendres, put the twinkle in the performance,† Oohn Basil). He used his specialty of wordplay to conjure clever sexual innuendos and naughty puns throughout his plays. William Shakespeare’s educated spectators were allured by his use of mythological allusions. Only the upper class was able to afford an education and were able to understand all of the â€Å"references from Greek Roman mythology in his plays†¦ they are an identifier with ancient tales, and also tie in stories most of the populace was familiar with†(wcuenglish. net). Shakespeare’s use of Theseus as the Duke of Athens and Hippolyta as his queen immediately allows the educated audience to make a mythological connection in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. As the audience identified one character from Greek mythology, they then naturally associated the other characters with this mythology if they were a member of the pper class and had an education. For example, two other characters, Oberon and Titania, could be compared with their mythological traits to be viewed similar to Zeus and Hera. His audience could make connections and know when that when Theseus says â€Å"Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour Draws on apace† (A Midsummer Night’s Dream Shakespeare) that the story was a mythological allusion of Theseus and could recognize his Amazonian queen Hippolyta, and understand the specific myth being drawn. Another example that the upper class would be able to point out would be Puck relating to Eros, the Greek god of sexual love and beauty. The love Juice that Puck places over characters’ eyes to make them fall in love with the first thing they see after waking is equivalent to Eros’ golden arrows, having the same effect. The audience could correlate these distinct characters due to their connection to Theseus. Shakespeare more directly compares the two characters when Oberon says â€Å"Flower of this purple dye†¦ Hit with Cupid’s archery†¦ Sin in apple of his eye† (A Midsummer Night’s Dream Shakespeare). Lastly, Shakespeare appealed to the upper class through clever wordplay. Shakespeare was an ingenious man, an ample amount of these puns are in all of his plays and â€Å"Like most Elizabethans, Shakespeare loved puns†¦ the average per play was around eighty. Many of Shakespeare’s original puns depended on words that were spelled different, but sounded alike† (Wave Davis, 54). Shakespeare’s brilliant word play could only be enjoyed by the upper class, because of their education; they were able to understand the multiple meanings of some of the words. Enjoying the genius and humor in Shakespeare’s work of clever word play, was something the ower class was sadly not privileged with. One example of the clever word play Romeo that â€Å"tomorrow you shall find me a grave man. â€Å"(Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare). In this Shakespeare meant grave as Mercutio being serious, but here it also alludes to his imminent death, aimed towards his educated audience members who would be able to infer this. Shakespeare’s clever word play required a trained ear to be able to fully understand all of what Shakespeare intended to get across. For instance when Mercutio says â€Å"Sure wit, follow me this Jest now till thou ast worn out thy pump, that, when the single sole of it is worn, the Jest may remain, after the wearing, solely singular. † (Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare). This one is a double pun. One meaning is that the sole of the shoe, the pump they are talking about, is single, which is to say, it has only one layer of leather. Shakespeare puns the sole of a shoe with â€Å"solely† trying to say only, exclusively and puns the word single with â€Å"singular† meaning one of a kind, unique and says that his Joke is exclusively unique, or solely singular. Shakespeare knew only the educated would be able to atch his double meaning wordplay and perhaps, he would also test them on how much they would receive from his word play. William Shakespeare tried captivating his audience while they watched his plays, but certain aspects included in they were specifically aimed for different classes. He used mythological allusions and clever word play for the upper and the violence and sexual innuendos were meant for lower uneducated class audience. Shakespeare was an ingenious play write and knew what his audience members were entertained by and he knew exactly how to appeal to their tastes of theatre. How to cite Shakespeare’s Audience: Research Synthesis, Essays

Hip Hop Dance free essay sample

What’s your favorite dance style? For me, I love to dance! It is my favorite thing to do. Hip-Hop dance is the most I like. If you can do the moves in hip hop, you will be more flexible for those other kind of dance such as ballet. It is a lot of fun, and you can look â€Å"bad† and scare people away by dancing. There are various other popular dance styles used with hip-hop dance, which include breaking, popping and locking. Breaking is a kind of street dance. It is also dances by people who are part of the hip hop culture. Breaking is more for a male type of dance style. This type of dance is battles between groups. Breaking use different body movements, spins, arm movement leg movement, and all of which are done to the rhythm of hip hop music. The musical selection for breaking is from different songs which are looped and then chained together by the DJ. We will write a custom essay sample on Hip Hop Dance or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page I’ve been teaching myself to dance only by watching other dancer or dance movies. For instance, Step Up 3D is a hip hop movie, features breaking as the main type of dance performed. Breaking is my favorite because it is just amusing: it is hard ,but it is also fun and awesome! Popping is another type of hip hop dance. When it is use as a hip hop dance style, popping is usually perform in a battle, where participants try to outperform each other in front of a crowd. It is often assumed that popping is a style of breakdance. It is based on the technique of hitting, which means to quickly contract and relax muscles to create a jerk in a dancer’s body. Popping can be concentrated to the specific body part such as arm pops, leg pops, chest pops and neck pops. Normally, popping is commonly danced to fuck music and also disco, but nowadays it is also to see popping danced to more current music such as modern hip hop music and many forms of electronic dance music. I used to have a dance group with my best friends for a while when I was 15. We performed with the other four groups in the final five. Although we were in the top five, unfortunately we lost in round two. I still remember, how mad we felt after that performance. The other one is locking. Locking also becomes part of growing hip hop dance culture, and has influenced styles such as popping, B-boying etc . Locking is still quite popular. Locking may be done in solo or in unison with two or more dancers doing steps or handshakes together. A locker may smile while performing the dance. Other important stylistic features are waving of arms, pointing, walking stationary and grabbing and rotating the cap or hat. Locking is originally dance to traditional funk music. I had tried to dance locking twice then I gave up because there are a lot of fast moves that I could not do. Above all, hip hop dances are famous all around the world. Especially for young people, when they do the hip hop dance it is seen upon as cool. To me ,all the dances are amazing! Some tell stories; some show who you are; some make you a different person, and take you to different places. It’s even therapy, but in the end, they’re all amazing with different styles.

Nurture and Human Development

Do The Criticized Deserve The Personal Attacks of The Criticizer †Ethics Essay

Do The Criticized Deserve The Personal Attacks of The Criticizer – Ethics Essay Free Online Research Papers Do The Criticized Deserve The Personal Attacks of The Criticizer Ethics Essay In front of their faces, most of us act civilly to the people in our lives. Yet all of us have criticized some of them behind their backs. I too, have done this in the past. However, now that I am older, my experiences with my family, friends and even acquaintances have led me to become repulsed with the whole notion of criticizing people behind their backs. Keep in mind that I am not talking about war criminals and murderers; I am talking ordinary people whom we encounter on a daily basis in our lives, like the school bus driver or the cashier at the supermarket. In almost all the situations which I have witnessed I find the criticizer to be unjust in one or more of three ways. Firstly, if the attacks are personal in nature, it has been my experience that the criticized never deserve the personal attacks of the criticizer. In almost every instance, the victims’ characters are abused base on one of their minor flaws or annoying habits. From the time when I was young, I was taught to hate the sin, not the sinner. (As simple and logical as that is, I find that very few people follow this rule.) Everyone has many different sides, and it is unfair to judge someone based on just one act or one aspect of their personality. Besides this tendency to transfer abhorrence of the act to the person, I have found that a lot of the criticizers often act out the very crimes they condemn. My parents, for example, always verbally abuse with great relish drivers who make a rather dangerous move, yet I have seen them drive in a similar manner themselves on several occasions when they were in a hurry. This hypocritical behaviour is not limited to my parents. When circumstances prescribe it, many of my friends and acquaintances have done the deeds which they denounce when another acts it. If the attacks don’t fit into either of the two situations above, I still find a problem with people criticizing each other behind their victims’ backs. More often than not, I see the criticizers to act perfectly pleasant when their victim is doing the very act which bothers them. Why don’t they try to eliminate that which is bothering them by honestly explaining how they feel to their faces? That is because most people don’t like to deal with the consequences of their actions. Rather than pointing out the mistake to their victims’ faces so that they may correct the situation, people prefer to avoid the confrontation that will invariably follow and to hurt their victims in a way that leaves no messy business for themselves to deal with. They put people down, feel good about themselves, and the only thing that lasts is the tarnish upon their victim’s reputation. Granted there are exceptions to this rule. There are certainly people who criticize the behaviours of other people only after countless fruitless confrontations. The extreme rarity of it in my experiences, however, has done nothing to change my disgust in the act. Despite my heated comments, I don’t hate these criticizers. This only one side of them, and I have seen enough of their good qualities to know that they are decent people. Besides harming the reputation of their victims, however, I feel that in doing these acts they also harm themselves. They have wrongly convinced themselves that certain people are annoying and irritating. Unless they break out of this mindset, they will forever be under that illusion and be deprived of the company and things that their victims can teach them. Expand, ENDING -metaphor Negative division, if our words don’t build people, keep your backseat comments in the backseat. I have seen the people around me, my family, friends, acquaintances and even fictional characters, in the roles of the criticizer and criticized, and my descriptions hold true in almost all of these cases. If the attacks were ad hominem, it has been my experience that the criticized never deserve the personal attacks of the criticizer. If the attacks were ad rem, I find that in a lot of cases, the criticizers do the very act they condemn when the circumstance prescribes it. Even if this isn’t the case, and the act is something which they would never, ever do, I find it unfair that the criticizers blacken the person’s name behind their backs rather than attempt to correct their behaviour by criticizing them to their faces. Besides these immediate victims, these constant unjustified criticisms can certainly lower one’s view on humanity, as they never think back and analyse, I shouldn’t have thought and said these things. They’d just think, people are al jerks. Some might call it making excuses for lowlife. I call it a logical method that helps you love your fellow man, which is what we are called to do. Research Papers on Do The Criticized Deserve The Personal Attacks of The Criticizer - Ethics EssayCapital PunishmentComparison: Letter from Birmingham and CritoMoral and Ethical Issues in Hiring New EmployeesHonest Iagos Truth through DeceptionHip-Hop is ArtHarry Potter and the Deathly Hallows EssayStandardized TestingUnreasonable Searches and SeizuresPersonal Experience with Teen PregnancyTwilight of the UAW

U.S. governments generic drugs policy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

U.S. governments generic drugs policy - Essay Example This study is concerned with prevention of erosion of the viability of Pharmaceutical Companies and ways in which these companies will re-invent themselves to stand out against the crisis in addition to what economic forces will influence their ultimate survival.This proposal seeks to study the impact of price control on generics medicines on the pharmaceutical companies of the U.S. and how they should face the challenges to survive the impact. This proposal sets the outline for studying the impact of the U.S. Government's generic drugs policy, how it affects the pharmaceutical industry and how the companies should address the situation in order to stay competitive and continue to meet the dynamic and ever growing health care needs. The situation is alarming as many drugs will go off-patent with the result, the pioneering pharmaceutical companies will be pitted against the rest of the world in surviving the competition from generic drugs market unless they continue to innovate and in vent newer drugs for existing and new diseases. This study will identify the interplay of economic theories that underpin the survival of pharmaceutical industry in the wake of increased competition in generics market.World pharmaceutical sales are estimated to grow by 5 -6 % in 2008 as opposed to 6 -7 % growth in 2007... d in the increase of use of low cost generics, accelerated payer pressure, limited access to some therapies and increased safety measures that lead to the slowing down and stopping of introduction of new drugs. On the other hand, the emerging markets called "pharmerging" markets of China, India, Brazil, Mexico, South Korea, Turkey and Russia are expected to register an increase of 12-13% in consumption of drugs due to greater access to generic drugs, improvement in primary care and increased interest to take private health insurance. In the U.S, there will be soon the end of Medicare Part D rhetoric as a result of pressures on price increase, patent expiries and increased safety measures taken by the FDA. The forecast says that the shift will be in terms of absolute growth in cancer drugs, anti-diabetic drugs, angiotensin II antagonists, respiratory drugs and psychiatric drugs. In Diabetics treatment alone 9%-10% growth is expected (IMS Health Incorporated 2008) Pharmaceutical companies are watched out to check on profit generation. The UK government, for instance, under its PPRS allows the companies to set their prices but keep their earned profit margins within the agreed upon limit. Any extra profit should be submitted to the NHS. OFT has recommended that the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme (PPRS) should be reformed, so that they can use money from NHS to manufacture drugs with the greatest benefits for patients. (Office of Fair Trade: Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme). Though the WTO's newly adopted measures seek to give greater guarantee to the R & D efforts of pharmaceutical companies to the developed countries, it will not give any corresponding benefits to original inventor pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. and other developed countries due

Theatre Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Theatre - Essay Example The situation is further complicated by Catherine’s successful and bossy sister Claire (Hope Davis). As Gwyneth Paltrow who played Catherine in the stage version of this play, so her portrayal of Catherine with her volatile moods and her struggle to gain confidence in her talent is very convincing and realistic. The film is more of a heavy drama that requires a rapt attention and concentration on the part of the audience. Madden’s approach towards costume and set is not that deft. He fails to exploit the scattered settings at Robert’s home, with bits of paper spread around, and unattended dirty dishes, to throw light on the scattered and disturbed lives of the characters in the story. Still, there are many meaningful scenes in the story that bring out the darkly comical mindset of the characters. Overall Proof failed to achieve that depth and meaning on the screen, that it successfully approached in its stage version.

Business Ethics in the Footwear, Clothing, and Textile Industries Essay

Business Ethics in the Footwear, Clothing, and Textile Industries - Essay Example   Business ethics and conduct have been a major talking point in the TCF industry, especially with regards to the fairness of its dealings, processes, stakeholder treatment, and competition policies. The principle of fairness seeks to ensure that TCF organizations engage in; fair and free ethical competition deals with all stakeholders in a way that can describe as being equitable and fair and is non-discriminatory during the process of contracting and hiring (Braithwaite & Drahos, 2010: p401). This principle has been a problematic one within the TCF industry. The workforce is 80% female on minimum wage that averages $38 every month. This industry has the lowest costs of labor globally, and the workers’ unions are intimidated with violence in order to stay quiet on industry standard violations (Sajhau, 2013: p34). The industry needs to create a more friendly culture for workers, enforcing freedom of association sans victimization, pro-labor legislation, balance the gender in equality gap, and fire and building inspection codes. This can be achieved with the help of global retailers.   Issues related to diligence and loyalty is an important concern with regards to business ethics in the TCF industry. The industry would be required to act as a fiduciary for investors and the company by carrying out the organization’s operations in a loyal and diligent manner expected of trustees (Braithwaite & Drahos, 2010: p402). Corporate ethics are reflective of the business’ philosophy, and one of its objectives is the determination of the company’s fundamental purposes.

Concepts for Environmental Sustainability

Concepts for Environmental Sustainability A Perspective on environmental sustainability? Environmental Sustainability The Commissioner acts as an independent voice that advocates, audits and reports on environmental sustainability. The purpose of this paper is to explore the meaning of environmental sustainability. The community needs a definition of environmental sustainability that is easily understood, is logical, and is helpful in facilitating understanding, communication and effective action by all key players (government, community, business, innovators, academia, communicators, etc.). The paper also explores the meaning of related terms and definitions eg. sustainability and related words in common usage ecologically sustainable development (as defined by the Commissioners enabling legislation) sustainable development (the Brundtland definition) triple bottom line. A preferred definition of environmental sustainability Environmental sustainability is the ability to maintain things or qualities that are valued in the physical environment This is the simplest and most fundamental way to express the concept.But people using the term environmental sustainability can specify or elaborate the term further to add extra meaning or to apply the concept to more specialised contexts. What is the physical environment? This is the physical surrounds to something.For example, the land, waters and atmosphere, physical resources and thebuildings and roadsand other physical elements go to make up the urban environment.Rural environments are made up of the farms and living areas of people andthe land and waters and atmosphere and biological elements (species utilised by agriculture, pest species, and native species, and ecological communities both human induced and natural).Natural environments are those where the influence of wild species (indigenous and naturalised) is dominant or very strong.Physical resources, of all sorts, including mineral resources, can be considered to be part of the environment. Physical environments can be considered on all scales from the micro to the local, global and even larger scales. There is no sharp distinction between the environmental and other domains (eg. social and economic) in fact the content of each domain overlaps other domains massively. The key to understan ding doesnt lie in trying to set non-overlappingboundaries between the domains but lies in being clear about the focus of different domains. (Link to) Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability Act 00 The physical environment includes the natural and biological environments. What makes an issue a sustainability issue? A sustainability issue arises whenever a valued system, object, process or attribute is under threat.The existence of the valued system, object, process or attribute could be threatened or its quality could be threatened with serious decline. In other words there is a sustainability issue whenever there is something that is valued that faces the risk of not being maintained. Whenever there is a strong sense of urgency, there is always a sustainability issue involved.This urgency couldrelate to something thatalready existsortoan understood potential.For example biodiversity might be threatened with extinction or the chance to realise the potential of a human being might be threatened, for example, if they remain in poverty or their lives are threatened by violence or disease.(The latter would usually be thought of as being social sustainability issues.) What exactly are we trying to maintain in the physical environment and who decides? There is no automatic, fixed agenda built into the term environmental sustainability. We have to look to the context to see what might be sustained.And many people and organisations already have well developedideas about what aspects of the total environment should be sustained when environmental sustainability is pursued. In a place like Victoria, with our culture, political processes and physical environment, there is strong public pressure to maintain (sustain) things like: ecosystem services (eg. nutrient cycling, the water cycle, natural water purification, climate moderation, soil protection high quality urban environments areas of natural beauty other species and ecological communities the user value flowing from physical resources (eg. minerals, energy, renewableresources, water) What motivates us to want to sustain something in the physical environment? We might want to sustain something in the physical environment because it is useful to us: e.g. the quality of local urban environments. Or we might want to do it because we care about the wellbeing of other people or other species for their sake, not ours. That is we can be motivated by utilitarian concerns and/or altruism. Sometimes we maintain something in the environmental domain in order to make it possible to achieve another goal in another domain.For example, we might sustain marine habitats in order to support the livelihood of coastal townships.Or we might sustain renewable resources so that we can support economic development or genuine progress Genuine progress is development that creates new benefits without undermining or destroying old benefits that are still valued in the community.In recent years a lot of work has been done on ‘genuine progress indicators as alternatives to GDP measures .) How long should we try to sustain something? This question can only be answered after deciding specifically what needs to be sustained and why. For example, ecosystems services for clean air would need to be sustained as long as there are living things (including people) that need to breatheclean air.For all practical purposes that means forever . Living species seem to last on average a few million years before becoming extinct though some may evolve into new species.So if we maintained a natural extinction rate for species it is so low that for practical purposes we would need to manage in the here and now as if we wanted all species to survive, effectively forever. Sustaining the recycling of certain materials may only need to continue for as long as those material types are needed technologically, and depending on the pace of technical change this could be for centuries or for decades.It is risky to assume that resources are only needed for a short time however as society might find new uses for materials as technology, lifestyles and environmental awareness develop. When it comes to trying to sustain habitat on a site-s pecific basis, very specific localised habitat or ecological community patches might need to persist for anywhere between thousands of years and just a few years depending on the ecological system involved provided all of the dependent species can access these habitat or ecological community typessomewhere consistently and at adequate scale within their local ranges forever. Is there any connection betweenenvironmental sustainability and social or economic sustainability? Since humans depend in countless ways on the physical environment (both natural and human constructed) sustaining desired environmental conditions directly contributes to the sustaining of people and human societies, that is, to social sustainability.The viability of theeconomy clearly depends on environmental resources and service flows so economicsustainability depends on environmental sustainability. More generally it can be seen that sustainability in one domain can be necessary for sustainability in another.Sustainability requirements can be mapped to show complex dependencies across domains.We classify sustainability issues into separate domains, not because the sustainabilityissues are unrelated, but for reasons of convenience and tradition, for example, to allow specialisations to develop in RD and administration, to break up complex whole into mentally manageable chunks, to reflect historical connections, etc. Can the idea of environmental sustainability drive commitments to specific action? While the idea ofenvironmental sustainability is very broad in its possible scope, concerns for environmental sustainability can be translated in specific practical goals and these can and should drive action programs.See the section How to use the definition of environmental sustainability to facilitate effective action. on page . Is restoration part of an environmental sustainability program? In a world where life-support systems and other conditions required for sustainability have been run down,environmental sustainability can only be achieved through a combination of both preventive and restorative actions.So restoration is a key part of what needs to be done to achieve sustainability.In most instances it is better to avoid destroying environmental values in the first place rather than relying on restoration as the primary strategy.However, where damage has been done that could prevent valued elements of the physical environment being sustained, restoration should not be overlooked. If we pursue an environmental sustainability program how much should we try tosustain? The physical environment is powerfully affected by and is made up of evolving systems ecological systems, societies and economies.These evolving systems will create changes in some aspects of the physical environment and will prevent or resist changes in other aspects.So anenvironmental sustainability program could never aim to sustain or maintain absolutely every component and attribute of the entire physical environment.Anyenvironmental sustainability program must start out by being clear about what it is hoped will be maintained in the physical environment and what can be allowed to change or what will be made to change.Precisely what people set out to sustain within the physical environment will depend on their value judgements, needs, skills and technology and available resources to support the action program and the current state and the dynamics of the physical environment.We cannot assume that we automatically know what should be sustained (and what should not) in the physic al environment just because there is an environmental sustainability program operating.We need to work the answer out explicitly. The origin of the core word sustain and its main derivatives The word sustain has been in the language for thousands of years.It comes from the Latin sustenare meaning to hold up ie. to support.From there it evolved long ago to mean to keep something going or extend its duration, with an overtone of providing the support or necessities that made the extended duration possible eg. a sustaining meal.These days, for commonest non-specialised use of the word the closest synonym is maintain. Sustain and its derivatives (eg. sustainability, sustainable, sustaining) were first used in a micro or personal context.However several hundreds of years ago the Swiss and Germans invented a form of forestry designed to keep the forest going as productive systems over the very long term and this was called, in the English speaking world, sustainable forestry.The idea was then extended to sustainable fisheries. From there it was not such a big step for the term to be applied, during the 0s and 0s, in the macro context of environmental issues where there was a need to sustain the whole environment and human society.This usage was established by the time of the UN Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm. The drifts in meaning Having reached a macro level of application sustainability was most often talked about in terms of sustainable development.The 0 World Conservation Strategy produced by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN or World Conservation Union) put forward the concept of sustainable development meaning development that would allow ecosystem services and biodiversity to be sustained.The Brundtland Report shifted the meaning of sustainable development to mean â€Å"development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generationsto meet their own needs†. Then the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio set in train processes such as Agenda and Local Agenda that resulted in many people coming to the view that sustainability equals the integration or balancing of environmental, social and economic issues or simultaneous progress in the environmental, social and economic domains, often in t he context of strong programs of consultation and participation. Many people however felt uneasy with the notion of development as it is often associated with the destruction of environmental and social attributes that they value, so they felt better talking about sustainability rather than sustainable development. So, over time sustainability and sustainable development came to be treated by many people as synonyms.This trend was reinforced because some people found the term sustainable development to be a bit of a mouthful and they used sustainability as a convenient (if inaccurate) shorthand. As the scale of the taskof achieving a sustainable environment and society has become apparent many people have tried to insulate themselves from the enormity of the challenge by retreating into small incremental changes.So some people have started to say that sustainability is a process of change and not an end state, and that its the journey that counts, not the destination. As the terms sustainability and sustainable development have been used more and more in government and corporate circles, because of increasing discussion of environment and development, the business world has started using the terms more and more for its own purposes.Curiouslyin this context sustainable has quickly reverted to its earlier simple meaning of able to be maintained.So sustainable profits, or sustainable competitive advantage mean profits or competitive advantage that can be maintained for the longer term.The straightforward use of sustain and its derivatives within the domain of business is understandable because businesses face competition and hence the risk of decline and extinction every day of the week.This experience of threat leads business people to reproduce meanings of the terms that are the same as those in long-term common usage or those in the area of biological conservation. The benefits of definitional clarity and a strong relationship to core meanings The important benefit of definitional clarity is that it makes it easier to avoid logical problems and makes effective action more likely. A search on the web reveals hundreds of definitions of sustainability and sustainable development Although this diversity is a little overwhelmingit is not really. surprising given that there are many diverse people involved in the sustainability debate and there are legitimate complexities involved.However, a careful review of these definitions reveals that they fall into four basic categories only one of which (type ) is a normal dictionary-style definition.The other types are referred to in this paper as contextual definitions because they create a greater understanding of the context of a term rather than defining its essence.The four types of definitions are: Type : definitions based on the essence: x is/means y eg. sustainability is/means the ability to sustain something; sustainable development is development that can be maintained; sustaining development is development that sustains something Type : contextual definitions based onstrategies for achieving the thing being defined: the achievement of x requires y eg. the achievement of sustainability requires, for example, the integration of environmental, social and economic issues Type : contextual definitions based on the outcomes of the thing being defined: x results in y; eg. sustainable development results inthe meeting of needs of the present generation without compromising the needs of future generations Type : contextual definitions based on what amovement with that label tries to achieve or is interested in: x is what the X movement strives for eg. sustainability is what the Sustainability movement strives for ie. Sustainability encompasses the protection of the environment and people, peace, and end to poverty, the meeting of human needs, enhancement of human wellbeing, promotion of happiness, etc., etc., etc. Furthermore any of these types of definitions can be framed in a more general or a narrower context eg. applied to whole systems eg. society and the environment or just to specific contexts eg. the environment of a particular species, or to specific human communities or a particular economy. The last three types of definition can be useful as they are carefully expressed so it is  clear what sort of context they are creating.But if they are written using words that See Susan Murcotts list of definitions of sustainable development in the Reference section. Where sustaining is used as an adjective (not as a verb). suggest that they are type , or dictionary-style, definitions then these types of definitions usually cause significant confusion. For example, the type definition the achievement of sustainability requires, for example, the integration of environmental, social and economic issues is usually presented as if it were a type definition ie. sustainability is the integration of environmental, social and economic issues.This produces the absurd implication that if we simply consider environmental, social and economic issues together that this somehow generates a sustainability outcome.Often the opposite is true because the issues are traded off against each other and one or more of the objectives are not adequately fulfilled leading to a decline (unsustainability) in the domains traded off. So in this case, a lack of clarity in the expression of the definition leads to a substitution of means for ends and the outcome is unsustainability. The much-used Brundtland definition of sustainable development is a type definition, that is, it describes what theoutcome will be of pursuing sustainable development.The wording that is universally used is â€Å"sustainable developmentis development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs†.But this is in fact a not-careful-enough paraphrasing of the original in the Brundtland report which read: â€Å"Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.† (definition quoted from p. of the Brun dtland Report).The Brundtland statement should have been paraphrased along the followinglines: â€Å"sustainable development can under the right circumstances result in the needs of the present being met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs†. This formulation then focuses peoples attention on what is to be sustained, what needs are to be met in different generations and what strategies are to be applied to get the desired outcomes. Not only is definitional clarity important but so is maintaining a strong relationship between the core meaning of words and their various derived forms.For example, the terms sustainability and sustainable development are now used interchangeably by many people.For some, the motivation fordoing this is to find a shorter term to substitute for sustainable development.Others prefer to use the term sustainability as a synonym for sustainable development because they dont like talking about development since in their experience it has negative connotations either for themselves or for others.  But the end result is that two terms that originally had distinctly different meanings which served practical communication purposes are now blurred into each other thus losing the distinction of meaning. Or sustainable development. Sustainability is about continuity and development is about change. There are manythings about life that we want to sustain (maintain) and many that we want to change.So it makes sense to create the notion of sustainable development that combinesdesired change and desired continuity -for example we might change exploitation,unhappiness, poverty, destructiveness, etc.and sustain the rest of nature, trust, tolerance, honesty, happiness, health, etc.Treated in this waysustainable development doesnt have to be an oxymoron (a combination of conflicting terms). While theory says that sustainable development does not have to be an oxymoron, it can sometimes take quite a bit of negotiation before a whole society can be comfortable with a shared definition of what should be maintained and what should be changed. Developing a preferred definition of environmental sustainability The meanings of words gain their legitimacy from shared use, so in the final analysis there are no independently correct meanings, just meanings that are well understood by many people But words also help to shape our understandings and then our. actions, so the key question is not what is the correct definition? but what do we want environmental sustainability to mean, what would be most desirable? How we choose to answer this questiondepends critically on our preference for treating environmental sustainability as either a practical goal or a utopian concept. The historian Arnold Joseph Toynbee wrote in A study of history () that: The twentieth century will be chiefly remembered by future generations not as an era of political conflicts or technical inventions, but as an age in which human society dared to think of the welfare of the whole human race as a practical objective. Sometimes the meaning of words can evolve into almost their opposite.For example terrific used to mean to c ause extreme terror now it most often means extraordinarily good.The linking meaning was probably exciting eg. the roller coaster ride was terrific†. The quote by English historian Arnold J. Toynbee was used in Lester B. Pearsons Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in . (Pearson won for introducing the concept of peacekeeping through the United Nations.)From: http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates//pearson-lecture.html This could be extended so that we think of our present era as being distinguished as the age in which human society dared to think of the welfare of both the whole human race and the whole planet as a practical objective. If this is so then we can perhaps put aside the idea of seeingenvironmental sustainability as a utopian concept and, instead, opt for seeing it as a practical objective, that is, something to be both aspired to and achieved. But we should be doubly practical. We want to be able to use a definition of environmental sustainability that: makes it easier for us to get things done (the first practicality) and we want the definition to help us focus our minds on getting the most important or relevant things done (the second practicality). To help in getting things done a definition of environmental sustainability will need to: facilitate communication between all the people who need to be involved in the issue make it easier to identify actions that need to be taken in order to achieve environmental sustainability Before exploring how thechoice of definition ofenvironmental sustainabilitycan help us be doubly practical we need to identify some definitional choices that we can apply our choice-criteria to. Some of the basic types of definitions of environmental and sustainability that are used currently are: environmental. referring to just the biological environment referring to all possible environments(contexts) eg. social, economic, physical,intellectual referring to the physical environment including thebiological, the geomorphological environment and theconstructed and cultural physical environments sustainability.. meaning the integration or balancing of social, environmental and economic issues,or programs or actions based on stakeholder or community consultation meaning sustainable development or making people better off in an ethically sound way meaning the ability to sustain something. How should we select among these options if we want to facilitate communication? There is really no sectorof the economy or group of people in the community that should be uninvolved in efforts to achieveenvironmental sustainability.Soifitis possible to use simple definitions that are in common usage throughout the whole community there is a good chance that most people will be able to understand each0 other.Also definitions that are widely spread in the community are likely to be more stable because drifts in meaning that emerge in small groups are not likely to be taken up by the whole population. The compound-concept ofenvironmental sustainability is not widely used in the community, nor is the word sustainability.But the core concept to sustain is widely used, and the term environmentor environmental is widely used.In common usage to sustain means tokeep something going or maintain something.Environment means, incommon usage, either the context or surroundings of something, or itmeans, more specifically, the physical environment.Clearly the Parliament of Victoria, when it passed the Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability Act 00, was using the word environment in the sense of the physical environment rather than more universal meaning of the context for anything. How can our choice of definition make it easier to identify actions to take to achieve environmental sustainability? Having an action focus, especially where the aim is actually to achieve desired outcomes, means that it is not helpful touse definitions that are fuzzy or based on logical confusion.So treating sustainability and sustainable development as synonyms (ie. as having the same meaning) is not likely to be a good idea.Adding the word sustainable to development must change the type of development we are talking about otherwise why would we bother talking about sustainable development if we could more conveniently just use the word development?So if we say that sustainability has the same meaning as sustainable development what we saying in logical terms is: Concept A= Concept A + Concept B In other words it doesnt make any logical sense at all! This sort of definitional fuzziness and confusion can only persist where people are not trying to be clear about what they are talking about.And indeed some people argue that sustainability is anunattainable goal so they are not greatly fussed about the details of the definition that they use. (That is, they treat environmental sustainability as a Utopian concept rather than a practical goal.) However, if we want to use a definition ofenvironmental sustainability that makes action easier then we should avoid confusions like defining sustainability as sustainable development. How can our choice of definition help us focus our minds on gettingthe most important or relevant things done? We can only answer this by going back to what motivated societys interest in environmental sustainability in the first place.The historical record makes it clear that people became concerned aboutenvironmental sustainability when they discovered tha t aspects of the environment that they loved or depended on for survival or quality of life were threatened with extinction or serious degradation.There was an urgent concern about loss that made people think about sustainability.Were they originally thinking about integrating environmental, social and economic issues?Not at all.They were worrying about maintaining or keeping going something that they valued.How then did the ‘integration or ‘balance definition emerge?After some years of trying to achieve environmental sustainability people realised that unless they also dealt with the interacting social and economic issues they would simply not succeed in achieving their environmental goals.But did this practical/pragmatic (and perhaps ethical) realisation, change peoples environmental goals? Not really. So why did some people then change the definition of environmental sustainability to mean the integration of environmental, socialand economic issues? It was most likely because their practical focus of attention had shifted to the integration issue and they inadvertently made a classic mistake of confusing means with ends (ie. methods with goals) There is another issue that bears on thequestion of getting the most important or relevant things done.Andthat is, in what way does environmental qualify the notion of sustainability when they are compounded?Doesenvironmental sustainabilityimply the sustainability of thewhole physical environment?Or just parts of it?From a practical point of view the physical environment is so inclusive that no real-lifeenvironmental sustainabilityprogram would everset out to sustain and maintain every aspect.If we tried to do that we would, for example, freeze in place or maintain the distribution and abundance of pest plants and animals, the reduced distribution and abundance of native species, coal-fired power stations and an excessive allocation of land and resourcesto road-based transport, dangerous and resource inef ficient buildings, over-built flood plains, etc. Societys are always selective about what they want to sustain even if the agenda for action is still a huge one (eg. maintaining life support systems, maintaining quality of life, keeping native species going, maintaining the resource-base for the economy, etc.). Finally, if we are concerned to get the most important or relevant things done, what definitions should we rule out? Definitions of sustainability such as the integration or balancing of social, environmental and economic issues, or programs or actions based on stakeholder or community consultation no longer seem appropriate and definingenvironmental sustainability as applying to absolutely everything in the physical environment no longer seems useful. Pulling all these issues together, it is now possible to propose a preferred definition for environmental sustainability as follows: environmental sustainability is the ability to maintain things or qualities that arevalued in the physical environment . This happens because people have a way of expressing themselves that goes like this: environmental sustainability is all about .(insert the practical action or implication of their choice).Then people forget that this is not a definitional statement and they go on to treat it as one. A compatible suite of sustainability terms This suite of words has been developed to distinguish: between what is doing the sustaining and what it is being sustained ie. between means and ends the scope of what is being sustained Word (form) Meaning Suggested usage Incompatible usage sustain (verb) means to maintain something through time; to keep it going; to extend its duration eg. communities are working to sustain ecosystem services, or quality of life or other species sustainability (noun) means the ability or capability to sustain (maintain) something eg. will this community ach ieve sustainability for the things that it wants to persist through time (adjective) means related to or having to do with sustainability eg. a sustainability action plan is an action plan about sustainability not an action plan that can be kept in operation over an extended period sustainable (adjective) means able to be sustained, durable or able to be maintained (note: in this meaning the noun that the word is attached to is the thing that is sustained) eg. a sustainable policy is a policy that is kept in force over an extended period not a policy about sustainability sustaining (adjective) means having the propensity or tend Concepts for Environmental Sustainability Concepts for Environmental Sustainability A Perspective on environmental sustainability? Environmental Sustainability The Commissioner acts as an independent voice that advocates, audits and reports on environmental sustainability. The purpose of this paper is to explore the meaning of environmental sustainability. The community needs a definition of environmental sustainability that is easily understood, is logical, and is helpful in facilitating understanding, communication and effective action by all key players (government, community, business, innovators, academia, communicators, etc.). The paper also explores the meaning of related terms and definitions eg. sustainability and related words in common usage ecologically sustainable development (as defined by the Commissioners enabling legislation) sustainable development (the Brundtland definition) triple bottom line. A preferred definition of environmental sustainability Environmental sustainability is the ability to maintain things or qualities that are valued in the physical environment This is the simplest and most fundamental way to express the concept.But people using the term environmental sustainability can specify or elaborate the term further to add extra meaning or to apply the concept to more specialised contexts. What is the physical environment? This is the physical surrounds to something.For example, the land, waters and atmosphere, physical resources and thebuildings and roadsand other physical elements go to make up the urban environment.Rural environments are made up of the farms and living areas of people andthe land and waters and atmosphere and biological elements (species utilised by agriculture, pest species, and native species, and ecological communities both human induced and natural).Natural environments are those where the influence of wild species (indigenous and naturalised) is dominant or very strong.Physical resources, of all sorts, including mineral resources, can be considered to be part of the environment. Physical environments can be considered on all scales from the micro to the local, global and even larger scales. There is no sharp distinction between the environmental and other domains (eg. social and economic) in fact the content of each domain overlaps other domains massively. The key to understan ding doesnt lie in trying to set non-overlappingboundaries between the domains but lies in being clear about the focus of different domains. (Link to) Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability Act 00 The physical environment includes the natural and biological environments. What makes an issue a sustainability issue? A sustainability issue arises whenever a valued system, object, process or attribute is under threat.The existence of the valued system, object, process or attribute could be threatened or its quality could be threatened with serious decline. In other words there is a sustainability issue whenever there is something that is valued that faces the risk of not being maintained. Whenever there is a strong sense of urgency, there is always a sustainability issue involved.This urgency couldrelate to something thatalready existsortoan understood potential.For example biodiversity might be threatened with extinction or the chance to realise the potential of a human being might be threatened, for example, if they remain in poverty or their lives are threatened by violence or disease.(The latter would usually be thought of as being social sustainability issues.) What exactly are we trying to maintain in the physical environment and who decides? There is no automatic, fixed agenda built into the term environmental sustainability. We have to look to the context to see what might be sustained.And many people and organisations already have well developedideas about what aspects of the total environment should be sustained when environmental sustainability is pursued. In a place like Victoria, with our culture, political processes and physical environment, there is strong public pressure to maintain (sustain) things like: ecosystem services (eg. nutrient cycling, the water cycle, natural water purification, climate moderation, soil protection high quality urban environments areas of natural beauty other species and ecological communities the user value flowing from physical resources (eg. minerals, energy, renewableresources, water) What motivates us to want to sustain something in the physical environment? We might want to sustain something in the physical environment because it is useful to us: e.g. the quality of local urban environments. Or we might want to do it because we care about the wellbeing of other people or other species for their sake, not ours. That is we can be motivated by utilitarian concerns and/or altruism. Sometimes we maintain something in the environmental domain in order to make it possible to achieve another goal in another domain.For example, we might sustain marine habitats in order to support the livelihood of coastal townships.Or we might sustain renewable resources so that we can support economic development or genuine progress Genuine progress is development that creates new benefits without undermining or destroying old benefits that are still valued in the community.In recent years a lot of work has been done on ‘genuine progress indicators as alternatives to GDP measures .) How long should we try to sustain something? This question can only be answered after deciding specifically what needs to be sustained and why. For example, ecosystems services for clean air would need to be sustained as long as there are living things (including people) that need to breatheclean air.For all practical purposes that means forever . Living species seem to last on average a few million years before becoming extinct though some may evolve into new species.So if we maintained a natural extinction rate for species it is so low that for practical purposes we would need to manage in the here and now as if we wanted all species to survive, effectively forever. Sustaining the recycling of certain materials may only need to continue for as long as those material types are needed technologically, and depending on the pace of technical change this could be for centuries or for decades.It is risky to assume that resources are only needed for a short time however as society might find new uses for materials as technology, lifestyles and environmental awareness develop. When it comes to trying to sustain habitat on a site-s pecific basis, very specific localised habitat or ecological community patches might need to persist for anywhere between thousands of years and just a few years depending on the ecological system involved provided all of the dependent species can access these habitat or ecological community typessomewhere consistently and at adequate scale within their local ranges forever. Is there any connection betweenenvironmental sustainability and social or economic sustainability? Since humans depend in countless ways on the physical environment (both natural and human constructed) sustaining desired environmental conditions directly contributes to the sustaining of people and human societies, that is, to social sustainability.The viability of theeconomy clearly depends on environmental resources and service flows so economicsustainability depends on environmental sustainability. More generally it can be seen that sustainability in one domain can be necessary for sustainability in another.Sustainability requirements can be mapped to show complex dependencies across domains.We classify sustainability issues into separate domains, not because the sustainabilityissues are unrelated, but for reasons of convenience and tradition, for example, to allow specialisations to develop in RD and administration, to break up complex whole into mentally manageable chunks, to reflect historical connections, etc. Can the idea of environmental sustainability drive commitments to specific action? While the idea ofenvironmental sustainability is very broad in its possible scope, concerns for environmental sustainability can be translated in specific practical goals and these can and should drive action programs.See the section How to use the definition of environmental sustainability to facilitate effective action. on page . Is restoration part of an environmental sustainability program? In a world where life-support systems and other conditions required for sustainability have been run down,environmental sustainability can only be achieved through a combination of both preventive and restorative actions.So restoration is a key part of what needs to be done to achieve sustainability.In most instances it is better to avoid destroying environmental values in the first place rather than relying on restoration as the primary strategy.However, where damage has been done that could prevent valued elements of the physical environment being sustained, restoration should not be overlooked. If we pursue an environmental sustainability program how much should we try tosustain? The physical environment is powerfully affected by and is made up of evolving systems ecological systems, societies and economies.These evolving systems will create changes in some aspects of the physical environment and will prevent or resist changes in other aspects.So anenvironmental sustainability program could never aim to sustain or maintain absolutely every component and attribute of the entire physical environment.Anyenvironmental sustainability program must start out by being clear about what it is hoped will be maintained in the physical environment and what can be allowed to change or what will be made to change.Precisely what people set out to sustain within the physical environment will depend on their value judgements, needs, skills and technology and available resources to support the action program and the current state and the dynamics of the physical environment.We cannot assume that we automatically know what should be sustained (and what should not) in the physic al environment just because there is an environmental sustainability program operating.We need to work the answer out explicitly. The origin of the core word sustain and its main derivatives The word sustain has been in the language for thousands of years.It comes from the Latin sustenare meaning to hold up ie. to support.From there it evolved long ago to mean to keep something going or extend its duration, with an overtone of providing the support or necessities that made the extended duration possible eg. a sustaining meal.These days, for commonest non-specialised use of the word the closest synonym is maintain. Sustain and its derivatives (eg. sustainability, sustainable, sustaining) were first used in a micro or personal context.However several hundreds of years ago the Swiss and Germans invented a form of forestry designed to keep the forest going as productive systems over the very long term and this was called, in the English speaking world, sustainable forestry.The idea was then extended to sustainable fisheries. From there it was not such a big step for the term to be applied, during the 0s and 0s, in the macro context of environmental issues where there was a need to sustain the whole environment and human society.This usage was established by the time of the UN Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm. The drifts in meaning Having reached a macro level of application sustainability was most often talked about in terms of sustainable development.The 0 World Conservation Strategy produced by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN or World Conservation Union) put forward the concept of sustainable development meaning development that would allow ecosystem services and biodiversity to be sustained.The Brundtland Report shifted the meaning of sustainable development to mean â€Å"development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generationsto meet their own needs†. Then the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio set in train processes such as Agenda and Local Agenda that resulted in many people coming to the view that sustainability equals the integration or balancing of environmental, social and economic issues or simultaneous progress in the environmental, social and economic domains, often in t he context of strong programs of consultation and participation. Many people however felt uneasy with the notion of development as it is often associated with the destruction of environmental and social attributes that they value, so they felt better talking about sustainability rather than sustainable development. So, over time sustainability and sustainable development came to be treated by many people as synonyms.This trend was reinforced because some people found the term sustainable development to be a bit of a mouthful and they used sustainability as a convenient (if inaccurate) shorthand. As the scale of the taskof achieving a sustainable environment and society has become apparent many people have tried to insulate themselves from the enormity of the challenge by retreating into small incremental changes.So some people have started to say that sustainability is a process of change and not an end state, and that its the journey that counts, not the destination. As the terms sustainability and sustainable development have been used more and more in government and corporate circles, because of increasing discussion of environment and development, the business world has started using the terms more and more for its own purposes.Curiouslyin this context sustainable has quickly reverted to its earlier simple meaning of able to be maintained.So sustainable profits, or sustainable competitive advantage mean profits or competitive advantage that can be maintained for the longer term.The straightforward use of sustain and its derivatives within the domain of business is understandable because businesses face competition and hence the risk of decline and extinction every day of the week.This experience of threat leads business people to reproduce meanings of the terms that are the same as those in long-term common usage or those in the area of biological conservation. The benefits of definitional clarity and a strong relationship to core meanings The important benefit of definitional clarity is that it makes it easier to avoid logical problems and makes effective action more likely. A search on the web reveals hundreds of definitions of sustainability and sustainable development Although this diversity is a little overwhelmingit is not really. surprising given that there are many diverse people involved in the sustainability debate and there are legitimate complexities involved.However, a careful review of these definitions reveals that they fall into four basic categories only one of which (type ) is a normal dictionary-style definition.The other types are referred to in this paper as contextual definitions because they create a greater understanding of the context of a term rather than defining its essence.The four types of definitions are: Type : definitions based on the essence: x is/means y eg. sustainability is/means the ability to sustain something; sustainable development is development that can be maintained; sustaining development is development that sustains something Type : contextual definitions based onstrategies for achieving the thing being defined: the achievement of x requires y eg. the achievement of sustainability requires, for example, the integration of environmental, social and economic issues Type : contextual definitions based on the outcomes of the thing being defined: x results in y; eg. sustainable development results inthe meeting of needs of the present generation without compromising the needs of future generations Type : contextual definitions based on what amovement with that label tries to achieve or is interested in: x is what the X movement strives for eg. sustainability is what the Sustainability movement strives for ie. Sustainability encompasses the protection of the environment and people, peace, and end to poverty, the meeting of human needs, enhancement of human wellbeing, promotion of happiness, etc., etc., etc. Furthermore any of these types of definitions can be framed in a more general or a narrower context eg. applied to whole systems eg. society and the environment or just to specific contexts eg. the environment of a particular species, or to specific human communities or a particular economy. The last three types of definition can be useful as they are carefully expressed so it is  clear what sort of context they are creating.But if they are written using words that See Susan Murcotts list of definitions of sustainable development in the Reference section. Where sustaining is used as an adjective (not as a verb). suggest that they are type , or dictionary-style, definitions then these types of definitions usually cause significant confusion. For example, the type definition the achievement of sustainability requires, for example, the integration of environmental, social and economic issues is usually presented as if it were a type definition ie. sustainability is the integration of environmental, social and economic issues.This produces the absurd implication that if we simply consider environmental, social and economic issues together that this somehow generates a sustainability outcome.Often the opposite is true because the issues are traded off against each other and one or more of the objectives are not adequately fulfilled leading to a decline (unsustainability) in the domains traded off. So in this case, a lack of clarity in the expression of the definition leads to a substitution of means for ends and the outcome is unsustainability. The much-used Brundtland definition of sustainable development is a type definition, that is, it describes what theoutcome will be of pursuing sustainable development.The wording that is universally used is â€Å"sustainable developmentis development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs†.But this is in fact a not-careful-enough paraphrasing of the original in the Brundtland report which read: â€Å"Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.† (definition quoted from p. of the Brun dtland Report).The Brundtland statement should have been paraphrased along the followinglines: â€Å"sustainable development can under the right circumstances result in the needs of the present being met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs†. This formulation then focuses peoples attention on what is to be sustained, what needs are to be met in different generations and what strategies are to be applied to get the desired outcomes. Not only is definitional clarity important but so is maintaining a strong relationship between the core meaning of words and their various derived forms.For example, the terms sustainability and sustainable development are now used interchangeably by many people.For some, the motivation fordoing this is to find a shorter term to substitute for sustainable development.Others prefer to use the term sustainability as a synonym for sustainable development because they dont like talking about development since in their experience it has negative connotations either for themselves or for others.  But the end result is that two terms that originally had distinctly different meanings which served practical communication purposes are now blurred into each other thus losing the distinction of meaning. Or sustainable development. Sustainability is about continuity and development is about change. There are manythings about life that we want to sustain (maintain) and many that we want to change.So it makes sense to create the notion of sustainable development that combinesdesired change and desired continuity -for example we might change exploitation,unhappiness, poverty, destructiveness, etc.and sustain the rest of nature, trust, tolerance, honesty, happiness, health, etc.Treated in this waysustainable development doesnt have to be an oxymoron (a combination of conflicting terms). While theory says that sustainable development does not have to be an oxymoron, it can sometimes take quite a bit of negotiation before a whole society can be comfortable with a shared definition of what should be maintained and what should be changed. Developing a preferred definition of environmental sustainability The meanings of words gain their legitimacy from shared use, so in the final analysis there are no independently correct meanings, just meanings that are well understood by many people But words also help to shape our understandings and then our. actions, so the key question is not what is the correct definition? but what do we want environmental sustainability to mean, what would be most desirable? How we choose to answer this questiondepends critically on our preference for treating environmental sustainability as either a practical goal or a utopian concept. The historian Arnold Joseph Toynbee wrote in A study of history () that: The twentieth century will be chiefly remembered by future generations not as an era of political conflicts or technical inventions, but as an age in which human society dared to think of the welfare of the whole human race as a practical objective. Sometimes the meaning of words can evolve into almost their opposite.For example terrific used to mean to c ause extreme terror now it most often means extraordinarily good.The linking meaning was probably exciting eg. the roller coaster ride was terrific†. The quote by English historian Arnold J. Toynbee was used in Lester B. Pearsons Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in . (Pearson won for introducing the concept of peacekeeping through the United Nations.)From: http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates//pearson-lecture.html This could be extended so that we think of our present era as being distinguished as the age in which human society dared to think of the welfare of both the whole human race and the whole planet as a practical objective. If this is so then we can perhaps put aside the idea of seeingenvironmental sustainability as a utopian concept and, instead, opt for seeing it as a practical objective, that is, something to be both aspired to and achieved. But we should be doubly practical. We want to be able to use a definition of environmental sustainability that: makes it easier for us to get things done (the first practicality) and we want the definition to help us focus our minds on getting the most important or relevant things done (the second practicality). To help in getting things done a definition of environmental sustainability will need to: facilitate communication between all the people who need to be involved in the issue make it easier to identify actions that need to be taken in order to achieve environmental sustainability Before exploring how thechoice of definition ofenvironmental sustainabilitycan help us be doubly practical we need to identify some definitional choices that we can apply our choice-criteria to. Some of the basic types of definitions of environmental and sustainability that are used currently are: environmental. referring to just the biological environment referring to all possible environments(contexts) eg. social, economic, physical,intellectual referring to the physical environment including thebiological, the geomorphological environment and theconstructed and cultural physical environments sustainability.. meaning the integration or balancing of social, environmental and economic issues,or programs or actions based on stakeholder or community consultation meaning sustainable development or making people better off in an ethically sound way meaning the ability to sustain something. How should we select among these options if we want to facilitate communication? There is really no sectorof the economy or group of people in the community that should be uninvolved in efforts to achieveenvironmental sustainability.Soifitis possible to use simple definitions that are in common usage throughout the whole community there is a good chance that most people will be able to understand each0 other.Also definitions that are widely spread in the community are likely to be more stable because drifts in meaning that emerge in small groups are not likely to be taken up by the whole population. The compound-concept ofenvironmental sustainability is not widely used in the community, nor is the word sustainability.But the core concept to sustain is widely used, and the term environmentor environmental is widely used.In common usage to sustain means tokeep something going or maintain something.Environment means, incommon usage, either the context or surroundings of something, or itmeans, more specifically, the physical environment.Clearly the Parliament of Victoria, when it passed the Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability Act 00, was using the word environment in the sense of the physical environment rather than more universal meaning of the context for anything. How can our choice of definition make it easier to identify actions to take to achieve environmental sustainability? Having an action focus, especially where the aim is actually to achieve desired outcomes, means that it is not helpful touse definitions that are fuzzy or based on logical confusion.So treating sustainability and sustainable development as synonyms (ie. as having the same meaning) is not likely to be a good idea.Adding the word sustainable to development must change the type of development we are talking about otherwise why would we bother talking about sustainable development if we could more conveniently just use the word development?So if we say that sustainability has the same meaning as sustainable development what we saying in logical terms is: Concept A= Concept A + Concept B In other words it doesnt make any logical sense at all! This sort of definitional fuzziness and confusion can only persist where people are not trying to be clear about what they are talking about.And indeed some people argue that sustainability is anunattainable goal so they are not greatly fussed about the details of the definition that they use. (That is, they treat environmental sustainability as a Utopian concept rather than a practical goal.) However, if we want to use a definition ofenvironmental sustainability that makes action easier then we should avoid confusions like defining sustainability as sustainable development. How can our choice of definition help us focus our minds on gettingthe most important or relevant things done? We can only answer this by going back to what motivated societys interest in environmental sustainability in the first place.The historical record makes it clear that people became concerned aboutenvironmental sustainability when they discovered tha t aspects of the environment that they loved or depended on for survival or quality of life were threatened with extinction or serious degradation.There was an urgent concern about loss that made people think about sustainability.Were they originally thinking about integrating environmental, social and economic issues?Not at all.They were worrying about maintaining or keeping going something that they valued.How then did the ‘integration or ‘balance definition emerge?After some years of trying to achieve environmental sustainability people realised that unless they also dealt with the interacting social and economic issues they would simply not succeed in achieving their environmental goals.But did this practical/pragmatic (and perhaps ethical) realisation, change peoples environmental goals? Not really. So why did some people then change the definition of environmental sustainability to mean the integration of environmental, socialand economic issues? It was most likely because their practical focus of attention had shifted to the integration issue and they inadvertently made a classic mistake of confusing means with ends (ie. methods with goals) There is another issue that bears on thequestion of getting the most important or relevant things done.Andthat is, in what way does environmental qualify the notion of sustainability when they are compounded?Doesenvironmental sustainabilityimply the sustainability of thewhole physical environment?Or just parts of it?From a practical point of view the physical environment is so inclusive that no real-lifeenvironmental sustainabilityprogram would everset out to sustain and maintain every aspect.If we tried to do that we would, for example, freeze in place or maintain the distribution and abundance of pest plants and animals, the reduced distribution and abundance of native species, coal-fired power stations and an excessive allocation of land and resourcesto road-based transport, dangerous and resource inef ficient buildings, over-built flood plains, etc. Societys are always selective about what they want to sustain even if the agenda for action is still a huge one (eg. maintaining life support systems, maintaining quality of life, keeping native species going, maintaining the resource-base for the economy, etc.). Finally, if we are concerned to get the most important or relevant things done, what definitions should we rule out? Definitions of sustainability such as the integration or balancing of social, environmental and economic issues, or programs or actions based on stakeholder or community consultation no longer seem appropriate and definingenvironmental sustainability as applying to absolutely everything in the physical environment no longer seems useful. Pulling all these issues together, it is now possible to propose a preferred definition for environmental sustainability as follows: environmental sustainability is the ability to maintain things or qualities that arevalued in the physical environment . This happens because people have a way of expressing themselves that goes like this: environmental sustainability is all about .(insert the practical action or implication of their choice).Then people forget that this is not a definitional statement and they go on to treat it as one. A compatible suite of sustainability terms This suite of words has been developed to distinguish: between what is doing the sustaining and what it is being sustained ie. between means and ends the scope of what is being sustained Word (form) Meaning Suggested usage Incompatible usage sustain (verb) means to maintain something through time; to keep it going; to extend its duration eg. communities are working to sustain ecosystem services, or quality of life or other species sustainability (noun) means the ability or capability to sustain (maintain) something eg. will this community ach ieve sustainability for the things that it wants to persist through time (adjective) means related to or having to do with sustainability eg. a sustainability action plan is an action plan about sustainability not an action plan that can be kept in operation over an extended period sustainable (adjective) means able to be sustained, durable or able to be maintained (note: in this meaning the noun that the word is attached to is the thing that is sustained) eg. a sustainable policy is a policy that is kept in force over an extended period not a policy about sustainability sustaining (adjective) means having the propensity or tend