By focusing on a nation’s economic-growth, side effects such as resource exhaustion, environmental pollution, and social injustice have begun to appear. As a solution, innovation has received a great amount of attention from OECD countries. OECD stands for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which aim to foster economic development and to ensure social development is always taken in account, “A framework for Biotechnology Statistics”, n.d. According to OECD.org in 2018, OECD agrees to ensure the success of 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by changing the way of how modern company operates. By comparing against the modern management and old school management style, it is obvious that in today world, organization are more likely to depend on technological competence and social skills.Due to new introduction of policies, many countries now ban from using toxic materials during production process, hence it is important for entrepreneurs to think of a way by preventing further loss. This can be done by designing sustainable products and services so that company can have a lower cost and higher output (Nidumolo, Prahalad and Rangaswami 2009, p. 58). In this essay, the topic will mainly focus on whether “sustainability is the key of innovation” is applicable in Asia countries and what are the challenges that most social enterprise company face.
Sustainable development is the “sustainable development is ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (United Nation, 1987). Many organization has realized the importance of being sustainable will eventually benefits the company instead of losing competitive advantage. To achieve their objectives (maximize profits), entrepreneurs have to look into the needs and wants of customer, be more sustainable and eco-friendly .In addition to that, there are two types of view that most modern organization are now categorized from, classical view and socio-economic view. Classical view simply defined as “management’s only social responsibility is to maximize profits” (Robbins, S et al. 2006, p.161). On the other hand, according to Carrol, 1991, social economic view is the view that management’s social responsibility goes beyond making profits to include protecting and improving society’s welfare.” The organisation that is chosen to illustrates the idea of social economic view is Bangchak Corporation Public Limited Company which focus on 4G sustainability strategies : Green Business, Green Production, Green innovative Experience, and Green Society. According to Sustainability Report (2017), Bangchak hires diabled people for work and they also developed a new diesel premium fuel that reduced emission to fullfill customer’s wants. There are three levels of management level occurs in Bangchak : Sustainability Policy Committee, Sustainability Management Committee and Sub – Sustainability Management Committee. These three management levels carries different job specification where SPC are responsible of setting policy and sustainability goals and to review stakeholders’ needs and expectation whereas SMC AND Sub – SMC will implement SPC goals and monitor their progress. Since customers are the main income of the company, action of Bangchak do helps it company to survive from recession because being “green” will helps to build the company image and government will more likely to subsidise this kind of company.
Sustainability can be sorted into three categories: economic , social and environmental sustainability (Hart and Milstein, 2013). Sustainability is an important driver in an increasingly differentiation of products and services which also known as innovation (Sarni,W , Capozucca,P , 2012). Efforts of driving innovation can either be focusing on social innovation or environmental innovation. According to results published by Asia Social Innovation Award, Ricult won a grand award in 2017. Ricult is a Social Impact Agriculture Tech founded by MIT alums that creates a digital platform to help make agricultural value chain in developing countries more efficient it has already launched in Thailand and Pakistan (Dickie,S,2018). This company focus on being innovative by applying technological skill to make farming more profitable for local farmers such as giving insights to key farming factors such as potential crop yield and pest attack prevention. Samsung is an electronic company origin from South Korea, they plan to achieve an economy sustainability and social value sustainability by bringing in innovative technology and products. According to Blanc,L (2018), 49.8 million tons of e-waste have been produced while only 6.5 million tons of it have been recycled which mean that the remaining e-waste will be dispose to landfills or incinerators. Toxic materials contain in the e-waste such as lead will causes damage to human blood and kidneys. Hence, Samsung plays an important role in being sustainable because customers tend to pay more to support sustainable products. Therefore the other electronic company will then being sustainable so that they are more competitive in this market.
Being sustainable is the objectives of most organisation however some may fail to meet their goals due to certain barriers. Various barriers can be categorized as market failure and social-cultural barriers (Edenhofer,O ,et,al 2012). According to United Nation (2017), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and OFO, a Beijing-based start-up company that has become the world’s first and largest bike sharing platform, are joining forces to raise public awareness about climate change. They claim that they will donate their income to the society as a support for sustainable development goals. However, OFO face a difficulty in operating in China because most of the bikes have been destroyed, stolen or abandoned by those riders. This company also face a situation where funding are getting lesser and lesser whereas they cannot even afford to pay the salaries to their employees. This is a classic case of market failure, the objectives of OFO is to reduce carbon emission and the price of renting a bike is cheap. However, this does not help them to generate much profits due to rapid crime case. Besides that, social cultural barriers also carries impact to sustainable development. New established technology often requires additional land and labours so that it can be produce, but the issue is that in some less developed countries that rely on agriculture. Land is an important resource to them because they need it for farming purposes (Richter,W. 2017). Hence, they might against the invention of new technology although it is aim to benefits them in the future. Social acceptance is an important factor for meeting the sustainable goals, without the cooperation and supports of the public, the objectives of sustainable development can never be achieve.
As a result, sustainability has played a key role in driving innovative strategies for organizational success. Management will be the first steps to change the way of organization operates because employees will just follow the instruction of their managers hence it is important for management level to identify their future goals and how they can implement it. Sustainability can be obtain in several ways such as environmental and social skill, with a greater environment and more efficient employees, the organization tends to generate more profits from it. Although, some social enterprise might encounter some issues from non-acceptance and misunderstand but yet if they manage to perform well, people will be more confidents and they will support these social enterprise. With more supports, organization tend to be more “famous” in the way that they are well known for sustainability since nowadays everyone are concern about climate change and depletion of resources hence new field of sustainability do helps business to success.