Growing Your Company - Practitioner - Finding a Sustainable Path to Business Growth

Hickox, John R. "Finding a Sustainable Path to Business Growth." FinancialExecutive (2012): 68.

In today's economy, businesses are facing many challenges trying to sustain growth within the company.  One of those challenges is the negative effect their business or industry is having on the environment and the associated costs.   The environment is taking a hit from many industries and someone has to be responsible for the costs associated with trying to reverse or fix those problems.  Is it fair for the public to absorb these costs, or should the businesses that are causing the problems be responsible for them?  Also, these environmental changes will also greatly affect the production and output of these companies, providing another challenge and expense for them to consider. 

The purpose of this article is to explain how the changes in the environment will affect many industries by possibly hindering corporate growth all over the world.  There are many costs that could increase because of these environmental changes.  The changes discussed are things that we hear about every day, but probably don’t give much consideration as to the full affect they will have on our economy.  The human impact on the environment has been a growing concern for years and this article exposes the issue in a new way by showing the impact it will have on companies, not just individuals. 

This article discusses ten megaforces that could possibly affect global corporate growth over the next twenty years.   One of the issues discussed is water scarcity.  This is something that is easy to comprehend the enormous effect it could have on many industries, especially food production.  The article cites predictions that “global freshwater demand will exceed supply by 40 percent by 2030.” (Hickox)  With the problems that this could cause for specific industries, the article states that these companies are starting to change their company practices to protect the water supplies for the future.  Many companies are starting to band together with other businesses that may be affected as well as communities and governmental agencies to try and address these issues and develop new systems that help them run more efficiently. 

There are many applications from this article for practicing managers.  Managers need to consider how their business practices affect the environment and how certain environmental changes could affect their business.  Reviewing these issues now, could prevent major problems and costs in the future.  It is important for these businesses to consider new technology and how it can help them run a company that is more environmentally friendly.  This could be a benefit to the environment, surrounding communities and their bottom line.