Cradle to Cradle - Essay Example

Question 1

Business organizations strive to maintain a competitive advantage to secure a spot in the market either through cost or differentiation perspective. However, this has only allowed firms to concentrate on attaining internal effectiveness and efficiency which in turn ensures profitability. Traditionally, companies focused on achieving internal economic sustainability as their primary goal. However, growing concerns have prompted business companies to shift their objective in line with environmental obligations. Therefore, individual firms are restructuring themselves to produce with effectiveness and efficacy tied with fewer environmental impacts throughout their value chain for sustainability. The primary aim of value chain analysis within an organization is to enable value creation, determine value activities and linkages which integrate to attain a sustainable competitive advantage over other competitors (Tan, 2009). By identifying activities that add value to the company, those that add no value are eliminated.

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According to (Kleindorfer et al., 2005) business companies do not find sustainable development as challenging as it is to achieve it, for instance, the kind of strategies to pursue to reach sustainable development. The drivers of sustainable development include economic prosperity, social responsibility and steady integration of environmental stewardship. This approach has made its place in every decision made by leading firms including Walmart, H & M, Levi Strauss and Co. and others. The firms ensure to surpass the primary supplier compliance systems and focus on enhancing sustainability performance within their supply chains. To begin with is building a good rapport with their suppliers, improving supplier capacity, and searching and investing in opportunities for social and environmental improvement all through the supply chain. By doing so, business enterprises can enjoy the benefits of a sustainable value chain and attain high levels of efficiency and productivity.

It is significant for companies to ensure employees have sufficient knowledge of the value chain as the first procedure in developing sustainability. This aids in identifying the network as well as the casual effect relationship after affiliations have been well-structured (Tan, 2009). Furthermore, the value chain is significant when determining the scope of system competencies and sources which consequently aids in the identification of movement of goods and services in and out. Also, value chain allows for connection of identified sources, chosen generic strategy and linkages with the social responsibility, environmental stewardship, and economic prosperity hence achieving sustainable development.

Question 2

Source: https://open.sourcemap.com/maps/59b877ca18612b0f7a20ae83

The Coca-Cola Company is among the leading American Multinational beverage corporations whose headquarters is at Atlanta, Georgia. It has its anchor bottler, Coca-Cola refreshments located in North America. The actual items for Coca-Cola include all the raw materials that are the primary ingredients used in the production of Coca-Cola which is water, sugar, concentrated formula, and aluminum to manufacture the cans. Sugar is supplied from the central plant which is mixed with the concentrated formula from coca cola International. What follows is the dilution and processing of the formula which involves the addition of water, and Carbon dioxide. Next is bottling process in the own plants. This is finally distributed to regional dealers then local dealers and eventually to consumers.

References

Kleindorfer, P. R., Singhal, K., & Wassenhove, L. N. (2005). Sustainable operations management. Production and operations management, 14(4), 482-492.

Tan, J., & Zailani, S. (2009). Green Value Chain in the Context of Sustainability Development and Sustainable Competitive Advantage: A Conceptual Framework. International Journal of Business Insights & Transformation, 3(1).