Business Strategies for Environmental Sustainability

Environmental degradation caused by business activities is widely acknowledged all around the world. With the rising concerns over environmental destruction, individuals and businesses are becoming increasingly aware of the dangers that will occur if they do not carefully consider the needs of natural environment in every step they take. Thus, companies practice green initiatives at the firm or product level with the aim of introducing their efforts to help ease environmental impacts of their functions, such as reducing or eliminating ecologically harmful impacts of suppliers, productions, products, or end users. Developing successful business strategies in order to help sustain environmental well-being is an important way of adopting these attempts to satisfy needs of the stakeholders of business entities that can play a vital "bridging role" toward sustainability and today's necessary green lifestyles. This chapter elaborates on the growing importance of environmental sustainability for businesses and identifies different ways to adopt this necessary action for the survival of companies in today's evolving business era. Furthermore, the chapter explores the corporate social responsibility, which is also an important strategy for sustainable business success. In addition, the chapter looks at general business strategies and elaborates on the positioning businesses with sustainable practices. The chapter also includes a number of relevant important industry examples.