Introduction
In recent decades, societal development in different industrial representations experienced unprecedented growth. It was based on running various social and economic systems that brought developmental value while also consumed a significant number of resources that potentially caused environmental issues (Zuofa and Ochieng, 2016). Respectively, organizations faced the requirement of reporting their activities through the lenses of sustainability, a theoretical concept that explains how certain actions could be effectively performed without resource overuse or extensive damage to the environment (Martinez-Martinez et al., 2019).
Considerably, sustainability is best defined as an organizational approach to responsively perform business activities based on the restrictions imposed by social, ecological, and economic systems. Further, the recent literature concepts related to sustainability studies and their practical application in organizational context are investigated, linking the research to the undertaken analysis of McDonald’s as a case study.
Literature Review
Various academic studies provided different theoretical definitions for sustainability in organizations. The most popular concept is a triple bottom line one that defines sustainability as the integrational approach between environmental, social, and economic dimensions, where the motivational aspect emerges from the essential need to comply with existing legislation (Matzembacher and Meira, 2018; Zuofa and Ochieng, 2016). Alternatively, sustainability is also perceived as an organizational effort to disclose operational transparency and send a credible signal to the shareholders related to the current business operations (Bini, Bellucci and Guinta, 2018).
Furthermore, sustainability is also discussed within the innovation realm, where the estimation of corporate resources and capabilities drives the evolution of the new revenue models and egocentric perspectives on the organizational development (Breuer et al., 2018). Hence, the concept of sustainability in business is multidimensional and requires clear categorization and application to the specific operational environment to explore its anticipated strengths and weaknesses.
To successfully implement sustainability practices in business, it is required to consider related practices and associations outlined in past studies that coincide with organizational objectives. For instance, previous research suggests that sustainability in business is closely related to the notion of knowledge management, meaning that the organization should develop internal competence related to the environmental footprint of its activities and therefore train staff to appropriately react to the relevant changes (Breuer et al., 2018; Martinez-Martinez et al., 2019).
Another perspective relates to the integration of sustainability with disruptive business innovation, where corporate responsibility works towards establishing new productive relationships with suppliers and empowering customer centricity (Matzembacher and Meira, 2018). As an example, it is important considering the sustainability concerns related to the construction industry that is currently on the rise in developing countries and therefore consumes a significant portion of resources while also produces negative social impacts.
Specifically, Zuofa and Ochieng (2016) admitted that sustainability concerns are frequently omitted in project management philosophy and planning even if undertaken by seasoned professionals, which eventually results in revenue losses. Hence, project planning, innovation, and staff training should be considered as the important constituents of the sustainability adoption on the organizational level.
Another part of the literature critique was found in relation to the food industry, which deserves equal attention in terms of analyzing its sustainability opportunities and problems. Recent studies demonstrate that the major issue explored in food production is the case of shortening supply chains, where consumers receive the processed product faster, avoiding the interchanging links with side suppliers while maintaining sustainability standards related to the consumption quality (Bottenberg, Tuschke and Flickinger, 2017).
Specifically, it was acknowledged that organizational management in food production should consider the three-pillar bottom line to incorporate sustainability concerns into the business strategy, which would eventually improve organizational attitude towards healthy diets and product customizations (Matzembacher and Meira, 2018; Zuofa and Ochieng, 2016).
Respectively, recent studies related to food production shifted their interest towards the community supported agriculture (CSA), a business strategy that suggests associating producers as members, obtaining farm shares, and gaining the portion of food cropped within specified periods of the growing season (Searcy, 2016). Considerably, this group of studies suggests that intermediary relationships with suppliers are avoided to ensure that end customer receive fresh and seasoned products, suggesting that direct selling might benefit over traditional supply chain planning in terms of sustainable development.
The application of the aforementioned approaches in the food industry is well-illustrated in the case of McDonald’s. Rowley and McMurtey (2016) suggested that sustainability characteristics required to evaluate the efficiency of the company supply chains are explained through the outside-in focus, embedded innovation, extended supply networks, and ‘excellence addiction,’ or strive to receive corporate sustainability awards. Alternatively, McDonald’s is also a major player on the food supply chain front, where several issues are becoming more prominent in terms of sustainability reporting.
Some of the aspects admitted by Rowley and McMurthey (2016) include the use of genetically-modified organisms, adherence to animal welfare, the use of growth hormones and antibiotics in livestock, as well as adhering to the principles of fair trade in agriculture. Consistently, the food industry requires fair attention in terms of analyzing responsible practices through the application of the triple line bottom model, where social, economic, and environmental aspects are equally addressed in corporate policies.
Finally, it is wise to explore how sustainability strategies and models utilized in various businesses correlate with urban transformation and carbon emission reduction. Ma et al. (2018) defined this concept as sharing mobility, which is an opportunity to drive business innovation through the use app-based smart-sharing systems and practice collaborative consumption. Several studies also suggested that it is a major challenge towards pursuing the synergy in socioecological innovation, which is required for sustainable development of urban systems (Breuer et al., 2018; Clarke, 2016; Zhang et al., 2015).
Additionally, it refers to the previously discussed food industry, suggesting that the sustainable delivery process is also concerned with the use of shared bikes or electric vehicles, which requires integrating sustainability principles during the times of pandemics. Hence, previous literature analysis suggests that it is feasible to combine sustainability principles into a single delivery model, where customers receive the best value based on collaborative efforts demonstrated by market stakeholders.
Overall, the investigation of the past literature suggests that the current philosophy behind the implementation of sustainability is based on the triple bottom line concept. Its application helps to satisfy the needs of both customers and shareholders while depending on the industry its manifestations might vary.
Sustainability is also connected to the corporate governance and knowledge management dimensions, especially when it relates to the food industry. Finally, recent research also postulates the importance of matching the sustainability of business ecosystems with urban infrastructure to ensure that governance efforts are well integrated with environmental concerns experienced outside of corporate boundaries.
Potential Value of Sustainability when Implemented in Business
The implementation of sustainability projects requires critical analysis related to anticipated business values. By business nature, organizations tend to overuse available resources for profitability, which requires making certain trade-offs when dealing with the optimization strategies and implementing specific sustainability models. For instance, the case of McDonald’s shows that the company has a clear pathway in meeting the requirements of top ranking for the food supply chain model efficiency based on the following characteristics.
Within the outside-in focus, the company practices consistency checks by randomly pulling out its products from the restaurants to the laboratory checks to determine if the final products fit the consumption preferences. For the embedded innovation aspect, McDonald’s arranged several partnership agreements with organizations such as Cargill and Tyson Foods to ensure that their online supply efforts are synchronized (Rowley and McMurtrey, 2016).
Alternatively, there are also local farming suppliers supported by the company in a collaborative manner to ensure direct partnership, which was effectively implemented in India (Rowley and McMurtrey, 2016). Hence, the search for sustainable operations for the case of McDonald’s relates to the importance of developing partnerships on both customer and supplier levels.
Sustainability practices utilized by McDonald’s are also interesting in terms of the ‘excellence addiction,’ which implies a dual manifestation of two terms in a corporate business environment and sustainability efforts. While addictiveness refers to the inability to engage in certain activity repeatedly, excellence suggests the purpose of demonstrating outstanding results in a regular and deliberate fashion (Rowley and McMurtrey, 2016).
McDonald’s practices the excellence addiction through building consistent supplier relationships by either visiting their sites or inviting them to the corporate headquarters for short training sessions or experience sharing interviews (Anaf et al., 2017). Furthermore, it enhances its sustainability vision through participation in the food quality symposiums and engaging in regular feedback collection surveys from its customers. Overall, it contributes to its high sustainability rankings verified by external organizations, which creates a positive organizational climate and improves corporate reputation.
Another industry that largely benefits from sustainability projects is construction. It predisposes that the healthy built environment requires considering resource efficiency and ecological design to ensure through the application of well-thought project management practices (Marcelino-Sadaba, Gonzalez-Jaen and Perez-Ezcurdia, 2015). Sustainable construction practices also suggest that it is important to find a win-win solution of positively contributing to the environment and society, while also gaining economic benefits to organizations involved in construction project execution (Zuofa and Ochieng, 2016).
Furthermore, sustainability in construction also relates to the overarching concept of sustainable urban development, where social welfare is considered in line with economic prosperity. Organizational examples within the aforementioned context refer to the major construction projects in UAE linked to the tourism development, which are also enhanced with authentic use of information technologies and Internet of Things. However, in terms of meeting intended project objectives, sustainability in construction is yet to be conceptualized by establishing complex frameworks that are based on past experiences and failures in meeting the triple bottom line concept requirements.
The implementation of sustainability practices in organizations has also led to the formulation of particular ideologies that are intended to help organizations in protecting environments and therefore receive social recognition. For instance, for construction industry Zoufa and Ochieng (2016) mentioned the recent concepts of doom and gloom environmentalism, ecological enhancements, and a set of actions aimed towards acknowledgment of unintended manufacturing consequences to the nature.
Majorly, these concepts emerge from the historical context of environmental abuse, the risk of global warming, and evolving public anxieties related to these issues (Heravi, Fathi and Faeghi, 2015). The number of related issues eventually led to rethinking of organizational missions, visions, and the establishment of stewardship practices that support sustainable thinking and provide best practices for meeting environmental responsibility standards.
In both food and construction industries, some notable examples include maximization of reusing resources, minimization of resource consumption, and focus on renewable and recyclable use of materials for production. However, other industries might follow alternative ideological principles in meeting social, economic, and environmental objectives within the organizational context.
A separate focus should be made on sustainability in organizations that make a negative environmental impact because of the nature of their business operations. One of such examples is mining industry, where it is critical to ensure that environmental footprint is clearly disclosed in annual reports and is consistent with legal restrictions and requirements to reduce environmental damage (Qi et al., 2019).
Respectively, Bini, Bellucci and Giunta (2018) used the case of UK mining companies and concluded that few sustainability issues are integrated in respective business models, which means that organizations are required to dedicate more time for retrospective analysis of its core activities to develop robust sustainability standards for future operations.
Specifically, authors admitted that sustainability practices are mostly omitted when it comes to the choice of raw materials, and almost completely ignored for the cases of corruption, lobbying, and local employment practices (Bini, Bellucci and Giunta, 2018). Therefore, it is critical to ensure that sustainability practices are controlled by the government to implement clear compliance standards to perform regular audit of the companies that require more guidance in practicing sustainability.
Overall, organizational analysis shows that the value of implementing sustainability practices could be high only under the condition of careful analysis of environmental effects and past activities that were eventually harmful. Specifically, it requires establishing clear corporate governance principles and committing to the environmental standards adopted on the official level (Adnan and Tandigalla, 2017).
However, depending on the industry specifics, sustainability projects could be complex to execute given the nature of business operations or overall business maturity. For instance, while food industry can obtain sustainability focus through more transparent communication with suppliers and participation in social activities such as charity, while construction and mining companies require developing more complex strategies to implement sustainability in their supply chains.
Meanwhile, since environmental risks become more regulated on the government level, it is obvious that heavy industries will be forced to focus on improving their sustainability agendas and follow the principles of corporate governance to remain competitive and satisfy social, economic, and environmental requirements in business.
Conclusions and Recommendations
The focus of the Group Task was to explore sustainability management aspects for McDonald’s. Based on the analysis conducted in the previous sections, the triple bottom line sustainability model should be used as a background for developing future corporate practices, while those could be further enhanced with additional focus on embedded innovation, social contribution, and the newly introduced ‘excellence addiction’ approach.
The embedded innovation could be further practiced on the global level, where the company should shift towards arranging partnerships with local suppliers, particularly focusing on engaging farmers to shorten supply chain. The sustainability logic behind is that previous marketing campaigns of McDonald’s was oriented to attract children and families, while the nutritional aspect required additional validation in terms of health value (Anaf et al., 2017; West, 2016).
Consistently, if local suppliers are appropriately engaged for collaboration, restaurant chains will have better access to the fresh raw products, which in its turn will improve the quality of food served. Alternatively, farmers will receive an incentive to control the quality of food supplied through the shortened supply chain. Meanwhile, there is a certain risk of increased price of product and attrition.
In terms of social contribution, it is reasonable to admit that more efforts in a corporate philanthropy are required for McDonald’s. While the nature of its business operation is less complex than the other industries reviewed in this report, there is still a need of considering how to effectively manage the aspects of healthier diets, packaging, waste management, and sustaining animal health and welfare audits (Niero and Rivera, 2018).
For the healthier diets, it is important to collaborate with dieticians who would provide scientifically approved estimations for the nutritional quality of products. Packaging and waste management approaches might be eventually replicated from the concerns previously voiced for construction industry, where the principles of renewable and recyclable materials are adopted (Perkins et al., 2018).
The aspect of animal health is trickier, since there is no uniform opinion on whether replacing natural products such as meat with, for instance, soy products, is a healthier alternative for the food consumption. Hence, in this case the consultancy of government authorities involved in protection of natural resources might be required to ensure the development of sustainable course of actions.
For the ‘excellence addiction’, McDonald’s should keep working towards establishment of transparent reporting strategies and corporate governance. Specifically, it means that the company should develop the accountability culture, where financial statements reflect on the sustainability concerns and communicated publicly. It is important that such statements are well understood based on the principles of revenue recognition, risk assessments, legal matters, and tax obligation uncertainties, since sustainability strategies could be costly and unevenly implemented depending on the local restrictions (Iqbal et al., 2018).
However, it is also critical to ensure that driving sustainability does not lead to forcing the mercenary culture, where the company creates a corporate environment that succeeds based on the principles of hard work and high performance while avoids the importance of nurturing work-life balance practices.
To conclude, sustainability in food delivery service and production in McDonald’s requires considering a combination of different approaches related to business actions, social stance, and image positioning through public reporting. Eventually, it will help to demonstrate corporate commitment to organizational goals, as well as showcase concerns related to environmental protection. However, it is also important to demonstrate economic cost of implementing sustainability practices to shareholders to ensure that additional costs are integrated in organizational budgeting and planning without the risks to overall business performance, where McDonald’s still requires introducing new concepts and practices.
Reflective Appraisal
By undertaking a Group Task, I was able to figure out why developing robust sustainability strategy is important in the contemporary organizational context. The Gibbs’ model of reflection was further used to conceptualize individual experiences from the practical knowledge obtained during the course. In description stage, I found that sustainability strategies in a corporate environment and academic research basically follow the principle of finding balance between economic aspect of profitability, social concern of customer care, and environmental issues regardless the industry investigated.
Considerably, the feelings stage shows that revenue making strategies in the food industry require consistent sensing of customer preferences, while the evaluation stage contributes to the formulation of the market entry and sustainability strategies. Furthermore, during the Group Task execution it was beneficial to further practice and implement project management skills, that relate to the analysis of past primary events, researching secondary evidence, and making logical conclusions on the most appropriate integration of sustainability theory into the practice.
Finally, the action stage allowed sharing individual opinions on the effectiveness of certain sustainability strategies, which further resulted into comprehensive analysis of organizational activities and reporting on the global rather than local scale.
For the future assignments, the following learnings were carried out during the Group Task execution. First, it is important to consolidate initial preferences related to the company choice against the requirements of the assignment, since most definitely it could be more productive to choose local operation setting to evaluate the environmental impact on the lower scale. Second, it is important to keep in mind that theoretical frameworks are not universally applicable to the business realities because of the narrow focus used by academic researchers, which requires further validation against emerging business issues and changing customer’s requirements.
Specifically, it was found that specific concepts such as ‘excellence addiction’ require further elaboration on the sustainability front, which comprises tight engagement with major organizational stakeholders to synchronize existing business strategies. Third, it is important to research financial statements and sustainability reports apart from the academic evidence when it comes to exploring global commercial activities, since for smaller organizations operating at local level it could be eventually reduced for short primary investigations through interviewing company representatives. Finally, keeping a record of past activities is also essential to provide meaningful business reflections.
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