Purpose Statements
This statement describes an organisation’s long-term dream or what it wants the future to look like.
Vision statement
What is value
This term means any benefit experienced by a stakeholder connected to an organisation.
What is CSR
Corporate social responsibility
What is a strategy?
This is a plan an organisation creates to reach a specific objective.
What is a linear economy
Involves taking resources from the Earth, making products with them, and then disposing of the products.
What is a mission statement?
Unlike a vision statement, this explains what an organisation currently does to achieve its future goal.
What are SMART objectives
This acronym means specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-focused.
A bakery switches to renewable electricity and reduces water consumption. Identify the types of ecological responsibility it may be addressing.
Local and global ecological responsibility
True or False: Strategic planning requires: analysis and evaluation of the internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats connected with strategic plans
True
What are the three principles of the circular economy?
Eliminating waste and pollution, circulating products and materials, and regenerating nature.
Why are the mission and vision statements important? State two reasons
Keep long-term goals visible during daily operations.
Provide a reference point during difficult decisions.
Show outsiders the organisation’s purpose and priorities.
If actions contradict the statements, trust can fall.
Explain one way a company could accomplish the goal of growing
Increasing its sales revenue
Expands into new markets
Developing new products
Give two benefits of CSR for a business.
Benefit: CSR can improve reputation, customer loyalty and employee motivation
A shop offers a weekend discount to clear excess stock. Is this a strategy or a tactic?
A tactic
Give an example of a product life extension model
A company repairs used smartphones and resells them, extending their useful lives.
A company changes its vision and mission without careful discussion, and employees no longer take them seriously. Name one reason this is a problem.
Employees may become disconnected from the company’s direction, reducing motivation and making the statements less effective.
The company may also lose credibility with stakeholders.
What is excessive value extraction?
When companies pay workers very low wages, produces low quality products, cuts environmental investment, among others, to distribute large profits to shareholders
Give two benefits of CSR for a business
Limitation: CSR can increase short-term production costs or require difficult changes to organisational culture.
Give two activities involved in strategic planning.
Conducting market research.
Analysing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT).
Securing funding.
Setting milestones to measure progress.
Assessing social and ecological impacts.
What is a user-oriented product service system model?
Customers pay to use a car without owning it, while the company retains ownership. Identify the circular business model.
A Foundation’s mission is to accelerate the transition to a circular economy. Suggest a suitable vision statement for this organisation.
“A world where waste is eliminated and resources are continually reused.” Other appropriate long-term visions are acceptable.
Explain why maximising short-term profits may conflict with the long-term interests of other stakeholders.
It can reduce employee welfare, damage the environment, weaken supplier relationships and reduce investment in the business’s long-term survival. Although shareholders may benefit initially, other stakeholders and the business itself may suffer over time.
Patagonia encourages customers to repair and reuse clothing, checks its supply chain and donates to environmental organisations. Explain how these actions demonstrate CSR.
These actions demonstrate CSR by addressing environmental and social impacts through responsible sourcing, product repair and reuse, and support for environmental causes. Patagonia considers the interests of stakeholders and the planet rather than focusing exclusively on profit.
A multinational commits to a 10-year sustainability transformation, while a store manager introduces a one-week promotion. Explain why these decisions differ in scale.
The sustainability transformation is a strategy because it is long-term, significant and may affect the entire organisation. The promotion is a tactic because it is short-term, smaller in scope and easier to reverse.
Explain one limitation of circular business models and why circularity alone may not guarantee sustainability.
One limitation is that waste recovery systems may be underdeveloped, making recycled materials expensive or difficult to obtain. Circular business models may also cause rebound effects, where savings lead to increased consumption, or fail to address social issues such as poor working conditions. Therefore, circularity alone does not guarantee environmental and social sustainability.