Shirt 1 Managing For The Triple Bottom Line Ou
You work as a Sustainability Analyst for the
Consulting firm. As part of your new job assignment, you need to compare two
concrete products of two different brands of your choice by conducting
in-depth research. Decide which of the two products is the more sustainable
one by ranking both products on a scale between 0 (highly unsustainable) and
10 (highly restorative). Based on your
research, prepare a 1-Page Report (Word) and 1-PPT Slide (Summary).
Example:
As an example, in the following analysis we focus on the cotton production, the labor conditions in factories, washing and drying, and how shirt quality and fashion aspects influence the end-of-life impact of the shirt.
|
Aspect |
T-shirt 1:- “Simple Store Brand Shirt” |
T-Shirt 2: “Brand Name Good Shirt”: |
|
Cotton production |
Chemical-intensive monoculture cotton production. |
Organic cotton production, with reduced environmental impact, especially in the use of chemical pesticides. |
|
Labor conditions |
Frequently-changing supplier factories with choice based on currently lowest price. No control of work conditions. |
Long-run supplier relationship with high and frequently controlled labor standards (International Labor Organization and Great Place to work) |
|
Price, margin, revenues |
Cheapest price in the market, little margin, high revenues through high sales volume. |
Same price as other external brand name shirts; higher costs of organic and responsible production is offset by lower design and marketing cost. A high margin is achieved and revenues are less than in T-shirt 1due to smaller overall sales volume. |
|
Washing and drying |
Highly negative water and CO2 impact through standard washing and tumble drying. |
T-shirt has a “tumble drying fuse” (does not allow to tumble dry) and is made of a special quick air dry cotton fabric; with the standard washing instructions, sewn to the shirt comes website information with tips and tricks for reducing the impact of shirt washing and drying. |
|
Quality and fashion |
Often-changing trendy designs and low shirt quality, designed for planned obsolescence 6 months to 1 year periods. |
Timeless design and high material quality so that T-Shirt can be used more than five times as long as the standard shirt. |
|
Score |
2 |
8 |
The table form of comparison chosen here is just one out of many potential formats of analysis. We have chosen fictional, but realistic products here which might be an alternative to comparing real products. For more advanced students, the task can be to further specify each impact and research the quantified magnitudes.