ENGT5219 Engineering Business Environment - De Montfort University

Assignment - Analysing a Sustainable Business

Learning outcome 1: Critically evaluate academic theories and techniques relating to corporate social responsibility and ethical conduct in engineering

Learning outcome 2: Demonstrate awareness of the risks to health and safety, the environment and the business as well as current regulatory requirements facing organisations, engineering teams and business leaders.

Tasks to be undertaken:

This Module examines the impact businesses have on social and ecological environments, and looks to support businesses in their transition to become a force for environmental good. Part of this means evaluating and assessing the starting conditions of a company, in order to identify what helps and what hinders their journey to reduce deleterious social-ecological impacts, and thereafter to identify opportunities to make meaningful changes to their developmental trajectory.

This assignment evaluates the sustainability reports of Unilever, a large multinational corporation, using the corporation's own documentation.

This assignment involves a critical review of this report according to the following criteria:

1) Many organisations employ the five capitals model and/or the circular economy model, whether they actually use these terms in their strategy or not. Following a careful reading of the Unilever report, explain how both of these concepts are articulated in the company's corporate strategy, if they are. Please use specific illustrations. [550 words]

To answer this, first summarise each of the two models, giving relevant examples to illustrate the model/ key concepts. Please use a table for this as this is excluded from the word count. Then, referring to Unilever's report, identify how these concepts are discussed, giving page references to evidence your claims.

2) Unilever already makes a significant effort to align its work with the SDGs. Please identify at least two SDGs where you think Unilever still can make improvements. Clearly define the SDG concerned, identify how it is measured, discuss what Unilever are already doing in support of this goal (assuming they are), and then discuss what Unilever could do to further their ambition to meet this SDG. Please follow this structure in your response.

To succeed in this assignment you are expected to demonstrate the skills of critical reading and critical thinking. Whether you agree or disagree with Unilever's sustainability strategy is not the objective, but you are expected to give evidence in support of your opinion. This evidence must be grounded in academic journal papers (with correct citations). If you are quoting something from Unilever's document, please give the page number.

You are strongly encouraged to optimise your use of library resources for this paper. The expectation is for relevant journal articles to be cited in support of your answers.

Attachment:- Engineering Business Environment.rar