Tata Motors and Sustainability

Your are required to identify sustainable (or unsustainable) practices in an industry, country or region.

Several issues regarding environment and sustainability tend to rise in today’s business environment (Kwangseon 2014, p. 89). Therefore, having a strategy that ensures the sustainability of both the business and the environment are the key role of today’s companies. Business sustainability refers to the approach that a business organization adopts to create long-term stakeholder value by implementing the business strategy that takes into account all dimensions of business operations in an ethic, social, environmental, cultural and economic spheres. These practices are always characterized by the need to have environment-friendly by reducing exposure to waste materials and always differ among the companies (Ajibade & Khayundi 2017, p. 20). These practices benefit companies and the entire society in virus ways, such as money saving, a boost of the market share, creation of Green collar jobs and attracts and retains employees. The paper explores Tata Motors business sustainability factors taking into account all the effects in the current and in the future.

Tata Motors is an Indian based automobile company, that was formerly known as Tata Engineering Company when was launched in 1954. The company currently has over about 4500 engineers, scientist and technician that all operate in countries such as South Korea, United Kingdom, Thailand, and Indonesia among others (Lindsay 2011, p .36). Tata motors main automobile products are categorized as the passenger’s cars such as Tata Indicia, the Utility vehicles such as Tata Sumo, the commercial cars and the passenger’s cars. Land Rover and Fiat powertrains. The company forms the fifth largest truck manufacturer and fourth bus manufacture in the world.

 As much as the Indian business is weak in marinating sustainable business practices, Tata motors have been one of the key aspects of the operations (Nunes, Valle & Peixoto 2011, p. 320). Tata motors have a total of 90 companies in more than 80 countries, thereby creating the need to sustain the environment for the future benefit of the company and his society. The company throughout the history has developed policy and practices that ensure respect for nature.

Change of Code of Conduct and Policies

Pollution prevention strategy is a practice adopted by that after the change of code of conduct that focuses on the reduction of fuel uses and increase on smarter ways of using fuels. The results are achieved through the reduction of the waste at the source of production, the facilitation on the use of non-toxic substances and reusing of the waste material rather than disposing them to the environment.

Waste Reduction Practices

Packaging Material Reduction

The company has also embarked on the strategy of reducing the packaging materials through the use of sustainable packaging materials such as wood. The company focus on recycling the wood packaging material with about 69% hence reducing the rate of using wood in packaging eventually saves the environment. Additionally, the company has come up with collapsible custom-build polypropylene cartons that eliminates the use of bubble wrap as spare parts packaging materials.

Reduction on the Consumption of the Virgin Material

Tata motors majorly focus on the material management with the objective of reducing the consumption of the virgin material. These are achieved through the process of recycling and reuse of waste material thus eliminating the exposure of toxic chemicals such as hexavalent chromium, asbestos, ozone, and lead among others.

Resource Recovery Strategy

Resource Recovery Strategies refers to a process of selectively extracting a disposed of material for usage in a specific manner through various methods. The process entails the reception of more from a single strategy; otherwise wasted resources are recovered through proper recycling and disposal.

 Life Aggregates

Increasing life of aggregates is an approach that was initiated in 2010. The process ensured that about 13,788 engines and 8,690 other spare parts were reconditioned and facilitated the process of resource conservations such as reusing the engine oil (Kwangeseon 2014, p. 9). The engine oil is currently reused in testing cycles and has enabled the company to test 170 engines with 200-litre engine oil instead of the earlier 85 vehicles. The strategy also allows a Tata vehicle owner to approach any of the designated channel partners to exchange failed assembly for reconditioning rather than going to a mechanic, hence in improving the material value and resource efficiency.

Waste Disposal Practices

Tata motors practice efficient waste disposals as per the prescribed rules and regulations of respective State Pollution Control Board and as per the Hazardous Waste Management and Handling Rules.

Incinerator Ash Conversion

Most of the motor paints are always dangerous to the environment and the life of the workers. The company embarked on reusing dangerous paint sludge and thinner through conversion into the low-quality paint that is more suitable for painting floors (Kumor & Chandra 2012). Additionally, Tata Motors came up with incinerator ash conversion process into Pavements brocks that are used in constructing the walkways within the company premises. The adopted incineration process has helped in reducing the deposition of the hazardous ash into landfills.

Material Management

Free-Take-Back

Tata motors have developed a strategy of recovering vehicles that have end life the rough partnership with Cartakeback.com Ltd, a National ELV service provider. Through this process the vehicle that has reached into the end life to be treated without affecting the environment.

Tata motors are every day working on sustaining the transportation system through the development of less fuel consumptions vehicles, and innovation of electric powered cars (Srikanth 2018, p.736). The introduction of the hybrid electric car, hybrid bus, fuel cell bus all tend to protect the exposition of the toxic materials from the fuels such as diesel and petrol(Sharma & Mathew 2016, p. 269). Among the conventional fuels used to meet Tata’s energy mix objective is through the use of the high-speed diesel (HSD), furnace oil (FO), liquefied petroleum gas among others (Agarwal 2013, p.1066). The company is also developing an idea of coming up with engines that are capable of operating through the use of the natural gas, wind energy, solar energy. Moreover, the company has been on the forefront on developing vehicles that do not create noise to the environment. For example, the Prima Lx 4028.S truck that had high vibration was modified to reduce the vibration level concerning the IS 3028 Test conditions.

In the few past years, many businesses engage themselves in sustainability practices that are perceived by critics as a way of looking for untrustworthy competition(Tudor et al 2011,p.54). Investing in social responsibility by companies provides better opportunity into the competitive market, however doing good poses challenges met during strategy formulation and execution (Siengchilia 2017). These sustainable business practices offer various benefits and threats to different stakeholders. For example, Tata Motors Company offers various values and risks as elaborated below.

The availing of the Tata’s most affordable car in the world, Nano is embraced by a large number of people as the most environment-friendly automobile. However, it is perceived as a threat to the greenhouse. The Nano car aims at meeting the European emissions standards on exhaust: this emission quality is environmentally friendly. However, the same environmentalist feels the idea of having Tata’s Nano on the street is a raw idea (Diabat, Khodaverdi & Olfal 2013, p. 950). The car is the cheapest in the world, projecting it to be the most owned in India and other parts of the world.   The car fuel consumption is also little of about 1 liter of fuel for 21 km as compared to other vehicles that take about 80km for the same amount of fuel: that about 1.5g/km travelled of hydrocarbon as compared to the 0.5 g/km of hydrocarbon from the normal cars. This means that the affordability price makes it be populated in the streets, consuming the largest amount of fuel and most important that there will be a large amount of emission of dangerous gas. The ultimate negative effect will land on the public as a larger percentage will be

Resource Recovery Strategies

Tata Motor’s sustainability practices influence partnership with other business organizations that eventually advantageous to the general public. For example Employees of the Tata Motors get great value on the company’s sustainability practices. The company tends to offer a large number of the employee some training opportunities, region, sustainability. The partnership with the Symbiosis International through a MoU offered the employee’s opportunity to develop their talents at the same time is at work. These eventually strengthen the employee’s managerial skills for the future benefit of the company and the environment. Additionally, Tata’s Motor partnership Sodexo’s resulted into development of a restaurant that is in accordance to the Tata’s needs and has recruited a dedicated team of about 185. The Sodexo provides healthy and varied menus adapted to the local tastes along with nutrition advice.

Business sustainability values can be measured through various ways, however, the sustainability of Tata Motors sustainability factors addresses above, I will you the following methods: leading and lagging indicators, lifecycle consideration, resource and value, and triple bottom line. Business sustainability refers to the approach that a business organization adopts to create long-term stakeholder value by implementing the business strategy that takes into account all dimensions of business operations in an ethic, social, environmental, cultural and economic spheres. These practices are always characterized by the need to have environment-friendly by reducing exposure to waste materials and always differ among the companies.

Life Cycle Measurement

Life cycle consideration is also known as the outcome indicators are the strategy used to measure the attributed improvement in an organization’s business process. Through the use of the leading indicator, shows the future performance of a firm, thus prompting for innovations (Gemechu et al 2016, p.156). The leading indicator of the public’s need for an affordable car and environment-friendly led to the innovation of Tata Nano car. The lagging reports represent the retrospective view performance and are always the most preferred because of the meaningful aspect and the simplicity. However, the lagging report fails to provide managers with foresight about the future performance. For example, using the lagging report on the Nano Car, it is evidential that most people will pose it as a result of the affordability,  however, will are not likely to know the number of people who will still own the future after the revelation of the gas emissions.

Resource and Value Assessment

Through the use of resource and value measurement, I will be able to maximize the rate of resource consumption about the maximum consumption of the value. Tata motors have extensive resources existing from the natural materials such as land that require the creation, use and dispositions of products (Khezri, Shariat & Tabibian, 2012 p.468). The proper channel of these must be adhered to, and the value of sustainability is observable at the end. The value refers to the condition that is attributed to a company’s activities that are beneficial to more than one stakeholder.

Electric Vehicle Development

The proper use of the natural resources such as land at the end must create value for both the company and any other stakeholder such as the community. The value addition will ensure that motors are produced in the pieced of land, pollution is avoided, and both the labor and natural resource are consumed that offers benefit to more than one stakeholder. Therefore taking into account the resource and value creation, one is capable of measuring the sustainability practices of the company.

Life Cycle Assessment

The life cycle of a product entails the manufacture/production, the use and the disposition at the end of the life (Kumar & Chandra 2015, P. 90). Most of the companies fail to capture the life cycle of their product, and therefore I would design a strategy of how to of recycling and recovering the old vehicles. Looking at the past operations of most companies, which are always focused on the profit-making through selling products to consumers and forgetting the end effects of those products to their consumer, the sustainability practices allows new companies to determine the results and effects. These are commonly achieved through determination of the general impact of the fuel into the customer’s health and economic status. A good sustainable practice will not only benefit the company regarding growth and profit but will also take into account the concerns of the customer for longer life.

Bottom Line Measurement

The bottom line measurement entails three aspects of performance that are economical, societal and environmental (Siengchin 2017). Through the integration of these aspects, I will be able to determine the sustainability of the products from every stakeholder perspective (Azevedo & Barros 2017, p.290).  Tata motors consumed the economic resources through a various process such as operations and maintained cost, the environmental resources through the use of fossil fuels and lands for a business setting, and the societal resources through the person taking time in driving. Through analyzing all the resources put into consumption, and relating to the end value of the process, I will be able to come up with either a positive value or a negative value.

Most of the automobile industries tend to measure their value through the amount of the shareholder return (Dunn & Hart-Steffes 2012). In most cases companies focuses on profitability and growth and forgetting that to remain competitive in the future then sustainability id a critical aspect. Tata motors have a better probability of continuing to command market in the automobile market as a result of the strong sustainability base built (Szekey & vom Brock 2017, p. 20). In the next 20 years, Tata Motors will be launching large mass of electrically controlled vehicles that will become outwash all the petroleum-fueled vehicles.

Benefits and Risks of Sustainable Business Practices

Tata Sustainability practices ensure acquisition of profit, growth and command in the current and future market share. The company sustainability practices generate value and aim at reducing the effects of waste through various innovations (Dun & Hartsteffes, p. 73). The innovation capability of the Tata motors will enable it to come up with a solution of the vehicle’s emission by introducing the electrically controlled vehicle and renewable propelled vehicles such as Nona Car, hybrid cars among others.

Conclusion

Business sustainability is an upcoming business objective along with the growth and profit making that has never been popular in most organizations. The sustainability practices encompass aspects on the society and social life, environment and many others. These practices differ per company allows participative companies to enjoy market command. Tata motors practice business sustainable aspects in various ways to enable it survive and protect the environment.

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