AGILE Sustainability

Academic: Balancing Profitability and Sustainability by Garima from Georgia State University

June 11, 2021 Hou Yifeng Season 1 Episode 2
AGILE Sustainability
Academic: Balancing Profitability and Sustainability by Garima from Georgia State University
Show Notes

Welcome to Episode 2 of AGILE Sustainability. In this episode, we are lucky to have an academic on business sustainability research Garima with us.

Garima is an Assistant Professor at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University. One of her research focuses is to study how businesses balance profitability and sustainability. She has worked closely with businesses to understand how they act, think and make decisions around social and profit goals. And she is kindly sharing her insights for people who find balancing profit and sustainable goals challenging.


The topics in this podcast are:

  • 00m43s: Introduction on Garima and her research
  • 02m28s: Pressing motivations for business to initiate sustainability transition
  • 07m42s: Crafting a sustainable plan in the face of volatility
  • 12m24s: Useful systematic tools to dissect complex problems 
  • 14m06s: Measuring progress during sustainability transition
  • 17m16s: Balancing profitability and sustainability
  • 21m09s: Promoting collaboration between academics and business practitioners

One of the highlights from Garima’s insights on balancing profitability and sustainability is to challenge the assumption of a zero-sum game in business development in terms of resource allocations, and that social issues and business issues are decoupled. You can learn more about why these two assumptions should be challenged in the podcast. As a result, when businesses move further away from these two assumptions, they will open up more room for potential solutions and opportunities when incorporating sustainability in their business models.

If you like this podcast and want to learn more from Garima, you can read about her research areas on her website.

Find the transcription here.

Find out the topics to be explored at https://www.agilesustainability.org/

We would like to hear from you at podcast@agilesustainability.org
Reach out to us for any questions or challenges you face in adopting sustainability solutions.

Music by Wataboi from Pixabay