INTRODUCTION The issue of sustainable development is becoming central to discussions about the future.

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Bruntland 1987) it is seen now that if the organizations dont give importance in contribution towards sustainable development, then there is quite risk of having loosing their shareholders. Sustainable development is progressively more, been seen as major challenge (white and lee; 2007).According to the world commission on environment and development

SUSTAINBILITY sustainability became the watch word. More recently sustainability has been the subject of renewed interest and debate(Rao;2000), literature is not that much developed to define the term sustainability (Robbinson 2004) and there are many terms in literature such as sustainable development, human sustainability, social sustainability, ecological sustainability, environmental sustainability, and corporate sustainability as well as aligned concepts of CSR and corporate citizenship.

Sustainable development might best be characterized as a contested discursive field which allows for the articulation of political and economic differences between North and South and introduces to environmental issues a concern with social justice and political participation. The sustainable development concept is not the dream of some political party that disdains capitalism and considers it to be evil. Nor is it the consequence of the delusion of people who determined that this world would be better of if it we were going back to our natural roots and resources. Sustainable development is definitely geared toward profitability and the future. Without profit it seems obvious that no business would be sustainable. Regardless of the substantial scholastic and political attention paid to wide concept of sustainable development, there is some impression that the social has been ignored and is not seen to be equivalent to economic or environmental aspects of sustainable development. As a result of this ignorance, social sustainability is the least abstractly formulated concept of the three pillars (Kunz, 2008; Littig and Griebler, 2007; Partridge, 2006). This paper seeks to fill this gap and to strengthen the term social in the sustainability which is one of the most important element of todays highly competitive environment. The purpose of this paper is to systematically develop a broader conceptualization of social sustainability and seeing its impact on the over-all business performance of the hospitality sector of India.

SOCIAL Sustainable tourism was designed not to stop tourism but to manage it in the interests of all three parties involved - the host habitats and communities, the tourists and the industry itself. It seeks a balance between development and conservation. It seeks to find the best form of tourism for an area taking into account its ecology and its culture. It may mean limits to growth, or in some cases no growth at all. The precautionary principle is important here.

Sustainable tourism seeks not just to plan for tourism, but to integrate tourism into a balanced relationship with broader economic development. That is the way in which sustainable tourism fulfils its requirement to think holistically, and one of its approaches to responsibility in business, the triple bottom line. In many rural areas the watchword is that tourism should

be a tool for rural conservation, service retention and diverse development - not just a business for its own sake. In many urban areas, tourism can also work with heritage conservation by using redundant historic buildings for tourism purposes, by injecting tourism expenditures into areas needing urban regeneration, and by bringing jobs and re-training to areas with unemployment / social problems.

But there is a key caveat. Sustainable development cannot be created by planning alone: it needs to work with the market and it needs to work with businesses great and small. ECONOMICAL Sustainable tourism began as a purely reactive concept to the above issues, trying to stop negative change. Early outlines simply listed the negative impacts down the left side of the page and then had a wish list of their opposites, presumed to be positive outcomes, down the right side of the page. To be fair to their authors, there were no research findings or exemplars of successful sustainable tourism to draw on. Only gradually did sustainable tourism become pro-active, trying to create positive change. Many commentators professional as well as amateur enjoy criticising tourism. The key to achieving sustainable tourism is, however, to carry out analytical review and criticism, then implement effective management techniques, and then carry on a rolling review, criticism and management process.

Sustainability issues One of the big challenges within the industry today is the difficulty in rolling out a program corporate-wide to hundreds or thousands of hotels. Changing lightbulbs sounds easy in

theory, but it gets convoluted with issues of procurement, hotel management, and brand standards. The industry is highly fragmented among hotel owners, management, and brands. In one hotel the three can be all the same or be three separate companies. Hotel companies have the challenge of ensuring consistent quality while at the same time innovating their brands in a fragmented industry. Sustainability, in this sense, is no different from overall hotel industry nuances.

The world is consuming nearly three times more energy than it did 40 years ago, 80% of this energy being provided by burning oil, coal and natural gas. Today, this situation raises two major concerns: first, energy combustion pollutes and heats the atmosphere on a large scale; second, this combustion relies on limited natural resources. It will take millions of years to replace the resources that we are consuming in just a few years.To meet its needs, mankind is taking an increasing share of the planet's natural resources, to the point that they may not be able to be replaced. Soils are losing fertility, forests are disappearing, reservoirs of drinking water are drying up, and nature is losing biological diversity.The increase in consumption has led to a global waste production that is 1.5 times higher than 20 years ago, and only 10% of that waste is currently recycled. This waste poses both storage and environmental pollution problems. At the same time, mankind is three times more affluent than it was 40 years ago, but significant problems remain:More than one billion people still live below the world poverty line of USD 1.25 a day.Nutrition is a subject of concern in both the North and the South. Nearly one billion people suffer from malnutrition, while in the world's most affluent countries dietary habits are becoming a major source of cardio-vascular diseases.Demographic and social changes on the planet are rapidly increasing the speed at which infectious diseases spread and, as a result, the impact of those diseases. For example, 33 million people in the world are HIV positive, and 90% of them do not know they are infected.Finally, development differences have shown the importance of education. Education must often be improved from the ground up since in dozens of countries, more than one out of every two people is illiterate.Faced with these challenges, all players in society can be drivers for change. The responsibility of businesses A company can be particularly a force for change in the world once it assumes its responsibilities to its stakeholders that is, the various groups directly or indirectly related to that company.The United Nations Global Compact, launched in 1999, was one of the very first measures enlisting businesses to become more responsible. This responsibility can be demonstrated at various levels:Governance: if open and transparent, a business can establish winning strategies that take the interests of all stakeholders (local communities, investors, suppliers, etc.) into consideration. Human Resources: when a business makes a commitment to train its employees and promote diversity, it improves education and social integration at its level Purchasing: through a

responsible purchasing policy, a business can support the development of small local producers and the development of global segments such as organic or fair trade.Communication: through employee and customer awareness, a business can promote major causes such as the fight against HIV/AIDS or deforestation. Operations: through large-scale projects, a business can help to disseminate new practices such as selective waste sorting or promote new technologies like solar energy.

best practises Giving back to the community is something that Four Seasons employees have always done. Guided by our shared values, each hotel has the ability to develop initiatives and activities that demonstrate their commitment to these values in a way that makes sense locally. There are countless examples of this on the Living Values site, and many efforts were born or continued through the economic downturn. For example, the Haiti earthquake of January 2010 occurred at what some might call the height of the economic crisis. Still, our employees worldwide raised more than CDN $319,000 for earthquake victims. And our contribution to Doctors Without Borders was the largest single donation ever received from a Canadian company. Life doesnt stop to wait for the economy to catch up, and neither do we. Working individually, as a company, and as a partner, weve made a tremendous impact.

When you operate a multinational company, the world becomes a lot smaller. Events across the globe suddenly feel like they are happening in your backyard. The recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan hit particularly close to home because of our properties in Tokyo and our countless Japanese colleagues and loyal guests. But just as we reacted to the crisis in Haiti, employees are rallying together to raise money for relief efforts. Donations have been pouring in from our hotels around the world, and will be directed to the Red Cross.

The activities in which we express our values have evolved more over the 50 years than our commitment itself. As we enter new regions and cultures, we are presented with different opportunities to give back. Education is a big focus for us and is a common thread throughout our activities. In Mumbai, for example, we launched an apprenticeship programme to provide local youth with more career opportunities. We have a similar scheme in the Maldives, too.

Four Seasons also supports the International Business Leaders Forums Youth Career Initiative, which provides young participants with life and vocational skills in the hospitality industry in 11 countries worldwide. Some of the graduates from the programme in Jordan were hired to work at our hotel in Amman.

In addition, more and more of our properties are offering guests the opportunity to give back to the local community. For example, at our resort in Costa Rica, guests can paint schools, sponsor a family or donate backpacks to schoolchildren. In Golden Triangle, Thailand, our guests can adopt rescued elephants and help support those who care for them. We are building on these opportunities and well be launching a special programme in the summer.

And what about the next 50 years? Well, we have plans in the works that will keep us busy over the next few yearsto say the least. On Earth Day, Four Seasons launched a new initiative called 10 Million Trees. As its name suggests, we are making a long-term commitment to plant 10 million trees. This is our biggest sustainability initiative to date, and one in which all our employees will be involved. For 50 years our logo has depicted the annual cycle of a tree and now its symbolism will translate into concrete action. This will have a lasting and positive impact for generations to come.

In order to set up and achieve relevant and realistic targets you will need to invest time and resources in careful planning, organisation, training and follow-up.The first step to take when creating a water management plan is to start measuring water consumption and set some tangible targets. Its vital to know your start point and find out how much water you are currently using. Installing meters and taking regular readings will aid this and sub meters will help you see where the areas of greatest use are. These are obviously the areas where you will probably need to focus most of your efforts.Another key part of understanding measurement and target setting is knowing your water costs. Work out what your potential cost savings may be and the payback period for any capital investment. Grounding a water management plan on costs, as well as environmental saving, will help gain the buy in of key stakeholders and improve your propertys overall efficiency.

CONCLUSION In today's heightened level of environmental awareness coupled with the world-wide trend of sustainability, environmental management by the hotel sector takes on even higher levels of importance. Within this trend, Bahamas hotels have responded positively with various environmental initiatives. While these initiatives have been translated into some increases in environmental management performances of hotels particularly in the area of Energy, environmental management efforts are still to be maximised and there is considerable scope for improvement.

It is evident that cost is a major limiting factor in the environmental soundness of the hotel sector and clear that assistance is needed by way of fiscal and other incentives to attract the widespread use of environmentally sound technologies by the sector. In the main part, incentives specifically for the use of such technology are lacking. This is significant in that the majority of hotels in this sector are small, usually family owned and operated that generally operate on smaller budgets and requires longer periods to invest in any types of project. In The Bahamas this priority is even more urgent in small hotels of sizes with 25 rooms and under, which are the sizes targeted by government for investment by locals and which currently are the least environmentally sound hotels in the country.