Environmental Business Ethics
Ongoing social debate over the human impact on environment change has prompted many companies to re-evaluate the environmental impact of their business operations. This change has ignited a significant debate within the business world and within individual companies about the ethical implications of an aggressive environmental-protection program.
Other People Are Reading
-
Compliance
-
Some companies follow a minimal environmental program based on regulatory norms. For example, a company may face fines or public outrage if it pushed its manufacturing discharges into the local river. Also, companies may try to get ahead of regulators and begin an environmental program that addresses issues that are likely to be regulated in the future, such as carbon emissions.
Return on Investment
-
Environmental practices sometimes have a positive return on investment. For example, a business may decide it is cheaper in the long run to treat industrial waste instead of storing it in containers or pumping it into a lake. Also, corporate leaders may decide that it makes more sense to pilot a pollution-mitigation program--potentially with grant money--than to pay expensive waste-transport fees.
Some companies think advocating green practices may influence environmentally minded customers to prefer their products or services; the adoption of sustainability programs is thought to improve revenues as a result of improved consumer good will.
-
Corporate Social Responsibility
-
Some businesses advance an aggressive environmental program because the leadership has determined that environmentally friendly practices are inherently good. Boards of directors, sometimes under shareholder pressure, will adopt a "corporate social responsibility" agenda that, having identified environmental protection as an intrinsic good, commits the company to adopting green practices as part of the normal course of business.
Greenwashing
-
The downside to a public environmental program is "greenwashing"--that is, the practice of announcing environmentally friendly practices in an attempt to harness public good will, when those practices are either hollow or nonexistent. For example, an auto manufacturer might announce to great fanfare that it is developing an electric car--failing to note that the car was never intended for mass production.
-
References
Resources
- Photo Credit stock photography illustrating safe environment image by Ruslana Stovner from Fotolia.com
