Posted by mz
on March 3, 2009, 3:14 am, in reply to "Business Ethics - "The Story of Stuff""
128.54.163.43
Very interesting. Glad I watched it.
I am definitely for sustainability. Although sometimes it is not as easy to do all of those things. The video mentioned that companies use externality costs to make the products cheaper for consumers. Without having these externality costs, most of the green consumer goods are much more expensive than the regular non-green goods. It's a practical issue. Sometimes consumers just cannot afford to buy all those green products. In fact, most people buy regular products rather than the more recyclable, organic, etc. products, as you can observe in supermarkets. It's just not affordable to always buy green because they are too expensive.
Businesses can do much more than consumers though. They have the money and the power to change their factory locations, change the structure, develop new technologies for manufacturing, etc. If they use less toxic and unrecyclable materials in manufacture in the first place, then we consumers will buy less unrecyclable goods, and we can all be more sustainable.
There are companies that do this, just not too many yet. From a seminar given by a former NASA person now affiliated with the UCSD ESI (Environment and Sustainability Initiative), I've heard that there is a company that reduced its wastes by something like 80% but increased profit by 50% in just a short period of time; a carpet company that produces random patterned carpets in 1 square feet rather than several-yard-long pieces, so that if there's a soda spill, you'd only have to change 1 piece instead of the whole room's carpet, reducing waste.
So when they say businesses should do more other things than just making more and more money, I'd agree. The moral shouldn't be just making money. There's all those other concerns that relate closely to the society, environment, and culture, like the video said. They're not just operating in a economic/business cycle on a blank white piece of paper; their actions influence a great deal more than just money in the society. So they should also do things that are not just money, to be considered moral, and even responsible!
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