The Business and the Environment

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The Business and the Environment

The environment is defined as both biological and physical factors together with their chemical interactions which interfere with an organism whereby pollution is important. A business is required legally and ethically to take good care of the environment. An example of a legal responsibility is that all businesses are prohibited from emitting harmful wastes into the environment. This act is meant to protect the environment against the exposure to such harmful wastes that would interfere with the normal biological cycle. Another legal responsibility is that businesses that venture into agricultural practices are prohibited from using excessive chemicals into the soil that will kill the living organisms found in the soil. In terms of ethical issues, businesses are morally obliged to increase awareness of the importance of taking care of the environment and ways through which this can be done. In addition, ethically speaking that is, business organize tree planting campaigns to increase the area of land covered by trees. Trees are very important aspects of the environment as they prevent soil erosion, get rid of carbon (iv) oxide from the atmosphere and attract rain just to mention a few.

Environmental legislation is important in the governance of a state. Both industry groups and governments have an important role to play in imposing laws that sensitize the public on the impacts of the activities of the industry. In Australia, there has been enactment of energy efficiency opportunity programs. (Australia, 2013) this program requires that those indusstries that use large amounts of energy should make it a busines policy to identify, evaluate and then publicly report about the various options that exist that can be used to save energy. The program has benn made mandatory to those businesses that use at least 0.5 petajoules of energy per annum. Small business are nonetheless required to participate too

Firms should invest money in sustainability efforts. Sustainability is vital as it ensure that we presently have and will in the future still have a good environment, human health, water, and other resources that are important in enhancing survival of the human race. The environmental, social and economic consequences due to rapid growth of the population and uncontrolled consumption of the publicly owned natural resources has brought about the issue of sustainability. Firms should therefore take it upon themselves to make an initiative to progress sustainability efforts. The stakeholders involved are the staff members of a firm, the shareholders also known as the owners of the firm, the customers and the general public both directly or indirectly affected by the activitioes of the firm.

References:

Baron, D. P. (2003). Business and its Environment (p. 2). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Kaplan, R. S., & Norton, D. P. (2001). The strategy-focused organization: How balanced scorecard companies thrive in the new business environment (pp. 32-37). Harvard Business school press.

Fries, S., Lysenko, T., & Polanec, S. (2003). The 2002 business environment and enterprise performance survey: results from a survey of 6,100 firms (No. 84).