Download Chapter 9 BUSINESS AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

Chapter 9
BUSINESS AND
ENVIRONMENTAL
SUSTAINABILITY
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
Copyright © 2014 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
ETHICS IS TOUGHER THAN YOU THINK . . .
“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty
of the biotic community. It is wrong when it does otherwise.”
- Aldo Leopold
“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.”
- Edward Abbey
“Waste equals food.”
- William McDonough
“Environmental regulation is a signal of design failure.”
- William McDonough
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CHAPTER OBJECTIVES
o
After exploring this chapter, you will be able to:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Explain how environmental challenges can create business
opportunities.
Describe a range of values that play a role in environmental decision
making.
Explain the difference between market-based and regulatory-based
environmental policies.
Describe business’s environmental responsibilities that flow from
each approach.
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CHAPTER OBJECTIVES
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Identify the inadequacies of sole reliance on a market-based
approach.
Identify the inadequacies of regulatory-based environmental policies.
Define and describe sustainable development and sustainable
business.
Highlight the business opportunities associated with a move towards
sustainability.
Describe the sustainable principles of eco-efficiency, biomimicry,
and service.
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OPENING DECISION POINT: WHEN IS
BUILDING DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION AN
ETHICAL ISSUE?
o Is the decision to meet LEED building standards a business decision
or an ethical decision?
o Should every new building project be required to meet LEED
standards, or is this best left to individual businesses?
o Who are the stakeholders in this decision?
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OPENING DECISION POINT: WHEN IS
BUILDING DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION AN
ETHICAL ISSUE?
o Are you aware of any controversies with regard to the LEED
standard or certification process?
o Environmental architect William McDonough (see his essay
included at the end of this chapter) once claimed that government
regulation is evidence of a design problem and a failure to properly
design a product or building. Can you imagine any regulations that
might be avoided by designing a building to LEED certification?
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INTRODUCTION
o There is a tendency to believe that environmental challenges always
create a burden on business and that environmental and business
interests are always in conflict.
o While environmental regulation can add costs to business operations
and restrict business choice, they can also provide opportunities for
business.
o We have entered the sustainability revolution—an age where
creating environmentally and economically sustainable
products/services is creating unlimited business opportunities.
o The way we have done business over the last two centuries has
brought us up against the biophysical limits of the earth’s capacity
to support all human life.
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INTRODUCTION
o Throughout the history of industrial economies, business most often
looked at environmental concerns as unwanted burdens and barriers
to economic growth.
o The sustainable business and sustainable economic development
seek to create new ways of doing business in which business success
is measured in terms of economic, ethical, and environmental
sustainability, often called the Triple Bottom Line approach.
o The major ethical question of this chapter is what responsibilities
contemporary businesses have regarding the natural environment.
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FIGURE 9.1 - THE NATURAL STEP FUNNEL
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INTRODUCTION
o The environmental research and consulting group The Natural Step
uses an image of a funnel, with two converging lines, to help
business understand the opportunities available in the age of
sustainability.
o The resources necessary to sustain life are on a downward slope.
o The second line represents aggregate worldwide demand, accounting
for both population growth and the increasing demand of consumerist
lifestyles.
o Barring an environmental catastrophe, many but not all industries will
emerge through the narrowing funnel into an era of sustainable living—
innovative and entrepreneurial business will find their way through.
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INTRODUCTION
o The Natural Step challenges business to “backcast” a path
towards sustainability.
o Backcasting examines what the future will be when we emerge
through the funnel.
o Knowing what the future must be, creative businesses then look backwards
to the present and determine what must be done to arrive at that future.
o In simple terms, sustainable business must use resources and produce
wastes at rates that do not jeopardize human well-being by exceeding
the earth’s capacity to renew the resources and absorb the wastes.
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BUSINESS ETHICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL
VALUES
o Deciding what we should do is the ultimate goal of practical reason;
our values are standards that encourage us to act one way, not
another.
o Given this objective, which values and decisions are supported by
the natural environment? Why should we act in ways that protect the
natural environment from degradation? Why should business be
concerned with, and value, the natural world?—Human self-interest
is the most obvious answer.
o Environmental concerns are relevant to business because human
beings, both presently living humans and future generations of
humans depend on the natural environment in order to survive.
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BUSINESS ETHICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL
VALUES
o Two aspects of contemporary environmental realities underscore the
importance of self-interested reasoning.
o Past human societies have often run up against the limits of the local
environment’s ability to sustain human life.
o In these historical cases, environmental degradation has been
localized to a particular region and has seldom affected more than a
generation.
o In contrast, some contemporary environmental issues have the
potential to adversely affect the entire globe and change human life
forever.
o The science of ecology and its understanding of the interrelatedness of
natural systems have helped us understand the wide range of human
dependence on ecosystems.
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BUSINESS ETHICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL
VALUES
o By the late nineteenth century, humans came to recognize the selfinterested reasons for protecting the natural environment.
o The conservation movement—the first phase of modern
environmentalism—advocated a restrained and prudent approach to the
natural world.
o From this perspective, the natural world was still valued as a resource.
o Conservationists argued against the exploitation of natural resources as if
they could provide an inexhaustible supply of material.
o The natural world, like capital, had the productive capacity to produce
long-term income but only if managed and used prudently.
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BUSINESS ETHICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL
VALUES
o Besides self-interested reasons to protect human life and health, the
natural environment is essential and valuable for many other
reasons.
o The beauty and grandeur of the natural world provide great aesthetic,
spiritual, and inspirational value.
o Parts of the natural world can have symbolic value, historical value,
and such diverse psychological values as serenity and exhilaration.
o These values can conflict with the use of the earth itself as a
resource to physically, as opposed to spiritually, sustain those who
live on it.
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DECISION POINT: COMMERCIALIZE A
HISTORIC CIVIL WAR SITE?
o What facts would be helpful to know before making a decision?
o What values are in conflict in this case? Take a look at Disney’s
environmental policy. How might its policy guide its decisions or
present conflicts in the current dilemma?
o http://thewaltdisneycompany.com/citizenship/policies/environmental
-policy
o Who are the stakeholders in this case?
o What would be the consequences if all public land uses were
decided by the market?
o What are the rights and duties involved in this case?
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BUSINESS ETHICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL
VALUES
o A final set of values that we will consider involves the moral status
of animals and other living beings.
o Variously referred to as the animal rights, animal liberation, or animal
welfare movement, this approach attributes a moral standing to
animals.
o According to many people, animals, and all other living things, deserve
to be respected and treated with dignity.
o Such a status would create a wide variety of distinctive ethical
responsibilities concerning how we treat animals and would have
significant implications for many businesses.
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BUSINESS ETHICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL
VALUES
o Distinctive ethical responsibilities concerning how we treat animals
has significant implications for many businesses.
o Some argue that many animals, presumably all animals with a central
nervous system, have the capacity to feel pain—reminiscent of the
utilitarian tradition—asserts an ethical responsibility to minimize pain.
o Acts that inflict unnecessary pain on animals are ethically wrong.
o A second approach argues that at least some animals have the cognitive
capacity to possess a conscious life of their own—reminiscent of the
Kantian ethical tradition—asserts that we have a duty not to treat these
animals as mere objects and means to our own ends.
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BUSINESS’S ENVIRONMENTAL
RESPONSIBILITY: THE MARKET APPROACH
o Historically, debate has focused on whether efficient markets or
government regulation is the most appropriate means for meeting
the environmental responsibilities of business.
o If the best approach to environmental concerns is to trust them to
efficient markets—responsible business managers simply ought to
seek profits and allow the market to allocate resources efficiently.
o By doing this, business fills its role within a market system, which in
turn serves the greater overall (utilitarian) good.
o If government regulation is a more adequate approach, then business
ought to develop a compliance structure to ensure that it conforms to
those regulatory requirements.
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BUSINESS’S ENVIRONMENTAL
RESPONSIBILITY: THE MARKET APPROACH
o A market-based approach to resolving environmental challenges—
reminiscent of the narrow, economic view of CSR—contends that
environmental problems are economic problems that deserve
economic solutions.
o Fundamentally, environmental problems involve the allocation and
distribution of limited resources.
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BUSINESS’S ENVIRONMENTAL
RESPONSIBILITY: THE MARKET APPROACH
o In his book, People or Penguins: The Case for Optimal Pollution,
William Baxter argued that there is an optimal level of pollution that
would best serve society’s interests. This optimal level is best
attained by leaving it to a competitive market.
o Baxter begins with a goal of “safe” air and water quality, and translates
this goal to a matter of balancing risks and benefits.
o Society could strive for pure air and water, but the costs (lost
opportunities) that this would entail would be too high.
o A more reasonable approach is to aim for air and water quality that is safe
enough to breathe and drink without costing too much.
o Society, through the activities of individuals, will be willing to pay
for pollution reduction as long as the perceived benefits outweigh
the costs.
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BUSINESS’S ENVIRONMENTAL
RESPONSIBILITY: THE MARKET APPROACH
o The free market provides an answer for resource conservation.
o From a strict market economic perspective—resources are “infinite.”
o As the supply of any resource decreases, the price increases—providing a
strong incentive to supply more or provide a less costly substitute.
o In economic terms, all resources are “fungible”—can be replaced by
substitutes, and in this sense resources are infinite.
o A similar case can be made for the preservation of environmentally
sensitive areas.
o Preservation for preservation’s sake would be wasteful since it would
use resources inefficiently.
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BUSINESS’S ENVIRONMENTAL
RESPONSIBILITY: THE MARKET APPROACH
o Challenges to this narrow economic view of corporate social
responsibility are familiar to both economists and ethicists.
o A variety of market failures, many of the best known of which involve
environmental issues, point to the inadequacy of market solutions. E.g.
Existence of externalities.
o Since the “costs” of such things as air pollution, groundwater
contamination and depletion, soil erosion, and nuclear waste disposal are
typically borne by parties “external” to the economic exchange (e.g.,
people downwind, neighbors, future generations), free market exchanges
cannot guarantee optimal results.
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BUSINESS’S ENVIRONMENTAL
RESPONSIBILITY: THE MARKET APPROACH
o A second type of market failure occurs when no markets exist to create
a price for important social goods.
o Endangered species, scenic vistas, and biodiversity are just some
environmental goods that typically are not traded on open markets.
o Public goods such as clean air and ocean fisheries also have no established
market price.
o With no established exchange value, the market approach cannot even
pretend to achieve its own goals of efficiently meeting consumer demand.
o Markets alone fail to guarantee that such important public goods are
preserved and protected.
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BUSINESS’S ENVIRONMENTAL
RESPONSIBILITY: THE MARKET APPROACH
o A third way in which market failures can lead to serious environmental
harm involves a distinction between individual decisions and group
consequences.
o We can miss important ethical and policy questions if we leave policy
decisions solely to the outcome of individual decisions.
o Consider the calculations that an individual consumer might make
regarding the purchase of an SUV and the consequences of that decision
on global warming—The additional CO 2 that would be emitted by a single
SUV is miniscule enough that an individual would likely conclude that her
decision will make no difference. However, if every consumer made
exactly the same decision, the consequences would be significantly
different.
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BUSINESS’S ENVIRONMENTAL
RESPONSIBILITY: THE MARKET APPROACH
o A number of alternative policies (e.g., restricting SUV sales, increasing
taxes on gasoline, treating SUVs as cars instead of light trucks in
calculating Corporate Automotive Fuel Efficiency [CAFE]
Standards) that could address pollution and pollution-related disease
would never be considered if we relied only on market solutions.
o Markets are incomplete (at best) in their approach to the overall social
good. In other words, what is good and rational for a collection of
individuals is not necessarily what is good and rational for a society.
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BUSINESS’S ENVIRONMENTAL
RESPONSIBILITY: THE MARKET APPROACH
o Internalizing external costs and assigning property rights to
unowned goods such as wild species—two responses to market
failures by the defenders of a narrow economic view of CSR.
o But there are good reasons for thinking that such ad hoc attempts to
repair market failures are environmentally inadequate.
o One important reason is what has been called the first-generation
problem.
o Markets can work to prevent harm only through information supplied
by the existence of market failures. We learn about market failures and
thereby prevent harms in the future only by sacrificing the “first
generation” as a means of gaining this information.
o When public policy involves irreplaceable public goods such a
reactionary strategy is ill advised.
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BUSINESS’S ENVIRONMENTAL
RESPONSIBILITY: THE REGULATORY
APPROACH
o A broad consensus emerged in the United States in the 1970s that
unregulated markets are an inadequate approach to environmental
challenges.
o Much of the most significant environmental legislation in the United
States was enacted during the 1970s.
o The Clean Air Act of 1970, Federal Water Pollution Act of 1972
(amended and renewed as the Clean Water Act of 1977), and the
Endangered Species Act of 1973 were part of the national consensus
for addressing environmental problems.
o Before this legislation was enacted, the primary legal avenue open
for addressing environmental concerns was tort law.
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BUSINESS’S ENVIRONMENTAL
RESPONSIBILITY: THE REGULATORY
APPROACH
o Before this legislation was enacted, the primary legal avenue open
for addressing environmental concerns was tort law.
o Only individuals who could prove that they had been harmed by
pollution could raise legal challenges to air and water pollution—legal
approach placed the burden on the person who was harmed and, at best,
offered compensation for the harm only after the fact.
o Except for the incentive provided by the threat of compensation, U.S.
policy did little to prevent the pollution in the first place.
o Because endangered species themselves had no legal standing, direct
harm to plant and animal life was of no legal concern and previous
policies did little to prevent harm to plant and animal life.
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BUSINESS’S ENVIRONMENTAL
RESPONSIBILITY: THE REGULATORY
APPROACH
o The laws enacted during the 1970s—shifted the burden from those
threatened with harm to those who would cause the harm.
o Government established regulatory standards to try to prevent the
occurrence of pollution or species extinction rather than to offer
compensation after the fact.
o Business was free to pursue its own goals as long as it complied
with the side constraints these minimum standards established.
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BUSINESS’S ENVIRONMENTAL
RESPONSIBILITY: THE REGULATORY
APPROACH
o The consensus emerged that society had two opportunities to
establish business’s environmental responsibilities.
o As consumers, individuals could demand environmentally friendly
products in the marketplace.
o As citizens, individuals could support environmental legislation.
o As long as business responded to the market and obeyed the law, it met
its environmental responsibilities.
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BUSINESS’S ENVIRONMENTAL
RESPONSIBILITY: THE REGULATORY
APPROACH
o Several problems suggest that the regulatory approach will prove
inadequate over the long term.
o First, it underestimates the influence that business can have in
establishing the law.
o Second, this approach also underestimates the ability of business to
influence consumer choice.
o To conclude that business fulfills its environmental responsibility when it
responds to the environmental demands of consumers is to underestimate
the role that business can play in shaping public opinion.
o Further, if we rely on the law to protect the environment, environmental
protection will extend only as far as the law extends. Yet, most
environmental issues, pollution problems especially, do not respect
legal jurisdictions.
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BUSINESS’S ENVIRONMENTAL
RESPONSIBILITY: THE REGULATORY
APPROACH
o Similarly, national regulations will be ineffective for international
environmental challenges.
o Finally—most troubling from an environmental standpoint—this
regulatory model assumes that economic growth is environmentally
and ethically benign.
o Regulations establish side constraints on business’s pursuit of profits and,
as long as they remain within those constraints, accept as ethically
legitimate whatever road to profitability management chooses.
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BUSINESS’S ENVIRONMENTAL
RESPONSIBILITIES: THE SUSTAINABILITY
APPROACH
o Beginning in the 1980s, a new model for environmentally
responsible business began to take shape—one that combines
financial opportunities with environmental and ethical
responsibilities.
o The concept of sustainable development and sustainable business
practice suggests a radically new vision for integrating financial
and environmental goals.
o These three goals, economic, environmental, and ethical
sustainability, are often referred to as the three pillars of
sustainability.
o Assessing business activity along these three lines is often referred
to as the “triple bottom line.”
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BUSINESS’S ENVIRONMENTAL
RESPONSIBILITIES: THE SUSTAINABILITY
APPROACH
o The concept of sustainable development can be traced to a 1987
report from the United Nations’ World Commission on
Environment and Development (WCED), more commonly known as
the Brundtland Commission
o The commission was charged with developing recommendations for
paths towards economic and social development that would not achieve
short-term economic growth at the expense of long-term environmental
and economic sustainability.
o The Brundtland Commission offered what has become the standard
definition of sustainable development. “Sustainable development is
development that meets the needs of the present without compromising
the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
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BUSINESS’S ENVIRONMENTAL
RESPONSIBILITIES: THE SUSTAINABILITY
APPROACH
o Economist Herman Daly has been among the leading thinkers who
have advocated an innovative approach to economic theory based on
the concept of sustainable development.
o What is sometimes called the “circular flow model” explains the nature
of economic transactions in terms of a flow of resources from
businesses to households and back again.
o Two aspects of the circular flow model are worth noting.
o First, it does not differentiate natural resources from the other factors of
production—does not explain the origin of resources. They are simply
owned by households from which they, like labor, capital, and
entrepreneurial skill, can be sold to business.
o A second observation is that this model treats economic growth as both the
solution to all social ills and also as boundless—the possibility that the
economy cannot grow indefinitely is simply not part of this model.
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FIGURE 9.2 - THE CIRCULAR FLOW MODEL
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BUSINESS’S ENVIRONMENTAL
RESPONSIBILITIES: THE SUSTAINABILITY
APPROACH
o The three points summarized in the Reality Check, “Why
Sustainability?” suggest why the circular flow model will be
inadequate.
o Daly argues that neoclassical economics, with its emphasis on
economic growth as the goal of economic policy, will inevitably fail
to meet these challenges unless it recognizes that the economy is but
a subsystem within earth’s biosphere.
o We need to develop an economic system that uses resources only at a
rate that can be sustained over the long term and that recycles or reuses
both the by-products of the production process and the products
themselves.
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FIGURE 9.3 - A MODEL OF THE ECONOMY (OR
ECONOMIC SYSTEM) AS A SUBSET OF THE
BIOSPHERE (OR ECOSYSTEM)
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BUSINESS’S ENVIRONMENTAL
RESPONSIBILITIES: THE SUSTAINABILITY
APPROACH
o Figure 9.3 differs from Figure 9.2 in several important ways.
o First, the sustainable model recognizes that the economy exists within a
finite biosphere that encompasses a band around the earth that is little
more than a few miles wide.
o From the first law of thermodynamics (the conservation of
matter/energy)—matter nor energy can truly be “created,” it can only be
transferred from one form to another.
o Second, energy is lost at every stage of economic activity.
o Consistent with the second law of thermodynamics (entropy increased
within a closed system), the amount of usable energy decreases over time.
o “Waste energy” is continuously leaving the economic system and thus new
low-entropy energy must constantly flow into the system. Ultimately, the
only source for low-entropy energy is the sun.
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BUSINESS’S ENVIRONMENTAL
RESPONSIBILITIES: THE SUSTAINABILITY
APPROACH
o Third, the sustainable model no longer treats natural resources as an
undifferentiated and unexplained factor of production emerging from
households.
o Natural resources come from the biosphere and cannot be created ex
nihilo.
o Finally, it recognizes that wastes are produced at each stage of
economic activity and these wastes are dumped back into the biosphere.
o Over the long term, resources and energy cannot be used, nor waste
produced, at rates at which the biosphere cannot replace or absorb
them without jeopardizing its ability to sustain (human) life. These
are what Daly calls the “biophysical limits to growth.”
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THE “BUSINESS CASE” FOR A
SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY
o Regulatory and compliance model—interprets environmental
responsibilities as constraints upon business, the sustainability
model—more forward looking and may present business with
greater opportunities than burdens.
o First, sustainability is a prudent long-term strategy.
o As the Natural Step’s funnel image suggests, business will need to
adopt sustainable practices to ensure long-term survival. Firms that fail
to adapt to the converging lines of decreasing availability of resources
and increasing demand risk their own survival.
o Second, the huge unmet market potential among the world’s
developing economies can only be met in sustainable ways.
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THE “BUSINESS CASE” FOR A
SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY
o Third, significant cost savings can be achieved through sustainable
practices.
o Savings on energy use and materials will reduce not only
environmental wastes, but spending wastes as well. Minimizing wastes
makes sense on financial grounds as well as on environmental grounds.
o Fourth, competitive advantages exist for sustainable businesses.
o Firms that are ahead of the sustainability curve will both have an
advantage serving environmentally conscious consumers and enjoy a
competitive advantage attracting workers who will take pride and
satisfaction in working for progressive firms.
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THE “BUSINESS CASE” FOR A
SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY
o Finally, sustainability is a good risk management strategy.
o Refusing to move towards sustainability offers many downsides that
innovative firms will avoid.
o Avoiding future government regulation is one obvious benefit.
o Avoiding legal liability for unsustainable products is another potential
benefit.
o Consumer boycotts of unsustainable firms are also a risk to be avoided.
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PRINCIPLES FOR A SUSTAINABLE
BUSINESS
o The precise implications of sustainability will differ for specific
firms and industries, but three general principles will guide the
move towards sustainability.
o Firms and industries must become more efficient in using natural
resources.
o They should model their entire production process on biological
processes.
o They should emphasize the production of services rather than products.
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PRINCIPLES FOR A SUSTAINABLE
BUSINESS
o Firms and industries must become more efficient in using natural
resources—sometimes called eco-efficiency, have long been a part
of the environmental movement.
o “Doing more with less” has been an environmental guideline for
decades.
o Some estimates suggest that with present technologies alone, business
could readily achieve at least a fourfold increase in efficiency and as
much as a tenfold increase.
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PRINCIPLES FOR A SUSTAINABLE
BUSINESS
o The second principle of business sustainability—firms should model
their entire production process on biological processes—can be
easily understood by reference to Figure 9.2.
o “Closed-loop” production seeks to integrate what is presently waste
back into production. In an ideal situation, the waste of one firm
becomes the resource of another, and such synergies can create ecoindustrial parks.
o Just as biological processes such as photosynthesis cycle the “waste” of
one activity into the resource of another, this principle is often referred
to as biomimicry.
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PRINCIPLES FOR A SUSTAINABLE
BUSINESS
o The ultimate goal of biomimicry is to eliminate waste altogether
rather than reduce it.
o If we truly mimic biological processes, the end result of one process
(e.g., leaves and oxygen produced by photosynthesis) is ultimately
reused as the productive resources (e.g., soil and water) of another
process (plant growth) with only solar energy added.
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PRINCIPLES FOR A SUSTAINABLE
BUSINESS
o The evolution of business strategy towards biomimicry can be
understood along a continuum.
o The earliest phase has been described as “take-make-waste”—business
takes resources, makes products out of them, and discards whatever is
left over.
o A second phase envisions business taking responsibility for its products
from “cradle to grave”—sometimes referred to as “life-cycle”
responsibility.
o It holds that a business is responsible for the entire life of its products,
including the ultimate disposal even after the sale.
o A cradle-to-grave model would hold a business liable for groundwater
contamination caused by its products even years after they had been buried
in a landfill.
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PRINCIPLES FOR A SUSTAINABLE
BUSINESS
o Cradle-to-cradle responsibility extends this idea even further and holds
that a business should be responsible for incorporating the end results of its
products back into the productive cycle—it would create incentives to
redesign products so that they could be recycled efficiently and easily.
o A third sustainable business principle involves a shift in business model
from products to services.
o Traditional economic and managerial models interpret consumer demand
as the demand for products—washing machines, carpets, lights, consumer
electronics, air conditioners, cars, computers, and so forth.
o A service-based economy interprets consumer demand as a demand for
services—for clothes cleaning, floor covering, illumination, entertainment,
cool air, transportation, word processing, and so forth.
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CHAPTER NINE VOCABULARY TERMS
o After examining this Chapter, you should have a clear understanding
of the following Key Terms and you will find them defined in the
Glossary:
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Backcasting
Biomimicry
Corporate Automotive Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) Standards
Cradle-to-cradle responsibility
Eco-efficiency
LEED certification
Service-based economy
Sustainable business practice
Sustainable development
Three pillars of sustainability
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