Business and Society
Businesses and the society in general are faced with environmental issues because organizations make use of the Earth’s natural resources and later generate wastes that end up damaging the environment. As the society continues to grow, the demand for goods and services increases, which creates the need for organizational expansion. As business organizations continue to expand, the rates of resource utilization and waste generation by these companies increase (Hohnen, 2007). Therefore, some of the environmental issues faced by businesses and society are accumulation of wastes and atmospheric gas emissions. More than 6 billion people are now living in a world with scarce resources, uncertain food supplies, and rising temperatures. The great need for a healthy and sustainable environment compels businesses to develop strategies that will prevent them from engaging in activities that will harm the society (Hohnen, 2007).
Manufacturing companies normally generate wastes at some point in the course of their operations. Most of these companies do not have properly designed methods of disposing wastes that they have generated. Good environmental citizenship and environmental laws forbid the haphazard dumping of industrial wastes because the wastes are health hazards to the society. The most common methods of waste disposal that manufacturing companies use include landfills and diversion of wastes into rivers. Landfills take part of land that the society could have used for settlement and agricultural purposes. Additionally, many households use rivers as their main source of water for domestic use. When the river water is contaminated with industrial wastes, it becomes unsafe for consumption and for daily usage (Hohnen, 2007).
Today, business organizations have formulated strategies that can help them to properly manage the wastes that they generate as a move towards environmental sustainability. One of the strategic approaches that modern organizations are using to respond to the problem of high waste generation is implementation of recycling programs. This strategy helps companies to reuse the byproducts that they have generated thereby preventing their disposal into landfill and rivers (Hohnen, 2007).
Industrial processes normally generate emissions that consist of greenhouse gases, smoke that is filled with chemicals, and other harmful dust particles. Greenhouse gases for example, are very harmful to the society. For instance, Carbon dioxide is associated with global warming that is affecting the world today. The society suffers several problems as a result of global warming that is brought about by carbon dioxide gas generated by business organizations. As a result of global warming, the society cannot carry out their agricultural activities as they used to do, making people to suffer the problem of food shortage. Laws that protect the environment expect businesses to engage in activities that minimize emissions as much as possible (Hohnen, 2007).
Currently, many organizations recognize the importance of behaving ethically towards the society. They have therefore developed strategies that help them to ensure that reduce atmospheric emissions as a way of protecting the society from harm. Business organizations have focused on ways that will help them reduce carbon footprint to extremely low rates. One company that strives to reduce its carbon footprint in order to protect the society is Alcatel-Lucent. This company strictly follows the Greenhouse Gas Protocol and is therefore able to the types of elements to quantify and measure their potential impacts to the society (Alcatel-Lucent, 2015). It is therefore the responsibility of every business organization to ensure that reduces atmospheric emissions as much as possible.
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