Category: Quality Industrial Environmental Management

Business Case for Sustainability The challenge for many businesses in this new field is to quantify the positive impacts of sustainability. Sustainability can increase revenue, reduce energy expenses, reduce waste expenses, reduce materials and water expenses, increase employee productivity, reduce hiring and attrition expenses, and reduce strategic and operational risks (Blewitt 2014). Furthermore, sustainable business practices…

Business The most broadly accepted criterion for corporate sustainability constitutes a firm’s efficient use of natural capital. This eco‐efficiency is usually calculated as the economic value added by a firm in relation to its aggregated ecological impact. This idea has been popularized by the WBCSD under the following definition: “Eco‐efficiency is achieved by the delivery…

Sustainability issues are being expressed in scientific, environment, economic, and business terms, as well as in ethical terms of stewardship, but implementing change is a social challenge that entails, among other things, national and international law, urban planning and transport, local and individual lifestyles, and ethical consumerisms. The relationship between human rights and human development,…

The five E’s in sustainable development are economy, environment, efficiency, equity, and ethics, as shown in Figure 10.3. Therefore, sustainable development is an ethical concept, like “justice.” We need a new vision of sustainability, a vision that focuses on understanding how sustainability is a kind of relationship, a relationship between society and the environment. All human…

While business ethics emerged as a field in the 1970s, international business ethics did not emerge until the late 1990s, looking back on the international developments of that decade. Many new practical issues arose out of the international context of business. Theoretical issues such as cultural relativity of ethical values receive more emphasis in this…

Ethics is the study of whatever is right and good for humans, while business ethics are some business actions in light of some aspect of human value that requires the evaluation of business practice. Business practice goes beyond facts to include the “ought to” of a situation (Donaldson and Werhane 1979). Business ethics (also corporate ethics)…

Environmental law and policy is critically important and endlessly fascinating. To see its importance, just imagine the United States today without federal regulation of air and water quality, pesticide use, and solid and hazardous waste disposal. No matter how far the nation has come in addressing environmental issues, there remains much to do in terms…

Organizations that give back to the community, whether through employees volunteering their time or through charitable donations are often considered to be socially sustainable. Organizations also can encourage education in their communities by training their employees and offering internships to younger members of the community. Practices such as these increase the education level and quality…

Tueth (2010) reiterates the ideas put forward by authors such as Paul Hawken (The Ecology of Commerce and Natural Capitalism), Bill McDonough and Michael Braungart (Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things), and Janine Benyus (Biomimicry) when he proposes that a mature and authentic sustainable business contains six essential characteristics. Business sustainability also requires firms…