Essay About Essay Business And Capital Views

Business Vs. the EnvironmentJoin now to read essay Business Vs. the EnvironmentBusiness vs. the EnvironmentBusiness today has so many responsibilities. Aside from making a profit, they are forced to take on a different responsibility, one that involves the environment. Even though, they already have many regulations set by the government, they are still being asked to answer to the call of helping out the rest of society take of nature. This essay will discuss the pros and cons of corporate responsibility for the environment through the agent-of-society and agent-of-capital views.

The agent-of-society view holds that corporate managers are prima facie obligated to consider the interests of everyone who is likely to be affected by what managers decide to do. With this view in mind, Michael Hoffman states, “Corporate managers should be held morally responsible for going beyond considerations of profits, law, and market morality to try to do what they can to help solve our most pressing environmental problems.” In his article, Hoffman argues that business must creatively find ways to become part of the solution, instead of the problem. Business should try to become more environmentally friendly and think of ways to help mitigate the many environmental problems we have. Consumers argue they have no control over or say in whether business provides environmentally friendly products or not. They argue that it’s not up to them “how the products are made, how the services are provided, or how the legislation is enacted.” Although, some businesses have tried to come up with environmentally friendly products but they find that consumers are unwilling to pay extra for them. He thinks corporations can and must develop a conscience, including an environmental conscience. Like the owner of the paper company, business should think of ways to stop the pollution and harm to the environment and take action quickly so that they can set an example for other businesses to follow.

One really good point that Hoffman made was that to ensure the survival of the planet, society needs the cooperation of all its players to solve its most urgent problems. But businesses don’t view this as something profitable to them so they don’t spend the time, money, or resources to try to solve the problems. They feel as if this is a problem that the government needs to find appropriate solutions to. Businesses are not ready or capable to take risks or make sacrifices that will put them out of business. The Environmental Defense Fund is now trying to encourage businesses into becoming more environmentally friendly. Their strategy “is to get businesses to help solve environmental problems by finding profitable or virtually costless ways for them to participate.” They want to find win-win situations so that businesses will want to help.

The Environmental Defense Fund also released a study of the U.S. energy supply last year showing that renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and geothermal provide only one percent of the energy needed by the U.S to meet the needs of our global population.

Other renewable energy sources—including wind or solar, wind turbines, and geothermal—are expected to provide around 7 percent of demand for 2035.

In addition, other renewable energy sources will require energy supplies. Renewables have become a significant source of cheap electricity, yet energy supplies are increasingly at stake. For example, some of the most energy-intensive renewable technologies are now being replaced as fossil fuels (as are wind turbines and geothermal)—while others are at least half-heartedly being replaced with renewable energy sources.

As the Renewable Future Study from the United Center of Climate Research shows (pdf, 4 MB), U.S. and other developed countries are currently implementing renewable power plants. These units of power generate roughly a quarter of the electricity generated in the entire world, an increase of 12 percent from 2007. These plants are now responsible for 25 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, a reduction of up to 6.6 percent for 2035.

The U.S., South Korea, and South Africa are responsible for nearly 90 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions in the world today, a 25 percent increase of the world’s total emissions. The U.S. is leading one of the few industrialized nations where the U.S. is not the dominant greenhouse gas producer.

The United States’ dependence on oil has long been an international problem, with its dependency on oil supplying about 40 percent of all of the world’s energy supply. This contributes to the need for international action to address climate change. While many countries have been successful in reducing their dependence on fossil fuels, others have done little to change their dependence on them. Even though the U.S., South Korea, and China are producing more oil than it has, they are still emitting 10 times more natural gas than they used to. More than 90 percent of gas emissions came from China—much of it from its energy boom in the 90s. The United States, in turn, is responsible for 80 percent of global gas emissions.

One of the most striking studies from this year’s Conference on Climate Change is by Naomi Oreskes of the Center for Energy Economics at the University of Virginia, and published last week in the journal EIA Climate Review. On her website, Oreskes discusses these findings in a provocative but often overlooked way:

Many of the worst things about the fossil fuel industry were not discovered until well after the industrial revolution ended. As an investor in the oil industry, it became less and less plausible that the world government would spend the trillions of dollars necessary to stop the continued production of soot from developing. If the energy efficiency programs of wind and solar had been enacted, there would have been a huge reduction in the amount of fuel that we use and the carbon footprint would have been vastly reduced.

The findings from Oreskes’ report, together with estimates of what governments owe energy companies in a period of 20 years, are a powerful demonstration of the need for further adaptation, as well as an indication that the U.S. is ready to engage in actions to make renewable energy available

The agent-of-capital view holds that corporate managers are prima facie obligated to be an agent to the shareholders and focus on the pursuit of corporate profits within the “rules of the game” established by law and capitalist market morality. Milton Friedman’s main theory is “the social responsibility of business is to produce goods and services and to make a profit for its shareholders, while playing within the rules of the market game; to engage in open and free competition without deception or fraud.” Friedman also makes a very good point. He says that “corporation is an artificial person and in this sense may have artificial responsibilities, but ‘business’ as a whole cannot be said to have responsibilities.” Therefore, business cannot have a social conscience. Even if there are “social responsibilities,” they are the responsibilities of the individuals, not the business. These corporate executives are also people in their own right who have their own “social responsibilities,” but they are acting within the scope of their employment so they have to think of the business and the fact that they are spending someone else’s money, namely the stockholders’, the employees’, and the customers’ money.

There are three arguments that I believe are the best when arguing for the agent-of-society view. First is Hoffman’s view that “society needs the ethical vision and cooperation of all its players to solve its most urgent problems, especially one that involves the very survival of the planet itself.” In order for society to solve its problems, the people of the society need to come together and support each other in trying to find solutions to fix the problem. Everyone should bring their knowledge, expertise, and resources needed to deal with the environmental crisis. Second, Hoffman says the “we quite often act differently when we think of ourselves as consumers than when we think of ourselves as citizens.” When we think of ourselves as consumers, we act for ourselves, more often then not; but as citizens, we take on a broader view