Business Ethics, Sustainability Ethics & Corporate Social Responsibility
26 Sep 2010 Leave a Comment
in environment Tags: ceres, CSR, greenwashing, sustainability
Becoming sustainable makes business sense and moves towards the ‘3 Ps’ of focussing on People, Planet and Profits, in that order. Even though some companies have a good honest concern for the environment, their bottom line is to maximize profits, and this ironically is often the reason why companies are showing concern for people and the planet.
It’s easy to get on the bandwagon for sustainability, precisely to offset any harm that might be done to their reputation and thus to the bottom line of profit. But let’s be careful of ‘Greenwashing’.
Of course it is very easy to take aim at any major company, find problems and from that conclude that their environmental concern is a cynical front. The dynamics surrounding attempts to develop sustainability in large companies can easily become polarized and be characterized as greenwashing. Behind this is the ethics of the perfection argument – in that a company cannot be deemed ethical if it does not get everything right. For most discerning critics, they know not to expect perfection.
So it is important these companies make it clear that their message is not making a claim to perfection and notes that sustainability involves the development of awareness and capacity to respond to need, and is thus a continuing process. It must work carefully to develop corporate integrity – in this sense a corporate version of the professional virtue. This is defined as developing a consistency between principles and practice across all contexts and necessarily involves a process of continual learning.
A good example of an attempt to bring together sustainable business principles and practice is the CERES principles. The Coalition of Environmentally Responsible Economies (CERES) set out some basic principles in response to the Exxon Valdez disaster of 1989.
CERES Principles:
- Protection of the biosphere
- Sustainable use of natural resources
- Reduction and disposal of waste
- Energy conservation & efficiency
- Risk reduction for health and safety risks
- Safe products and services – seeks protection of consumers and environment by making products safe and providing information about their effect on the environment
- Environmental restoration
- Informing the public and transparency
- Management commitment to implement and monitor the principles
- Audits and reports for assessment of compliance
*On a same but different note…
“Same Same, But Different”
CERES is an awesome acronym. When I first read about the CERES Principles, I was thinking about the CERES – Centre for Education and Research in Environmental Strategies, a non-profit, environmental education centre and urban farm located in East Brunswick, Melbourne.
Ceres is also the goddess of agriculture…(wiki)
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