AngusChak

Business Ethics has always been a topic that I have great interest for. As many consumers know, Walmart is the largest retail industry in the world. However, throughout the years, they truly have not shown business ethics in the community. Scandalous! Walmart uses Sweatshop (slave) labour in China, Taiwan, Honduras, Mexico, Bangladesh, India and many other countries. The workers are women and even children. They are beaten, forced to work 7 days a week and make everything from toys to clothes to computer products. The average Walmart factory worker in China makes $3 US/day. For many years, Walmart’s low prices have tricked consumers in buying their products. Did you know there their products come from? Their foreign products are actually made by cruelty of children in third world countries. Walmart ignores the social responsibilities to their employees, and not nearly spending enough on health care, especially compared to other retail-industries. Walmart CEO even stated: “No, we are not green.” Sure it is cheap, but at what cost to the rest of the world?

My score is 3.278 tonnes of CO2 per year. Not too shabby I must say.
with 67% Food is the bulk of my carbon emissions, but there isn’t too much I can do about that eh? I should get some credit for eating the cows that produce methane!  The site advises me to go vegetarian but I don’t think I would last very long.

at 22.7% Shelter is the next part, again not much I can do about that. I can reduce by turning my heater down and showering quicker, but with the stress of university courses (not comm 101 of course) my showers has become a place for relaxation and comfort.

Commute and Long Distance Travel is completes the pie chart. By not using a car, I am being fairly eco- friendly with my traveling ways. I don’t plan to work 25km to go visit friends in Burnaby nor am I fit enough to bike that length.

Overall, I think (and the website agrees with me) I am limiting my CO2 emissions. SCORE!

After the social entrepreneurship lecture, I found social enterprises very interesting. Since I do not know what type of businesses I want to work for in the future, working for social enterprises could possibly be a great career. For the time being, I don’t find passion for large cooperations, and who knows? I might find that when I explore the world of social enterprises more in the future, I will find great passion for a career where the my main goal is to help those in need.

Bill Drayton is a social entrepreneur. Drayton describes what led him to his current success in Ashoka (a nonprofit organization dedicated to finding and fostering social entrepreneurs worldwide). He claims that he has always had great passion for improving teaching, technology, health care, and finance. He was named as one of America’s 25 Best Leaders in 2005. The goal of Ashoka is to teach youth that they can lead and make important changes across the globe through a Social Venture Capital approach. Ashoka currently operates in over 60 countries and supports the work of 2000 social entrepreneurs. Ashoka envisions that one day, all universities across the globe will serve as an enabling environment where individuals have access to resources and opportunities to act as changemakers of the Changemaker Campus Initiative. Ashoka also invested in creating Youth Venture, Global Academy, Full Economic Citizenship, and Social Financial Services. Ashoka began as a social enterprise with an annual budget of $50,000, but it currently has an annual revenue of $30 million! This shows how both traditional companies and social enterprises both strive to generate revenue, and have a similar organizational structure, however, their values and goals are very different.