In recent years, China’s air pollution has become a serious nationwide problem that is affecting hundred millions of people. The air particle PM2.5 produced by factories is a type of pollutant that can be inhaled by the and cause many health issues. In the article “China’s citizens are complaining more loudly about polluted air”, the author gives a specific example that took place in Daqing, China, where thousands of people demonstrated outside of the city’s government headquarter to resist the plan of building aluminum factories. The projected was later canceled by authorities, therefore, the company that developed this project undoubtedly suffered from it.

This type of event leads us to a question about business ethics: should businesses sacrifice themselves to fulfill other stakeholders benefits or should they only focus on making more profit?

In American economist Milton Friedman’s article “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits,” Friedman strongly disagrees with the argument that businesses have social responsibilities. His main argument is that only human can have responsibilities, not a business or a company. But if we think closely, a company can be seen as a group of individuals gathered together to reach a common objective. Despite making a profit, each individual has their responsibilities to others, and together, the business surely has its responsibilities to all of its stakeholders.

When we look into the example of air pollution, despite public citizens, many other stakeholders are also influenced by it. For instance, the workers in the company are heavily affected because research shows that a change of 10 units of PM2.5 can decrease worker’s productivity by an outstanding 6%. Therefore, if a company does not care about business ethics at all and continues to pollute excessively, their profit would not necessarily grow since their workers’ productivity would also fall significantly.

To sum up my point, people sometimes do not consider business ethics as a necessary responsibility for a company because it is a common understanding that a company’s main objective is to simply increase the profit. However, a company that does not bother with business ethics definitely would not be able to survive in the competitive market due to the fact that every single stakeholder has an impact on the business. If a company loses the support from one entire group of people, it can potentially lead to a disaster and damage the business heavily. At the end of the day, it is always nice to do other people a favor because, most of the time, people who help others receive satisfaction and benefits as well.

Word Count: 430

Citations:

China’s citizens are complaining more loudly about polluted air. (2017, March 02). Retrieved September 13, 2017, from https://www.economist.com/news/china/21717975-government-wants-silence-them-chinas-citizens-are-complaining-more-loudly-about-polluted-air

Zimmerli, W. C., Richter, K., & Holzinger, M. (Eds.). (n.d.). Corporate Ethics and Corporate Governance. Retrieved September 13, 2017, from https://link-springer-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-3-540-70818-6.pdf

Ferro, S. (2015, June 20). The pollution outside your office window affects your work in a big way. Retrieved September 13, 2017, from http://www.businessinsider.com/pollution-affects-labor-productivity-2015-6

Chinese Air Pollution Kills 4,000 People Each Day (And Why It Will Kill Many More). (2015, August 13). Retrieved September 13, 2017, from http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-14/chinese-air-pollution-kills-4000-people-each-day-and-why-it-will-kill-many-more

Business Ethics Corporate Social Responsibility and Governance BA8401 Anna University Management of Business Science MBA. (n.d.). Retrieved September 13, 2017, from http://www.brainkart.com/subject/Business-Ethics-Corporate-Social-Responsibility-and-Governance_120/