Month: September 2014

At the UN Climate Summit this year $200 billion  was pledged by groups of financial institutions making it seem that the world is shifting away from the burning of fossil fuels. The truth is that exploiting fossil fuels are still apart of the world’s long term plans. Instead of America planning to change itself it has decided to focus on helping other countries steer away from fossil fuels. It seems as if America is more focused on boosting their economy rather than fighting against climate change. Mean while Shell and ExxonMobil told investors that even if the government decides to invest in climate change that their businesses will still be turning profits. It seems apparent that everyone has recognized that climate change is real but no one is going to stop it.

Resources:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/29/despite-the-un-climate-summit-fossil-fuel-firms-are-still-in-for-the-long-term

China has announced to ban the burning of sulfurous coal in the next four months. For Australia this is bad news. Australia’s recent growth has been due the export of coal into the Asian market; the biggest buyer is China. China purchases around one third of Australia’s coal production which is “50 million metric tonnes of thermal coal” according to DW’s article. As China cuts back on the consumption of coal this will create room for a new economy to provide energy to China; potentially a greener source of energy. At the UN Climate summit it is expected that 50% of energy consumed in China will be clean by the year 2050 according to CCTV America.

Resources:

http://www.dw.de/china-tackles-air-pollution-with-ban-on-sulfurous-coal/a-17925534

http://www.cctv-america.com/2014/09/23/china-investing-in-green-nuclear-technologies

In the article “when the jobs inspector call” (http://www.economist.com/node/21551498) it seems like the objective is to criticize Apple for their terrible business ethics; even though their sales are high. This contradicts the stakeholder theory that R. Edward Freeman explains in his video. Apple breaking the trending business ethics set by large companies such as Nike by not supporting their factories to follow labour laws and ethics. Overall the article missed its objective to prove that a company that does not have strong business ethics and morals will lead a firm to decline. For example the author had a great opportunity to compare Apple to it’s competitors such as Samsung and Google after criticizing Apple for not treating their factory workers well, but instead it talks about how Apple’s sales are doing great. When auditors investigate Apple’s factories to make sure labour regulations are being followed Apple cleans up their factories and only release some of the audits to the public immediately. It took apple years before they release the rest of the audits. Clearly the gap in release times between audits was so that Apple could clean up their act. I agree with stakeholder theory but it seems that Apple is an exception to it.