Ethics in Business

Ethics can complicate the nature in which a businesses operate. Businesses are usually driven to generate profit, however, operating sustainably, whether environmentally or socially has become the accepted norm. However, maximizing profits (often achieved by lowering costs) can often result in negative implications environmentally or socially. For example, large corporations which produce technological goods often produce large amounts of waste containing heavy metals which can degrade soil to the point of infertility. In more economically developed countries there are very strict regulations on how manufacturing corporations deal with their waste. Properly disposing such wastes can be expensive and therefore from a business point of view such high costs are undesirable. And so a clear ethical dilemma arises for corporations in this situation. There is the ethical route of properly disposing the waste and reducing profits (due to higher costs), or the lesser ethical route of shipping out the waste to countries which waste disposal regulations are not enforced rigorously. Such countries often are less economically developed countries where environmental sustainability isn’t a primary focus and is usually de-prioritized by the primary objective of economic growth. So obviously, properly disposing waste is the ethical and the ‘right’ way to go. However, taking this route and reducing profit means that the corporation has to lower the salaries of employees while if they shipped their waste and lowered costs and increased profit they could increase the salaries of their workers. This would improve the standard of living of the workers. Isn’t that as important the environment? Shouldn’t ensuring a good lifestyle for a businesses employes be ethical? In conclusion, there are often tradeoffs in making ethical decisions in a business and they aren’t always clear and can often interfere with how a firm operates to maximize their success.