Businesses and the Society Confronted by Environmental Issues

Environmental threats include issues with the world's soil, water and air ecosystem. The challenges stem from the degradation of the earth by humans. The global climate is clearly continually evolving and still relies on human activity. The relationship between humans and the environment has resulted in a wide range of problems that include extended cooling times, global warming and weather changes primarily due to human behavior. Consequently, individuals across the universe are facing numerous new challenges and there is a likelihood of the unpredictable trend falling beyond human control (Ali, Rehman, Ali, Yousaf & Zia, 2010). Against this backdrop, this essay establishes that the way the disposal of hazardous wastes affects the wider society and businesses by interfering with the natural ecosystem. However, business leaders can initiate corporate social responsibility activities and environmental policies and regulations to address the stated environmental issues.

The major environmental issues that businesses and the society face include the unsustainable use of raw materials discharge of industrial waste, and air and water emissions. The issues influence companies since laws mandate that businesses change their procedures and equipment to meet enforced standards that are an expense to profitability of the business. Numerous businesses take up stricter transformations in a bid to sustain the environment and to act in the right manner (Ali et al., 2010). The enterprises are compelled to meet the expenses for proactive and protective measures and to attempt the recovery of the costs. The businesses attain these measures through goodwill by the consumers or via increased consumer size gained from an environmentally favourable policy. Whichever way, the businesses meet additional expenses in terms of procedures, man hours, equipment and addressing all specifics such as discarding all the wastes from the business manufacturing procedures and facilities.

The businesses and the society also increasingly face the need for ensuring the sustainable creation of raw materials. All manufacturers optimize raw materials to assemble their goods. When such materials are natural, good environmental citizenship and laws necessitate that the business assumes measures to supplant what it uses. Christmas trees form a prime example of this scenario wherein sellers buy from planters who harvest and replant the trees as a measure towards avoiding the depletion of naturally existing prime trees. Here, the effect is costs to the business in terms of raw material expenses that often comprises supplier costs to replant and restock the natural resources.

The society and businesses also face the risk of water and air discharges. The manufacturing processes often release secretions into the water and the air, which contain chemical-laden smoke or particles, ash, chemicals and particles. Such excretions usually end up infiltrating into the ground water through surface run off (Carroll & Buchholtz, 2014).Environmental protection policies necessitate businesses to guard the environment from exposure to such emissions. Remedial processes comprise placing screens of particular gauges over smoke stacks, using poly liners and clay to line retention ponds and filtering wastewater. New laws are implemented regularly, which necessitate retrofitting manufacturing amenities with enhanced protections such as finer screening scales and pond liners of safer and newer materials. All the measures are costly to businesses as they decrease profitability.

Businesses and the society can adopt various strategic measures in an attempt to address environmental problems. Apart from seeking to sustain their profits, business leaders can apply strategies, which would see them shift their attention to starting good corporate citizenship (Carroll & Buchholtz, 2014). The businesses need to maintain pace with the developing global trends including remaining committed to the financial obligations of their citizens and investors similarly. If implemented in the right manner, organizations have a huge potential to influence change in society and the environment by investing on corporate social responsibility ventures (Amato, Henderson & Florence, n.d.). Business leaders need to consider the potential pay-offs that can be accrued from investments in CSR. Even though the benefits may not be immediate, it is likely that the significance of corporate responsibility will improve with time as more people become increasingly interested in the environmental and social impacts of corporations. Leaders who remain aware of CSR and the effects for their businesses manage to make well-informed decisions.

A different strategic approach comprises the leaders of the organization taking up proactive measures such as setting up environmental regulations and policies. The leaders need a tremendous grasp of environmental developments and policies in an attempt to change their organizations positively (Amato, Henderson, & Florence, n.d.).In the present economic climate, there is a general feeling that the environment and the economy are entwined. As such, business leaders need to comprehend the effect of environmental regulations and policies in improving various environmental issues such as air and water emissions, sustainable use of resources, and addressing the issues of waste disposals.

To sum up, the businesses and the wider society continue confronting various issues as they go about various activities within the community. In particular, the manufacturing processes often lead to harmful emissions, hazardous disposal of wastes, oil leaks, among other issues. Business leaders have an obligation of addressing these issues by taking up CSR initiatives and formulating environmental regulations and policies geared towards ecological protection.

References

Ali, I., Rehman, K. U., Ali, S. I., Yousaf, J., & Zia, M. (2010). Corporate social responsibility influences, employee commitment and organizational performance. African journal of Business management, 4(13), 2796.

Amato, A., Henderson, S., & Florence, S. (n.d.). Corporate social responsibility and sustainable business: A guide to leadership tasks and functions. Center for Creative Leadership. Retrieved on 10 July 2017, from www.ccl.org/leadership/pdf/research/CorporateSocialResponsibility

Carroll, A., &Buchholtz, A. (2014). Business and society: Ethics, sustainability, and stakeholder management.Ontario: Nelson Education.