Business & Society Final Exam

study of how living things interact with one another in the Earth’s ecosystem (air, water, land)

Water renewable right now, but not fresh/drinkable
Air renewable right now, but fresh/breathable is not
Land is renewable b/c you can make more and if you let it regenerate, but not if we overuse good land

Exponential growth: of the world's population [certain areas at certain times]
Income Inequality: poor individuals are unable to make resources renewable so they use more than they should and rich people use more than they need

Shared resources that a group uses collectively

If all individuals attempt to maximize their own private advantage in the short term, the commons may be destroyed and all users lose [individual freedom vs freedom of others to use the resource]

Tragedy of the Commons: Freedom in a common brings ruin to all

Meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs
Eradicate poverty and develop the world economy in a way that doesn't degrade the environment

world’s resource base is essentially finite and bounded Ecological footprint: what you need to consume in resources (land/water/food) in order to live

Protects earth from UV rays - it is being depleted, causes ice caps to melt and messes up the weather because the earth warms

Increase in green house gases keeps the UV rays in which also warms the Earth
Caused by burning fossil fuels, black carbon, deforestation and beef production.

Causes erratic weather, tidal changes and desertification

1. Certain species are becoming extinct because mankind is killing them, humans tampering with the food cycle and environment destroying habits.
2. Overfishing, contaminating the water, destroying coral reefs, water temp

• International Organizations (UN)- call for changes in nation/business operations
• National & Regional Governments- regulations of USA or EU
• Non Governmental Organizations- World Wildlife Fund (protect animals, Living Planet Report), Sierra Club (Conservation of land for recreation), Green Peace (protecting environment, Sustainability)

• International Agreements- voluntary agreements to work under rules of environmental protection
• Industry Standards- worked out with the other companies
• Company Operations- delve into internal processes to find cheaper/more sustainable ways of doing things (then get into business making other companies more efficient)

• Clean Air Act- passed in 1970, amendments are focused on making air even cleaner
• Water Pollution Control Act- ensure that water was clean for wildlife and it would replenish (timetable for achieving standards)
• Land- waste from manufacturing companies, comes from garbage produced, comes from bad farming
  • Difficult- costly to clean things up, technology is difficult to use,
    • cost benefit analysis- speeding it up to increase productivity
  • Administered by the EPA

• Command and Control Regulations- set the standards and force people/org/govt agencies to achieve the standards
  • Face negative consequences if you don’t and it doesn’t always work
• Market-Based Mechanisms- suggest you do it and reward you if you do
  • Based off of incentives
  • Cap and Trade (way of phasing in more renewable energy)
    • set a limit/standards for emissions then people below it get credits to sell to people who are above it
    • makes people think about what is true cost of using common resources
• Public Disclosure of Performance- publicity embarrassment
  • If you highlight pollution, the neighbors begin to put pressure on the company
• Civil/Criminal Prosecution- law is clear and they broke it

• Stages of Environmental Responsibility
  • Pollution Prevention- work to fix pollution in operations
  • Product Stewardship- make the product more environmentally friendly
  • Introduction of Clean Technology- oriented toward tech that will increase benefits to environ (instead of decrease negative)
• Ecologically Sustainable Organization- company that doesn’t release pollution and solely benefits the environment
  • Your use of the environment will be net (give back what you take)
  • Utopian idea
• Environmental Partnerships- corporations/NGO are typically adversaries
  • Increasingly becoming partners

A legal entity est through a registration process mandated by law [stated purpose, owned by shareholders, governed by board of directors and limited liability (protective shield)]
Public - shares traded publicly
Closely held - traded but are usually held by a family and not traded publicly