Business ethics and environment: a nonreciprocal approach towards ecological sustainability

The implemented strategies of sizeable business organisations, especially those with multi-nation presence, have an increasingly global bearing. Though this influence usually gets tracked in terms of revenue earned and economic loss/profit, etc. to the various stake-holders involved, it is seldom that we get to hear about the overall effects of these strategies (whether positive or negative) on our environment. Gone are the good old days when the sins of a local merchant were limited to at-most negatively affecting just the local community? The impact of rampant disregard towards the environmental consequences of exploiting the earth's limited natural resources is also no longer limited to the places where this exploitation actually takes place. The emerging centres for industrial production in developing countries like China, Indonesia and India are undoubtedly witness to the foremost impact of rapidly deteriorating atmosphere. Alarming pollution levels, erratic rain falls, increasing drought and flood situations and un-predictable climate is now-a-days becoming a common phenomenon. However, the overall consequences of this natural exploitation are more far reaching and go beyond the national and even regional boundaries of these smoke-centres. Globally, industries are slowly waking up to the Green consciousness, as governments, climate-watch agencies and social groups make a sincere effort to reduce their respective carbon foot-prints. In India too, a lot of such earnest efforts are being made by government, judiciary and regulatory bodies with support from businesses. Most of this effort will, however, go waste unless the realisation happens at the very grass-root level of individual citizens. At each of its operational locations, a business needs to prioritise its environmental responsibility as an important component of its business strategy, to not just assist in preservation of the environment, but also to secure the ecological sustainability for a better futuristic earth for all.