How Environmental Ethics Applies to Business

Why should you consider environmental ethics in your business? Even if you
accept that protecting the environment is important, isn’t that the job of
government regulation? Shouldn’t a business just operate according to the motive
of maximizing profit? And won’t these pesky environmental ethics end up eating
into the bottom line?
Barriers to Considering Environmental Ethics
For many small businesses, cost is a concern. One study found that 78% of small
businesses had no environmental management system. Despite that, most business
owners actually wanted to reduce their environmental impact, but were held back
by “resource constraints” as well as other factors like lack of support or guidance.
Another barrier is competitive pressure. If your competitors are importing low-cost
goods with no regard for environmental sustainability, won’t you be at a
disadvantage if you insist on the highest ethical standards?
These are valid concerns. Even if a business is not all about profit, it does need to
make a profit to survive. And although some environmental policies can also have
a positive bottom-line impact, others can add to cost. What’s important is to look at
the overall impact for your business, including the positive effects, which we’ll
look at now.
Benefits of Considering Environmental Ethics
There are many side benefits to being a business that stands for something other
than profit.
You may enjoy a positive brand image, so that customers will buy your products
even if they’re a little more expensive than competing ones. For example, UK
company Brothers We Stand sells men’s clothing that comes with a full breakdown
of the social and environmental impact of its production. You can easily find
cheaper shirts from retail chains with looser standards, but plenty of customers are
willing to pay more for the peace of mind that comes from buying something in
tune with their own values.
You may also be able to attract better employees if you appeal to their own values
and position yourself as a great place to work for ethical as well as financial
reasons. Surveys have found that millennials, in particular, are more motivated by
values than money. Consider this 2015 article summarizing the recent research:
More than 50% of millennials say they would take a pay cut to find work that
matches their values, while 90% want to use their skills for good.
What You Can Do: 10 Important Issues to Consider
So now that we have covered what environmental ethics means and how it relates
to your business, let’s get practical. What can you do to put environmental ethics
into practice at your company?
The specifics may vary depending on what kind of company it is and what industry
you’re in, but there are some common threads. Here are ten important issues for
you to consider, with ideas on what you could do to improve your environmental
practices.
1. Full Cost Accounting
 The main idea of environmental ethics is that nature has intrinsic value and
shouldn’t be treated merely as a resource to be used up. But traditional accounting
doesn’t match up with that vision. It only measures direct monetary costs, with no
accounting for things like pollution and environmental waste, which are sometimes
referred to as "negative externalities" in economic theory.
To be consistent with environmental ethics, you would need to account for those
externalities. One approach is called full cost accounting, or sometimes
environmental full cost accounting. It’s a complex area, but I like to simplify it by
thinking of those signs you sometimes see in shops: “If you break it, you pay for
it.” Full cost accounting aims to capture a business’s true costs by measuring the
resources it uses, the waste and pollution it generates, and other social and
environmental impacts.
So, consider implementing full cost accounting for your business. It’s not a ‘quick
fix’ by any means, but the time it takes will be worth it. Of all the things listed in
this article, this is the one that’s most certain to help you think differently about
how your business operates.
2. Energy Efficiency
Did I just say ‘quick fix’? This next item definitely falls into that category. Simply
by reviewing your energy usage and identifying ways to be more efficient, you can
help the environment while also saving money.
Use this Better Business Guide to Energy Saving to help you walk through the
steps. Basically, you just need to check your office, shop, factory or other
workplace for compliance with basic energy common sense. For example:
 Are you using energy-efficient lighting?
 Are your heating and cooling systems properly controlled by thermostats?
 Are windows and doors insulated to stop all that expensive cooling/heating from
escaping?
 Is your computer equipment operating efficiently?
 Are you and your employees regularly switching things off when not in use?
Whereas the first item was about rethinking your business in terms of the big
picture, this one is about small wins that can add up to significant savings. Check
out these workplace energy-saving tips for more ideas.
3. Energy Sources
As well as looking at energy usage, you could evaluate the sources of that energy.
There are plenty of alternatives to fossil fuels these days, and you could switch to
an energy supplier that generates its energy from renewable sources.
For example, in the UK, there are several companies, such as Ecotricity and Good
Energy, that provide electricity for homes and businesses from sources like wind
power and solar panels. Similar providers exist in other countries too, so do some
research to find them in your area and get a quote. This is another simple way to
reduce your business’s environmental impact and carbon footprint.
4. The Supply Chain
When businesses look at their environmental impact, they often focus on their own
direct contributions. But, as we’ve seen, environmental ethics demands a more
holistic approach.
 So, examine your entire supply chain: all of the companies that provide all of the
components for your final products. Ask yourself:
 How are those components built?
 How are they transported?
 How were the original materials obtained?
 What does the entire process look like from the mining of the raw materials
through to the finished item reaching the consumer?
Look at every step of the process and identify the full environmental impact at
each stage, and then look for opportunities for improvement. If information is not
available, then ask for it. If a supplier doesn’t want to comply with the best
environmental practices, look for one that will. This is another item that will take
time, but have big payoffs.
5. Packaging
This year’s Earth Day has a particular focus on ending plastic pollution. The
majority of the world’s plastic ends up in oceans, where it breaks up into small
pieces that kill marine life. There are 51 trillion microplastic particles in the ocean
today—500 times more than the number of stars in our galaxy.
Much of this is due to unnecessary packaging or storage—for example, Americans
throw away an estimated 100 billion plastic grocery bags each year, with each bag
being used for just 12 minutes and taking years to decompose. (You can find these
facts and more in the Earth Day Plastic Pollution Quiz.)
Does your business contribute to plastic pollution or help to alleviate it? If you are
contributing, then look at alternatives:
 Cut out unnecessary packaging of your products.
 Replace plastic packaging with eco-friendly materials that will decompose quickly
or, ideally, durable containers that can be reused.
 Run campaigns or provide incentives to encourage your customers to reuse or
recycle packaging.
6. Animal Welfare
The main idea of environmental ethics—that nature has intrinsic value—applies to
animals too. Other species are not put on earth for our exploitation; they have a
right to fair treatment.
What that means in practice is for you to work out according to your own ethical
framework. Some people will want to avoid any and all uses of animal products,
while others may prefer to insist that animals are treated humanely.
Considering environmental ethics means considering the impact of your business
practices on other species and deciding what policies to put in place to mitigate or
improve that impact. For example, do you or your suppliers use products that were
tested on animals? Do your production processes involve clearing land and
destroying animals’ habitats?
Once you’ve assessed the impact, decide where to draw the line and what animal
welfare standards to demand from your own business and your suppliers.
7. Pollution
 It’s likely that your business creates pollution in multiple ways, from the energy
you use to direct pollution from manufacturing processes. So, examine ways to
reduce that.
For example, you could look at ways to manufacture your products with fewer
emissions, or reduce your overall carbon footprint by implementing the energy
changes we talked about earlier or changing your transportation policies (more on
that next).
Or if you can’t reduce pollution, you could look into using offsets. These are
donations that you make to invest in clean energy or planting trees to offset the
damage you’ve done. One example is at Carbonfund.org, where you can calculate
your company’s footprint and make a charitable donation to offset it.
8. Transportation
Transportation is a major source of pollution and other negative environmental
effects, so examine the way people and products are transported within your
company. Can you reduce the need for transportation (for example, by switching to
a local supplier) or switch to more eco-friendly transportation (e.g. train instead of
plane)?
Also consider ways to encourage staff to use eco-friendly transport options. For
example, some businesses provide incentives for their staff to commute to work
via public transport instead of car, or to share a ride instead of driving individually.
You can also make savings (both environmental and monetary) by holding more
meetings via videoconference instead of flying people to different locations. And
allowing people to work from home can avoid pollution from the commute.
9. Resource Usage
We talked about packaging already, but businesses use a lot of other resources. So,
examine your practices and see where you can make improvements. For example:
 Can you recycle more?
 Can you use less to begin with?
 Can you go paper free in your office, or at least reduce unnecessary paperwork?
Think less in terms of one-off items and more in terms of repeating processes. For
example, if you run a café, a small change like providing food and drinks in
reusable instead of disposable containers could make a huge difference over time.
10. Putting It Into Practice
All of the things we’ve talked about are important, but you can’t do them on your
own. In order to be successful, you’ll need to get your staff on board, ensuring that
they understand the importance of environmental ethics and know what they need
to do to support it.
That means creating a clear environmental policy for your business, incorporating
all of the points we’ve discussed, along with any others you want to add. Then
you’ll need to support that with staff training and reinforce your commitment by
constantly emphasizing the importance of environmental ethics in your
communication with employees. You can use Earth Day itself as a great way to
kick things off—more ideas on what to do in tomorrow’s post.
It’s easy to say the right thing, but doing the right thing involves embedding
respect for the environment in all aspects of the business, and that takes time,
effort, and organization.
Conclusion
In this article, you’ve learned all about environmental ethical issues in business.
We’ve looked at what environmental ethics means and how it can be applied to the
business world, and we’ve covered ten things you can do to put environmental
ethics into practice in your business.
As I mentioned, the specifics can vary a lot for different companies in different
industries, but I hope this post has given you a useful framework with which to
think about environmental ethics and to construct environmental policies that make
sense for your particular business.
Tomorrow, we’ll focus in on Earth Day itself and look at how you can mark the
occasion. See you then!