Business, Ethics and the Environment: Imagining a Sustainable Future

Holban (Oncioiu), Ionica Article Business, Ethics and the Environment: Imagining a Sustainable Future Amfiteatru Economic Journal Provided in Cooperation with: The Bucharest University of Economic Studies Suggested Citation: Holban (Oncioiu), Ionica (2010) : Business, Ethics and the Environment: Imagining a Sustainable Future, Amfiteatru Economic Journal, ISSN 2247-9104, The Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Vol. 12, Iss. 27, pp. 254-256 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/168692 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ AE Business, Ethics and the Environment: Imagining a Sustainable Future Amfiteatru Economic 254 BUSINESS, ETHICS, AND THE ENVIRONMENT: IMAGINING A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE Ionica Holban (Oncioiu)∗ Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iaşi, Romania and The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Romania “Business, Ethics, and the Environment: Imagining a Sustainable Future” published in 2007 is a very bold book which is written by a philosopher in a way that highlights their conceptual change in business ethics. This book provides a framework for business ethics by examining several ways of business are changing, and it should change to meet the requirements of a sustainable future. Blends are interesting philosophical and ethical analysis of real cases, practical examples to show what sustainable business can and should become. Joseph R. DesJardins expresses his argument in terms now familiar term sustainable development. He argues for an alternative to what he calls “economic model of sustainability” not able to provide better guidance to create a world where we can meet the needs of present generation without jeopardizing the ability of future generations to meet their own needs equally valid. ”Sustainable development” is clearly not a new concept. It was a long time. And surely there is nothing revolutionary about it. It was then, as now, a tool for long-term growth and managed by the state and its experts. It reflects confidence in our ability to manage nature. New is that of sustainable development is, whether consciously or not, pushed for a political ideal and environmental policy. Political ideal can raise the global ecosystem management without interest. Interestingly enough, the emergence of sustainable development is exposed just at the stage of illusion in the context of future growth econmice unrestricted and constraint imposed by the business ethics of domination rather than developing conceptualization. Perhaps this is why Desjardins is a little bit uncomfortable with those who think economic growth in itself a necessary evil dictated by the economic cycle and financial. The author notes that in reality the problem is growth rockets and that there is a lack of vision accompaning need for ecosystem management unit of some “elite minds”. Furthermore, Desjardins shows that the term sustainable development is neither new nor revolutionary, but proved to be very popular. Perhaps this is because it reflects the idea that we already believe, an idea that we want to believe, one which offers a real threat to ∗ Author’s contact: e-mail: [email protected] Amfiteatru Economic recommends AE Vol XII • No. 27 • February 2010 255 existing institutions, social and economic. Moreover, raise and argue through examples utiliatea teaching environmental policies in business schools. ”Sustainable development” embodies an acceptance message to the world in terms of traditional progressive. Thus, we are led to believe that sustainability can be achieved with institutions and most progressive values. Greening business is the best concept to be embraced because, in the author, the new ecology recognizes the limited resources, and manages to leave the ramp with rhetorical questions on economic growth. Continuing, he says, “the banner of the new environmental movement is sustainable growth and sustainable development”. A careful reading reveals that he's Desjardins argues that we need to refocus what we mean by sustainability. “We need to be vigilant”, he writes, “not to use sustainable development as simply a fashionable way to talk about economic growth continues, the consumer”. Therefore sustainable development of the biosphere must be treated “like a house of resources to be used”. Desjardins, in fact, is of the opinion that we must break the old model of progressive materialism and find a new way to think about and address the problem of sustainable economic development. It provides a “new” theoretical formulation, a formulation which, again, although not new, will be new for most students in a school or business college. Alternative for which he claims that theories are based are ecological economist Herman Daly. In this way, the author as other ecological economists say the economy is a subdomain of ecology. This is in sharp contrast to traditional views of economists, even the traditional environmental economists, who see the environment as a subdomain of the economy. If the environment is important to us, traditional economists argue, is not only desirable but necessary to develop the economy continued to have the resources to tackle our environmental problems. Ecological economists argue that if the environment is important to us, then we need to start discussing the alternative to endless growth and expansion. This is the view that at this stage, Desjardins recommends. Maybe it would be revealed and that the present growth is a quantitative expansion, something big and getting bigger. Development is a qualitative improvement, something better and better. We can have growth with development, growth without development and without development growth. As individual beings, people can become better, while becoming more and more people quantitatively. So, too, and economy. It can develop quality, so it is better tomorrow than it is today, without necessarily being quantitatively greater. Discomfort among ecological economists and many social critics is that we are already in a state of uneconomic growth. The book continues to show us that making this distinction is not easy because the two terms, growth and development because they are so closely linked, as in everyday speech, they are often treated as synonyms. The word “development” is problematic because he has a good definition and widely accepted meaning: an increase in consumption. Desjardins is clear and unambiguous on their significance. DesJardins argues that in the future, consumers will not be on their own, since this would cause the emergence of sustainable consumption behavior. As he notes, consumers are demanding when it comes to more sustainable goods and services because most people AE Business, Ethics and the Environment: Imagining a Sustainable Future Amfiteatru Economic 256 have no idea what this world would look like and what they need to develop a sustainable future. Note that in this type of business requirements directs consumers attitudes, beliefs and values of these. Author's position is that businesses must contribute to the creation and training demand through advertising and marketing. It states that if the marketing can be held partly responsible for the consumption of bad, it can have also a key to creating a better and more sustainable consumption. Sustainable products, supported by marketing creative and imaginative, create their own applications where business demand is quite daring to try. To summarize the social significance of consumption is the product of social forces, including commercial, marketing and advertising. Desjardins is convinced that such products can be made, but require a revolution similar to what it means to conducii a successful business. Therefore, integration of business ethics and the environment will not be easy. At the end of the book the author attempts to rehabilitate the concept of sustainable economic development in terms of business ethics that need to continue building and developing an environmental ethic, whether it is based on the perspectives of organic evolution. Desjardins also seen elsewhere in the book, “a sustainable future recognize those values that make life worth living”. A life without beauty, open space, biodiversity and wildlife is not worth supporting”. They are aesthetic, spiritual and religious giving reasons to protect areas of “wilderness, open space, biodiversity, forests, prairies, lakes, and beaches”. They are also the aesthetic, spiritual and religious can lose In a world dominated by economic conventional wisdom”. *** Joe DesJardin is joint chair of philosophy professor at the College St. And University of St. Benedict. John in Minnesota. Today is the Executive Director of the Society for Business Ethics. Among the published works mention: An Introduction to Business Ethics (McGraw Hill), Environmental Ethics: An Introduction to Environmental Philosophy (Wadsworth), of Contemporary Issues in Business Ethics, co-editor, îmreună with John McCall, (5th Ed, Wadsworth), and following appearances Business Ethics, and Sustainability: Ethics for the Next Industrial Revolution (Prentice Hall). He received his Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame and taught for a long time at Villanova University before moving to Minnesota.