Business Ethics And Ethical Consumerism

Positive purchase of products and services

Describe about the Business Ethics and Ethical Consumerism?

The term ethical consumerism refers to buying of products and services which are made ethically. This follows a process in which there are no malicious impacts on the human beings, natural environment and the animals during the production and consumption of the manufactured products ( Edgerton, 2013). This can be categorized as follows:

It refers to the practice of buying goods and services which are ethically procured and sold to the consumers. The business organizations, which conduct their operations for the benefit of the consumers rather than putting their own interest at the top, fall in this category. They follow the motive of profit earning and not profiteering (Hudson et al. 2013). Positive buying involves the purchasing of ethical products and services which are manufactured ethically, free from cruelty on any living being, purely organic and recycled. These are the basic norms for any company who is looking forward to conducting its activities in an ethical manner.

It involves the negative purchasing and buying based on various companies which adopt unethical practices. The consumers generally boycott those companies and their products and services, since they believe that the companies are engaged in unethical operations (Yeow et al. 2013). There could be various reasons of moral boycott like:

Factory farming
Environmental hazard
Strike activities

The boycott can be on a particular organization also. If any organization is found to be engaged in unethically procuring or producing a product or service which might have negative impact on the society, then the consumers might boycott the entire company in totality (Dean et al. 2013).

The bottom line for any business organization is to conduct each and every action on purely ethical grounds. They should focus on serving the society and offer them goods and services for their welfare and not for their detriment.

It has been seen through the horrifying collapse incident of the Rana Plaza in Bangladesh that the foreign companies who imported clothes from the garment industry in Bangladesh did not take adequate safety measures. The workers were manufacturing clothes in extremely dangerous conditions, as the building was not renovated satisfactorily even after having immensely risky conditions. There were cracks along many of the walls of the building and they were not mended (Clegg and Rhodes, 2012). The authorities of Bangladesh Government overlooked the need to renovate the building and provide sufficient protection to the workers. The western companies which used to import clothes from this market should have thought on the following lines in order to prevent the damage and loss of so many innocent lives. The steps which the companies might have taken can be enumerated as follows:

Corporate Social Responsibility refers to the practice that every business organization should operate with a view to serve the society as its first and foremost priority. An organization will definitely look forward to increasing its revenues and profit but not at the cost of harming the consumer’s sentiments. This will also ensure its success in the long run. CSR is the life blood of any business organization (Yeow et al. 2013). In today’s world, each and every organization operating all around the globe pay special attention on performing all the day to day operations following a strict ethical principle. They will not take unfair means to earn some quick profits by trying to fool the consumers. If any company practices such unfair means, it will definitely not sustain in the long run (Cox and Wicks, 2011). It may succeed by profiteering in the first few years, but cannot grow with such dishonest motive in mind. It is very much evident that the main objective of any business organization is to put the priority on the Corporate Social Responsibilities of Business (Gunderson, 2013). That is why most of the corporate houses today have streamlined their objectives in such a way, where serving the society with honest and ethics, is their top priority.

Moral boycott of products and services

There should be a clear vision about the planning of the various security and safety measures which will minimize the chances of such calamities like collapse of premises, fire in the factory and others. Utmost importance should be given to the safety of the workers who are the main resources of a firm.

There should be a very well framed strategy to avoid these kinds of calamities. A proper objective should be framed to take care of the well being of the workers who are working in the factories and other premises of the firm. In case of any contingency, there should be a very strictly designed back up plan. Like in case there is fire in the premises, there should be adequate number of fire extinguishers and fire alarms present in the premises (Culiberg and Bajde, 2012). Arrangements should be made with the fire department in advance so that they can come to the rescue at the earliest. Similar arrangements need to be present in case there is a collapse of the premises (Dean, 2013).

A sound culture inside the organization will permeate among all the staffs and employees and they would understand the essence of safety and security measures in the working environment. A very well chalked out security planning by the organization should be conveyed to all the staffs and employees by the higher management (Lee, Pant and Ali, 2009). This will help them to save themselves from any major damage if any contingency arrives in future.

If a firm seeks to follow all these strategies and plan accordingly to provide a safe and hospitable environment to the workers and employees, then disasters can be minimized to a great extent.

This part of the assignment seeks to highlight to all the big and small corporate houses all around the globe, what should be the right and just social responsibility strategy for an organization. Here, the example of Nestle has been given to show how the leading corporate has maintained the corporate social responsibility measures since its inception till today (O’Mahoney, 2011). This is why the corporate has been able to sustain in such a strong competitive market worldwide. Nestle is the world leader in food processing department, having offices in almost all the leading countries of the world. Nestle was founded as the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company in 1866 in Switzerland. It was renamed as the Nestle and Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company in 1905. The world leader in food processing was founded by Mr. Henri Nestle, Charles Page and George Page. The company clearly holds the top position in the food department worldwide in terms of revenues. This article reflects the various corporate social responsibility measures that the company has incorporated in its system since the beginning of its journey and even to this day. The company has chosen the following line of corporate strategy to serve the people ethically and to provide them the best food products along with providing the best working environment to its staffs and employees worldwide. These are enumerated as follows:

Adoption of proper Corporate Social Responsibility measures

Nestle has always followed the corporate social strategy guidelines and believed in serving the people ethically. It has always believed that in order to sustain in the long run and grow, a company must create the value for the society and also develop value for the investors (Tucker et al. 2013). To create a very good reputation among the consumers and the employees, the company has always worked to address the local as well as the global issues in the field of nutrition, water and also rural development. That is why it is established that all the products from Nestle like the chocolates, baby foods and others are ethically produced and marketed to the consumers.

Nestle has always adopted a very clear and transparent value system. The company has given a very deep thought about the welfare of not only the customers, but also the workers, staffs and the employees of the organization. They have always developed the employees in a manner which will inculcate ethics in their mind and that will also reflect on their works. The working ambience has always been exemplary for the other organizations (Shapira-Lishchinsky and Even-Zohar, 2011). The safety and security system has also been top notch. There is a very well planned out system to fight natural and manmade disasters like fire, collapse of the premises and others. All the staffs and employees are very well aware of the exit plans in case of any emergency. They have been provided special training on these aspects. The company also keeps its customers at the first priority level because customer is God (Youde, 2009). It has always prioritized on providing ethically sound products to the consumers because the company knows that if the consumers are not happy, then the company can never sustain. The company also follows a very transparent system of operations. All the members are quite aware about what the company is up to, the stakeholders are presented with a very clear report about the various processes followed by the company, and every financial report is clearly presented to the shareholders, so that they can have faith on the company to invest (Yeow, Dean and Tucker, 2013).

The environment friendly concept can be well described through the 3 Rs concept. These are as follows:

This refers to the fact that the production of wastes should be the least. Nestle follows this technique by avoiding over-packaging of goods like the ones which are packaged with several materials like paper, plastic and foil (Sparks and Pan, 2009). The company also tends to minimize the use of disposable items like paper plates, paper cups, napkins, etc. This is done to reject products which cannot be recycled.

This is followed by Nestle in order to minimize the use of non-recyclable materials. As for example, products can be reused in many ways like using containers that can resealed, instead of plastic wrappers.

Nestle follows this technique in order to process a used material, remanufacture it and sell it in the form of a new product. It purchases office materials that are recyclable (Vaughan, 2012). It also uses recycled paper for letterhead, newsletters and for photocopy purposes.

Clear and sound vision

Conclusion

In the end it must be mentioned that the success of a firm depends directly on the corporate social responsibility strategy followed by it and also on ethical consumerism of goods and services. Every business house must focus on producing ethically sound goods and services. This summary attempts to depict what business ethics and ethical consumerism is all about and how the organizations like Primark, Bennetton, Matalan, Mango, Bonmache, etc, which procured clothes from the manufacturers of the Bangladeshi garment industry can work together in order to build a safe and sound working environment in the country. The famous Rana Plaza collapse on April 24, 2013, which killed around 1134 garment workers in Bangladesh is a lesson for every single organization to understand the importance of following and adopting safety norms for the sake of all the labors and workers who are engaged in manufacturing of garments.

The firms which cater to the clothing manufacturers worldwide must give special attention on the safety and security of their working premises like factories and offices. They should use adequate measures in order to prevent and minimize incidents like the Rana Plaza mishap. The factories should be well equipped with fire fighting equipments. The premises should be renovated whenever any damage occurs. Proper exit plan should be designed and conveyed to the staffs for use during any emergency. These steps can ensure better safety to the workers as well as the products which are manufactured (Hudson et al. 2013).

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