Economic, Environmental And Social Aspects Of Whistle-Clean Nail Salons And Cape Town’s Water Crisis

Financial and inventory management in nail salons

Economic/Financial Dimensions Or Aspects

The various financial aspects involved in the business of the nail salon are the inventory, sales and purchases, sales tax and operating reporting (Falkner, 2017). In this case the inventory involves the wax pots, spatulas, blades, drills, etc. which are stored for further usage. Moreover, the sales and purchases refer to the sale of the salon service provided by the staff to the customers and its subsequent purchase. The nail salon has to pay their sales tax on the total service provided. Finally the salon has to prepare a report of their complete functions and their financial transactions. There are many people, especially women who pay a visit to the salons regularly for their nail makeover. It is very important for the nail salons to maintain the required level of health and hygiene standards and keep it clean. In this case the salon has been accused of violating the health standards by using the equipment which is stained with blood, shavings of skin lying on the floors, reusing of the old blades, not taking care of pest control for their salon, etc. Thus the salon’s inventory needs to be reviewed and their operating report must also be accountable and transparent.

Environment refers to the surroundings in which a person works and also the people in the surrounding. The nail salon is serving the people who live in the surrounding society. The health of the people needs to be secured by the salon staff. They need to also take care of the cleanliness of their salon environment. The three environmental dimensions are: compliance, strategic sustainability and ideological sustainability.

It is very important for the nail salon to confirm with the health and hygiene standards laid down by ACT Health (Eriksson and Kovalainen, 2015). They need to comply by their environmental and health regulations. The salon should be kept clean with regular pest control and cleaning the floors of the salon. Moreover the strategic sustainability of the salon would refer to the adoption and implementation of the Proactive Environmental Management System (EMS). It is also important to put a responsible leader as the in charge of the EMS so that it is executed well (Kolk, 2016). There is also a dimension of ideological sustainability under which the role of the salon in contributing to the quality of health of the customers is involved. The salon must also have some ethics beyond their financial profitability. The internal as well as external environment of the salon must be kept clean and hygienic.

Environmental dimensions of nail salon on compliance, sustainability, and ideology

No business can take place in isolation. The society is always involved in every business (Luglietti, et.al, 2014). The customers who come to the nail salon for getting its services are a part of the surrounding society in which the salon is operating. It is very important for the salon to ensure that the negative social cost of their profitable business venture is not very high. By using cheap inputs or by reusing the materials or unclean equipment, the salon can make easy money or escape putting in much effort in cleaning. However this will have a very negative impact on the customers. The cockroaches which breed in the unclean and unhygienic internal environment of the salon, can spread many germs in the society and cause various diseases. This incurs a social cost on the community. They suffer because of the irresponsible act of the salon. The disposal of the unclean equipment in the society can also lead to a degradation of the aesthetics of the society. In order to sustain in the business, the salon needs to take the society into consideration and not only stress on financial dimensions. Maintaining the health, hygiene and cleanliness of the salon’s internal setup as well as their external surroundings is very important for the salon to be a socially responsible organization (Girerd-Potin, Jimenez-Garcès and Louvet, 2014).

Economic/Financial Dimensions Or Aspects

There are various financial aspects which are involved in this case. The main issue here is that of handling the crisis of water which starts in Cape Town every alternate year. The local government has to play an active role in this case. They need to see that the water is conserved every year which experiences sufficient rainfall (van Wilgen and Wannenburgh, 2016). The planning for building of dams and channelizing the water when there is a dry season is the responsibility of the local government. The water conservation methods and devices need to be used and installed in every building and sphere possible. When the water is stored it can be sustainably used in the following dry year. The financial reporting of the entire operation of the local government in handling the water crisis needs to be documented. The government should go beyond the cheap politics and try to utilize the public funds in building better infrastructure which could store the water when available. Before drought seasons there could be steps taken so that the water is conserved on time. The disaster management team needs to get into the filed before it is too late. The water augmentation systems need to be executed properly by the local and national government. Moreover the government also needs to check the water allocation across Cape Town.

Social impact of a nail salon’s actions on surrounding society

The environment is an area of great concern for the people of Cape Town as well as the government of the place. Due to environmental conditions like drought, the place faces water crisis every next year. Thus the government along with the community involvement needs to see that they are managing the environment in such a manner so that the chances of drought are less. Even in case of droughts the precautionary steps must be taken so that the disaster can be managed timely without much problem or discontinuity in work (Muller, 2017). The dams which have already been built need to be monitored and maintained. The water which is being conserved needs to be allocated and channelized in such a manner that the water is optimally utilized. The actions of the government are very important in environmental management and water conservation. There are natural as well as artificial means which can be taken up for the preserving the water properly during the wet seasons (Hedden and Cilliers, 2014). There is a need for more allotment to the drought relief fund. There is a lot of political corruption involved in this case which is leading to such water crisis to aggravate.

The government is not like any other profit making organization and so their main objective is social welfare above anything else. Thus the government at the local as well as the national level, must see that the society is not getting adversely affected due to this environmental calamity, drought. The government must see that the funds are well channelized and allocated for drought relief (Harris, Goldin and Sneddon, eds., 2015). The government must ensure that the society gets sufficient water even in the dry season by monitoring and controlling the usage of water in the dry season. When corruption is eliminated from the main process of water conservation and environmental m management, the instances of mismanagement, debt incurring, spiraling, etc. can be reduced. The water management and sanitation departments under the government must also be more active in managing the water crisis in Cape Town (Bond, 2014). The water for main purposes must be supplied to the society in the drought season. The people in the society need to be made aware of the water crisis and they must also be able to setup better water augmentation infrastructure. The disaster declaration must be on time so that the society is prepared beforehand to conserve water and handle the water crisis.

Reference List

Bond, P., 2014. South Africa’s resource curses and growing social resistance. Monthly Review, 65(11), p.1.

Eriksson, P. and Kovalainen, A., 2015. Qualitative methods in business research: A practical guide to social research. 5^th ed. London: Sage.

Falkner, R., 2017. Business power and conflict in international environmental politics. 7^th ed. London: Springer.

Girerd-Potin, I., Jimenez-Garcès, S. and Louvet, P., 2014. Which dimensions of social responsibility concern financial investors?. Journal of Business Ethics, 121(4), pp.559-576.

Harris, L.M., Goldin, J.A. and Sneddon, C. eds., 2015. Contemporary water governance in the global south: Scarcity, marketization and participation. 7^th ed. Abingdon: Routledge.

Hedden, S. and Cilliers, J., 2014. Parched prospects-the emerging water crisis in South Africa. Institute for Security Studies Papers, 2014(11), p.16.

Kolk, A., 2016. The social responsibility of international business: From ethics and the environment to CSR and sustainable development. Journal of World Business, 51(1), pp.23-34.

Luglietti, R., Magalini, F., Taisch, M. and Cassina, J., 2014, September. Environmental impact and cost evaluation in remanufacturing business decision support. 6^th ed. Berlin: Springer.

Muller, M., 2017. Understanding the origins of Cape Town’s water crisis. Civil Engineering= Siviele Ingenieurswese, 2017(v25i5), pp.11-16.

van Wilgen, B.W. and Wannenburgh, A., 2016. Co-facilitating invasive species control, water conservation and poverty relief: achievements and challenges in South Africa’s Working for Water programme. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 19(4), pp.7-17.