DIRTY BUSINESS
Sustainable development has become a major concern to the economic developers. Pressures arise from various edges requiring the investors to engage in environmentally friendly practices which ensure that the firm’s practices have minimal environmental impacts (Singla, Ahuja. and Sethi, 2018 p.240). Environmentally friendly practices within an organization, however, requires heavy investment as it has been demonstrated in the case of the steel company. Cost-benefit analysis becomes hectic and confusing to different analysts especially when it comes to analyzing the economic benefits associated with the current practices. Mostly the benefits are analyzed based on the monetary terms or other tangible benefits such as job created and the livelihood transformation experienced. Most environmental impacts, however, fail to have monetary equivalent and therefore and thus the implication may be considered minor which is not the case in the real sense. The company under consideration, for instance, is among the best income earner for the Vietnam government through taxes. Due to this, it has become a challenge for the local government to deregister the company or even barn them from operating within its jurisdiction.
The company has also employed a lot of locals who will become jobless if the company shuts down its operation, this will affect the local economy at large. The current benefits, however, have some implications which the society will suffer in the long run. The pollution of both the water and the air due to improper practices will highly affect the future generations. The current pollution standards are extremely high based on the required international limits. Due to this, the continued operation of the Japanese firm doesn’t only impact on the current generation but also on the future generation. Sustainable development practices should not be only enforced by the environmental analysts but should be a concern of all the stakeholders within the society. The stakeholders who ought to be involved in ensuring sustainable development practices are undertaken include; the locals, the government and the firm itself. All these stakeholders should operate collaboratively to ensure that the carrying capacity of the environment regarding the pollution level it can accommodate is not surpassed.
The challenge witnessed in this case however, is the lack of corroboration between the relevant stakeholders to ensure that the investors engage in environmentally friendly practices. The local government for instances suspends the firm for just three weeks and later gives them the go-ahead to operate. The government asserts that the pollution is within the environmental carrying capacity and also within the international standards. The reports don’t match with the environmental analysts report which suggests that the pollution level is far much beyond the recommended levels and currently stands at fifty times the recommended levels. From a logical reasoning point of view the government analyzed the situation based on the economical benefits accrued from the firms’ operations. The government in this case therefore has failed to play its role in ensuring the environment is well protected. The government is tasked with creation of policies which are meant to protect the residents by protecting the environment in which they live.
The local government ought to had undertaken a serious probe into the allegation by the local on the alarming pollution levels. Thorough probe would have involved gathering the right information from the environmental analysts and other stakeholders such as the environmental based NGOs which had the right information. Through creation of the right policies the government would have been able to regulate the environmental practices and ensure that all the firms operating within the environment observes the set rules and regulations.
The organization has failed to engaged in corporate social responsibilities and ensure that they engage in practices which not only benefits the company but also the society at large. The company’s chief executive officer assured the public that they were engaging in practices which were endangering neither the locals nor their environment. The assurance however fails to match with the actual practices, the shareholders for instances are worried about the losses they will incur incase the firm closes down. The concerns of the shareholders in this case therefore shows that they are just concerned with earning more income at the expense of the locals and the environment. The shareholders are not ready to invest in newly introduced production practices which are environmentally friendly. The company is said to have a strong financial base due to its high returns through the profits. Due to this therefore the company can be able to finance the implementation of the newly introduced production practices. Failure to engage in corporate social responsibilities therefore is due to poor organization policy which do not support such practices.
The unwillingness of the firm as core stakeholder to engage in environmentally friendly practices should not be taken lightly by the local authorities. The firm strives to maintain the customer-firm relationship at the expense of the very same customers. The employee of the firm are the internal customers of the firm and at the same time mainly comprises of the locals. Failure to take good care of these customers therefore puts the company at the risk of failure and extinction. The organization has much benefits to leap from engaging in environmentally friendly practices. The customers have become informed of the need to engage in environmentally friendly practices. Due to this these customers are changing their purchasing behavior considering the sellers who engage in environmentally friendly practices while avoiding the environmentally reckless producers. The Japanese company for instance, is at the verge of losing its main customers from Europe and Japan who considers its production practices to be unethical as far as environmental protection is concerned.
The organization therefore has to implement the environmentally friendly production methods if it has to remain in the business. The organization stands to highly benefit from the implementation of the newly introduced production methods. First and foremost, the company will ensure that it doesn’t lose its customers to the competitors supplying the steel made products (Sancha, Longoni & Giménez, 2015 p 95). The second advantage is that the adoption of the new production practices will create a better relationship between the firm and the locals to ensure that better sales are realized in the near future.
Solution to the current situation.
There are various approaches which all the stakeholders can engage in to ensure that the current situation is rectified effectively and in a timely manner to avoid further negative implications. Among the solutions which can be adopted to solve the situation include, creation of environmental protection legislations. The government in this case is tasked with coming up with regulations policies to guide the local firms on the acceptable environmental practices. The government therefore must undertake regular environmental impact assessment practices for the firms operating within their jurisdiction to ensure adherence.
The organization on its part may undertake the following practices to ensure that the pollution levels are controlled. These practices include; reduce, reuse, recycle and redesign the production process to eliminate the pollutant emission practices (Charles, Schmidheiny and Watts, 2017). Under reduce the organization must engage in reducing the waste emitted to the environment. The organization therefore may engage in reducing its operations level to ensure that the waste emitted is reduced. The organization can also engage in recycling its waste products to ensure that this waste doesn’t get released to the environment. The recycled waste can thus be used in other beneficial purposes for the company. Dirty water for instance may be treated and made useful once again even though not on the actual process but within the system. the approach will reduce the amount of effluent released to the water bodies and ensure that the farmers crops are not affected by the chemicals from the effluent. The approach will also ensure that the scarce water resource is utilized sparingly for the benefit of both the locals and the company. The waste produced should not completely be disposed to the environment the organization should identify some waste which has some scrap value in that it can be used at a different instance. Through this approach therefore, waste sorting will identify waste products which can be have an alternative use (Chin, Tat. and Sulaiman, 2015 p 695). Under redesigning the organization ought to ensure that the entire production process is redesigned to eliminate waste production practices. A waste production audit should be performed on the overall process to identify areas where much waste is produced than others. From the audit then, the organization management must identify countermeasures which will enable the organization eliminate these wastes effectively.
Recommendation
The organization must redesign its production process to match the newly introduced steel production methods. The redesigning approach identified should enable the organization reduce its waste emission to the environment. Since its impossible to operate without any waste being produced the organization has to also invest not only on the production process but also on the waste management practices. The organization ought to come up with better waste disposal practices such as developing waste disposal sites which are away from the local public. Through this the organization will be able to reduce the waste emitted to the environment. The organization must however monitor the newly designed production approach to ensure that its waste emission is within the acceptable levels. The organization therefore must engage in regular control of the production process and the waste management process.
References
Charles Jr, O.H., Schmidheiny, S. and Watts, P., 2017. Walking the talk: The business case for sustainable development. Routledge.
Chin, T.A., Tat, H.H. and Sulaiman, Z., 2015. Green supply chain management, environmental collaboration and sustainability performance. Procedia CIRP, 26, pp.695-699.
Sancha, C., Longoni, A. and Giménez, C., 2015. Sustainable supplier development practices: Drivers and enablers in a global context. Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management, 21(2), pp.95-102.
Singla, A., Ahuja, I.S. and Sethi, A.P.S., 2018. Technology push and demand-pull practices for achieving sustainable development in manufacturing industries. Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, 29(2), pp.240-272.