BE Unit VIII Assessment 2 of 2

Ethical Duties of a Business
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Historically, the increased contribution of industry to environmental degradation has been the subject of a heated debate on the role that the business should play in mitigating the negative effects. There is wider acknowledgement that businesses through their production and distribution processes contribute greatly to ecological degradation and hence, ought to adopt eco-friendly business practices CITATION Har081 \l 1033 (Hartman, 2008). This paper argues that business has direct ethical obligation to living things other than human beings.
By all means, business organizations have direct ethical obligations to other livings beings apart from humans. Given the fact that all living beings rely on the ecosystem for survival, businesses are expected to engage in business practices that demonstrate that the organizations care for the natural environment. As such, the manner in which a business interacts with the natural environment with regard to carbon emission and release of other pollutants directly impacts on the welfare of all the organisms within its surroundings. Failure to consider the implication of environmentally unsustainable business practices on living beings may lead to extinction of entire species. Thus, businesses are ethically obliged to ensure the welfare of all living things in an ecosystem by adopting business practices that are eco-friendly CITATION Har081 \l 1033 (Hartman, 2008).
In answering this question, the effects of the environmental degradation on living things have been considered and related to the form of ecological damage that results from such irresponsible business practices as haphazard waste dumping and uncontrolled carbon emissions; and ...