Business Ethics and Corporate Governance, Second Edition

NEED FOR A NEW APPROACH

The time has come for companies to take a fresh look at environmental issues. Attempts to improve environmental performance should be viewed as an opportunity to innovate rather than as a burden. As Porter and Vanders Linde have put it, ‘The relationship between environmental goals and industrial competitiveness has normally been thought of as involving a trade-off between social benefits and private costs. The issue of how to balance society’s desire for environmental improvement becomes a kind of arm-wrestling match’. Environmentalists want to establish high standards, while industrialists want them lowered or even eliminated. However, the unavoidable struggle between the economy and ecology arises out of static view ...