Environmental sustainability is one of the three pillars of the sustainability concept. According to the United Nations (UN) World Commission on Environment and Development, environmental sustainability is about acting in a way that ensures future generations have the natural resources available to liven an equal way of life as the current generation. To make it simple, economic activities should not be conducted at an expense of the benefits of the future generation. Therefore, to a very large extent, companies and organizations should bear social responsibilities to promote environmental sustainability in their business activities and operations.
However, Friedman (1970) believed that a company or an organization should use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits as long as it stays within the rules of the game such as legal requirements. Friedman’s idea is based on utilitarianism. The primary focus of a company is to generate profits to meet the demands of internal stakeholders such as stockholders and employees. When a company can produce more profits, the utility of employees, employers, investors, and stockholders can be maximized. In other words, if the average utility of the internal stakeholders is improved, the overall utility of the society can also be increased at the same time. However, one intrinsic problem is that there is often a conflict between environmental sustainability and economic activities. Solow (1974) is strongly against sustainable development as a policy objective because it is vague. Solow suggested that sustainability should be considered as an obligation. Most enterprises are profit-driven. Enterprises will prioritize profits in business operations and activities over environmental sustainability. However, Baxter had proposed an idea called “optimum pollution”. Sometimes there is an ethical conflict between harming the natural environment and economic benefits. Baxter (1974) believed that the negative impact of an optimum level of pollution was insignificant and irrelevant. It is because the fundamental goal of business operations and activities is to address the needs and demands of human beings. In my opinion, Baxter’s idea is rather anthropocentric. He does not notice that the natural environment and resources do not belong to just human beings but all the other living creatures. In this sense, I agree more with Solow’s idea. That is, environmental sustainability is not a policy or a concept but rather an obligation to both the current and future generations.
Reference
Baxter, W. F. (1974). People or penguins: The case for optimal pollution. New York.
Friedman, M. (1970). The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits. The New York Times Magazine, September 13.
Solow, R. M. (1974). Intergenerational Equity and Exhaustible Resources. The Review of Economic Studies, 41, 29-45.