Category Archives: Ethics

These posts will be added to our Student Work menu item. This category should be used for submitting posts for our Unit #7 Assignment.

Ethics & Social Responsibility

Kevin J. Pena

Bus 104-B050

Prof. Buckler

April 22,2022

Ethics & Social Responsibility 

Modern Companies have taken note of the power they hold to make a difference in our world today. This had brought most of them to develop ways to make their business models that aid in correcting some of these issues. This includes social justice, sustainability  and ecological, social equality and philanthropic practices implemented throughout these companies. Most companies publish these practices to show what they are doing to help. I will be looking at one specific international retail company’s practices and how they have ethically served their social responsibility.

Amongst the international retail giants, one affordable company is on the rise, that company is Uniqlo. Uniqlo is a Japanese clothing brand that started in 1949. It now has over 1000 stores worldwide.This puts the company in a position to affect many social situations in the countries that house their stores. Some of the social situations they address are refugee support efforts, economic development of Bangladesh, and supporting the special olympics and a children’s hospice in Tsurumi Japan. In Bangladesh they have opened 15 stores that produce and sell all products in Bangladesh. All profits made from those stores are reinvested in the stores and factories to boost the nation’s economy and help it grow. Along with their social responsibilities they address sustainability issues pertaining to clothing production as a retail company. They have implemented a clothing recycling program for their clothes to help reduce their carbon footprint. They also contribute to preserving the environment of coastal Japan while producing clothes with fabrics that have a longer life cycle. These are attempts to make a social impact on an international scale. Due to regulations in different countries they cannot have a singular model to implement across the countries. This is why they focus on their sustainable production practices and spreading knowledge on their clothing recycling programs as well as leading the front on new retail technology. 

Observing the positions this company focuses on, I do have some recommendations that would help further the impact they wish to make. Beginning with their recycling programs. I do believe they should include it more in their marketing. This can bring people to inquire about the programs. Such as their clothing recycling collection areas that exist in some of their stores. While the desire to sustain the environment of your home country is understandable, there is a large opportunity to do the same in other countries. Also, upon their support to the Tsurumi children’s hospice, It would be awesome if they can do that with other hospice or to build some in countries that could need them. As well as publishing the experience the children are having and the successful parts of the practices to share with other international children’s hospitals.They have done some great things in Bangladesh and it would be awesome to see other companies do the same with other countries. Even though it is difficult to do the same due to political situations in most of those nations. But if each major clothing company would follow this example there can be a greater impact made in developing nations. Though they do have great practices the main thing I would work on is sharing the information and spreading the word on how to do the same for many companies to follow. Such as their many refugee aiding programs are wonderful yet not known. Making these known, not just for the social impact points, but for the benefit of showing other companies options on how to ethically help the societies they are in. Through sharing the knowledge of how they have succeeded in some of these things, it teaches other companies the steps to follow or look into to do the same. Being a clothing company there is always room for improvement in sustainability practices. However there are several setbacks since they also cater to an international market that differs from country to country. Also though I can make these recommendations from an external perspective, I do understand that there can be setbacks due to political scenarios and not knowing how much of their profits can be allocated to these endeavors.

Social responsibility & Ethics

Marckenson Desgrottes

  Health & Fitness plays a significant role in my daily life. While many businesses continues to face impacts from COVID, Fitness clubs target to improve corporate social responsibility and pursuing sustainable business practices by doing their upmost part to create a clean environment for their customers, in addition to the gym equipment products they provide. Understating the importance of taking the additional steps to attract customer’s attention, product quality and listening to customer’s interest through surveys, helps businesses understand where growth can be made to gain customer satisfaction and promote their business. Health & Fitness is important to all individual’s life. I strongly feel, healthy people are more energetic than someone that doesn’t pay attention to their health.

Health and Fitness has been a passion of minds since high school. At first, being physically fit, to me, were to remain in shape in order to play sports in high school. Over the years, I understood the importance of being in shape and the positive impact it can have in your life. At the start of point with COVID-19 pandemic. Gyms closed in order to help stop the spread of COVID. I can honestly say, a lot of people were impacted because of this mandate, including myself. Unable to access gym equipment’s effected my friends, family and myself who rely on the gym as a daily part of our activities. This caused a lot of people and myself to miss daily training that significantly helps us remain in shape. The Closure did not only impact the customers. “Twenty-two percent of U.S. health clubs and studios closed permanently since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and the U.S. fitness industry has lost $29.2 billion in revenue, according to findings by the National Health & Fitness Alliance (NHFA)”. The fitness industry had experienced 10 years of revenue growth prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and the mandated closures of health clubs in many states to try to stop the spread of the virus. “The industry’s revenue dropped 52 percent in 2020 compared to 2019, equating to a loss of $29.2 billion in revenue from March 2020 through June 2021, according to the NHFA. With the temporary closures and the subsequent permanent closures of health clubs and studios, about 1.5 million people lost their jobs in the industry, according to NHFA. That equates to 47 percent of jobs in the industry”.

The pandemic impacted customers, workers and health & fitness businesses across the U.S. When the reopening phase took placed. Myself and fitness customers were happy to have a sense of normalcy again after most day-to-day activities were impacted by COVID-19. Although, Fitness clubs reopened, they faced unusual impact within their operations due to capacity restrictions and disinfectant requirements for all fitness clubs that include additional spending to their business. Customers were frustrated with the issue of having to wait on an extended line to access fitness clubs. However, customers decided to deal with the issue and were happy to just be able to access the fitness clubs for their trainings. Home fitness workout did not work for all. Working out in the comfort of your home can be difficult for most people. Some people are lackadaisical in home fitness workouts. The gym provided a sense of motivation with everyone in the same environment working on common goal towards health & fitness. Fitness clubs payed close attention to current trends and offered discounts on memberships upon reopening, cheaper rates for license trainers to train customers and created the ability for customers to schedule their training hours to help with delays with accessing gyms. I personally like the effort fitness clubs made to ensure customers are able to feel safe in their workout environments by constantly disinfecting workout areas and making disinfectant easily accessible to customers at the gym.

In conclusion, the pandemic has been a daily part of our life for the past two years. With the unknown direction on resolution of COVID-19 pandemic. Health & fitness are very important to customers that rely on fitness clubs. In addition, workers and the fitness business allows customers to have a place/and or environment where it help motivates customers to achieve their desired fitness goals.

Ethics

Ethisphere is a leading global research firm that devotes its efforts to identifying and upholding the highest standards of ethical practices by companies. Ethisphere focuses on environmental sustainability, philanthropy, and many other procedures. Kelloggs’ has been recognized as one the most globally ethical and sustainable companies worldwide for almost fifteen years. Through Kelloggs’ work, billions of people across six continents have been reached and supported in the worldwide hunger crisis.
Since 2007 Kelloggs’ has devoted its time to mainly using recycled material in their packaging. As of 2020, 76% of their packaging is made of recycled or biodegradable matter, but their goal is to be 100% by 2025. Over the last seven years, they’ve reduced their greenhouse gas emissions by over 20%. Overall, they are decreasing their annual carbon footprint and leading them closer to their goal of not participating in deforestation. Another reason Kelloggs is recognized as ethical is because of its philanthropic work. The global food company has donated over 2 Billion servings of food, reaching over 3 million children worldwide.
One practice I’d recommend Kelloggs implement to become even more sustainable is locally sourcing their ingredients from areas where they manufacture their food. If they’re located in places that aren’t rich in agriculture, they could start new farms. This will reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, but it will help regulate their food waste and provide employment to the people who live in nearby communities.

Social Responsibilities and Ethical Principle

There are different responsibilities in social networks. Social Responsibilities in Business means that we add to maximizing shareholders value. it also includes our society benefits that we need to elaborate our social business.

Social Responsibility interact the individual company that include the interacts of their surrounding environment and society. It applies on the business. Social Responsibility also means CSR( Corporate Social Responsibilities).

Now i will discuss on Ethical Principles.

Its crucial for business and other companies. It includes the Honesty, Promise and Respect for other employees and person. All of us must include the honesty to others to show them that we have a good ethics and loyalty. There are different principle that we can also include in the ethical principles.

Above I told about the Honesty: It means everyone must speak and tolerate with other as honesty behavior’s.

Ethics and Social Responsibility

Syeed Salvant 

April 22, 2022

                                         Ethics and Social responsibility 

     Walmart is one of the largest companies on the planet, no matter where you are in America you will be able to find a Walmart.  Walmart has 4,742 stores in the United States and 10,593 stores across the world which makes them a retail giant, usually, when it comes to retail giants they’re wasteful with energy and do not focus on the conservation of energy and being socially responsible but Walmart continues to take steps in the right direction and separate themselves from the rest of the pack which is why they have been successful since the 1960s.  Walmart has partnered with Bloom Energy and their goal is to make clean energy more accessible and affordable for the whole planet so Walmart associating with them was a great move. A company that employs over two million people should always look for ways to pursue sustainable business practices and Walmart is one of the best examples in the world of this, they want to become one hundred percent supplied by renewable energy and they cover the roofs of many of their retail stores in solar panels.  All of the energy that they save in total using solar energy makes them the biggest commercial solar generator in the world.  

Although Walmart is outstanding when it comes to saving energy and being more efficient with their energy use there are other aspects of corporate social responsibility and pursuing sustainable business practices they can be better at such as raising the wages of their workers and offering better hours to workers outside of the united states.  I recommend that they create a workers union so that they are held accountable when it comes to their mistakes and the company can continue to evolve and improve over time. There isn’t much Walmart needs to urgently improve on but when workers are treated fairly and paid well a huge company like Walmart will do nothing but continue to outperform its competition. 

https://www.grin.com/document/337138    

https://www.electricchoice.com/blog/100-energy-efficient-companies/ 

 https://www.statista.com/statistics/269425/total-number-of-walmart-stores-in-the-united-states-by-type/#:~:text=Walmart%20U.S.%20had%20a%20total,which%2010%2C593%20were%20retail%20stores.

Ethics

The company I will talk about is the technological company Hewlett Packard. As someone who owns an HP laptop, Printer, ink cartridges, and desktops. HP is one of the most respected organizations in the world through incorporation of corporate social responsibility.

HP strongly contributes to the community development in reference to the corporate social responsibility. HP is one of the main technology suppliers and the company has many sustainability initiatives. Sustainability is firmly integrated into the company’s product design process, which aims to decrease the environmental impact of products across their life cycles. Due to its industry leadership in sustainability, HP has received much external recognition in recent years. 

An ethical issue in business is the social reaction of the organization. In order to become a more socially responsible and sustainable business I think the manager should create a positive workplace that will have its employees engaged and encouraged to gain high performances. HP can also increase labor productivity of workers by investing or creating incentives for increases in technology and human or physical capital.

Ethics and Social Responsibility

The company I selected in which I interact with on a frequent basis would be Ebay. Ebay is known as one of the top selling retailer sites/companies within the world. It is a public corporation, and overall has had its fair share of ethical and non ethical moments, in which we will explore throughout this paper.

To kick things off, Ebay has been proven to be a platform that encourages purchasing from sellers who are associated with charity. In a simple search through their seller’s products, it will be noticeable that sellers (who choose to donate all or give a dividend) to charity will have a special indicator with information of said specific charity. An article posted to Ebay’s forum section declared them as one of the worlds most ethical companies, which would also add to their resume and award column. This would rule in the favor of Ebay being viewed as quite ethical when it comes to supporting such organizations that presumably set out to provide care in some way, shape, or form.

In terms of negatives, there isn’t much information to be dug up within politics. However in the recent years of Ebay’s operation, there have been various scamming’s that have occurred. Some of these scamming’s (which also bring into question paypal, usps but start with Ebay qualification overall) were either not addressed by Ebay to the best of their ability or were disregarded until a community of press/individuals released complaints into the media. Since then, Ebay has claimed to have innovated methods of verification and authentication, though time will tell.

To conclude this paper, Ebay has somewhat of a balance within its ethical behavior, though the social responsibility scale tends to lean more towards being supportive in Ebays case.

Sources: https://www.ebayinc.com/stories/news/ebay-inc-honored-as-one-of-the-worlds-most-ethical-companies/#:~:text=Honored%20As%20One%20of%20the%20World’s%20Most%20Ethical%20Companies,-Richard%20Brewer%2DHay&text=eBay%20Inc%20has%20been%20recognized,of%20nominations%20for%20the%20award. –

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/may/21/ebay-accused-failing-sellers-buyers-manipulate-system-protection

Ethics and Social Responsibility – Grove Co.

As someone who is always on the go with little free time, online marketplaces are a go-to resource I rely on for everyday products. Around three years ago I ran into an ad for Grove Collaborative, a one stop shop for everyday products that have been ethically sourced to be sustainable, eco-friendly and cruelty free. They allow their consumers to do their part in helping our environment without having to do to the heavy lifting.

Grove Collaborative’s marketplace includes household cleaning supplies, ethically sourced beauty and personal care products and my personal favorite, the latter for children too! Grove is on a mission to become 100% plastic free by 2025, they partner with likeminded small companies to better expand and pursue their efforts. They’ve created program like “Beyond Plastic” and making returning their recyclable products directly to them convenient and will even send you a prepaid label to do so.

Their quest is one I personally admire and being a consumer for only three years, I’ve watched them enter mass market stores like Target and grow their message through educating their buyers with articles and advertising. I’d love to see more pressure applied on all companies, consumer products and audiences with more marketing campaigns and seminars on how to effectively source and make better choices outside of their platform.

The company truly allows its consumers to feel as though they’re contributing to the cause, which they are because the environmental change starts small, at home, with us and our everyday choices. Grove Collaborative is based on ethical and social responsibility and I’m eager to see where they go.

Zara Ethics

The company I would like to discuss today is the clothing brand Zara. Not only was I a consumer, but I have worked for the company for nearly two years, and feel I have a grasp of what the company values and stands for. Zara is a brand that is considered fast fashion, meaning it’s based on regular new arrivals depending on the fashion trends that are popular at that time, which you can imagine is very harmful for the environment. 

My second year working with them, I recall Inditex which is the parent company of Zara introducing a new reuse program called Closing the Loop which gives customers the opportunity to donate their used garments whether it be from Zara or not, through either an in-store drop off box or through the post which allows the clothes to gain a second life. Another thing I do appreciate is the brand uses recycled packaging. And although Zara is aware of their social imprint and has goals to reduce greenhouse gas and emissions that are being produced from its own supply chain, we don’t exactly have proof Zara is putting in effort or where on track they are to meet this goal. We have no evidence there is effort being made to minimize textile waste when manufacturing the clothes. Zara has an animal welfare policy which includes a strict ban of fur, angora, as well as stocking products that are tested on animals. However, Zara does use wool, exotic animal hair, and leather. 

I do see Zara’s efforts in becoming more of a sustainable brand because I know they have a sustainable collection by the name of Join Life. You’ll notice specific garments/products have a Join Life label attached to it meaning the product is sourced responsibly, made from substantial materials and made through considerate production processes. This collection helps reduce the environmental impact and the brand aims to have 50% of their items to meet the Join Life standard. Not only products but their boxes, bags, hangers, and alarms are also reused and recycled. 

There is a huge demand in Zara seeing as the whole company is expected to come out with new arrivals based on the latest fashion trends every 13 days. Zara is originally based from Spain where their have been numerous allegations for slave labor and forced labor in countries like Spain, Argentina, and Myanmar. With that being said, there have been some reports made about the factories, and the workers they use to manufacture the products. Zara has been involved with modern slavery and child labor cases in Brazilian factories. As well as employing Turkish sweatshops in Istanbul where workers were not being paid and were forced to work. Since then Zara cares more deeply for their suppliers with higher transparency however they still dont pay a living wage across their supply chain.

Considering what a big company Zara is and the billions of dollars they profit annually I think they can do a better job at becoming a more sustainable brand and looking after their carbon footprint. As well as making sure their workers and suppliers are happy and working in safe environments to manufacture products.

Amazon Social Responsibility and Ethics

As soon as I read what we had to do for this week’s assignment, the first company that came to mind was Amazon. Any time I need to buy anything, from clothes, to beauty products, furniture etc., I always find myself immediately opening the amazon app on my phone.

Amazon’s one of the biggest and fastest growing companies in the world, but with this also comes a lot of controversy. The company’s policies regarding environmental sustainability, supply chain transparency and employee rights amongst other things have always been a topic of discussion. For today’s assignment I would like to focus on their steps toward sustainability and employee relations.

Amazon is known for their easy and accessible service as well as their fast shipping. But faster shipping means a more stressful work environment and a much larger carbon footprint. To try and fix this, they have implemented new initiatives like entering The Climate Pledge which urges companies to achieve a net-zero carbon emission by 2040. They also hired over 200 scientists and product designers to help reduce their carbon imprint As well as contributing $100 million to other initiatives to mitigate climate change. However, in the last few years the company’ s total carbon footprint has greatly increased. This increase in not compatible with their goals of being zero carbon by 2040. It gives the impression of them doing as little as possible and trying to buy time focusing on promises for 2040 when they could have already been a leader in sustainable delivery give all the years they’ve been operating

Now, although the company’s Employee Hiring and training programs actively seek out candidates in ethnically diverse population, as well as providing reimbursement for up to 95% of tuition and fees for employees seeking to expand their skills, the way they treat their warehouse employees and drivers is questionable. its pretty well known by now how horrible the working conditions are, from working long shifts, being in your feet all day with a scanner that tracks everything you do (and don’t do), not being able to take breaks between tasks, timing all your tasks etc. meanwhile only being paid minimum wage. the physical and mental strain is unbearable. There’s no point in trying to be a diverse company when your employees are being subject to such cruel mistreatment.

Having looked at all this information, I feel like in order to become a more socially responsible and sustainable business, the company must focus on reducing their carbon footprint as soon as possible, instead of just making empty promises for a decade from now. the time to act is now, not later. they should treat their employees like humans, not robots, allow them to become unionized, and pay them a livable wage.