Ethics, Responsibility and Climate Change: Business Challenge in 21st Century

The current economic slowdown has shaken the confidence of the society in the model of development propagated by the corporations. The recent debacle of Lehman Brothers Holdings Limited, Bear Stern Companies and Satyam Computers has once again shifted the focus on the way business is conducted and their sustainability. Due to the wide ranging impact of corporations on the society in terms of direct economic impact (fiscal growth) and those indirect ones (direct employment generation, supporting ancillary industries, enabling social development), the way they conduct business is very critical for the geographies where they are operating. This becomes all the more significant in a scenario where the corporations contribute substantially to the GDP of the country. Their failing threatens to pull the country’s economy down. The recent fall of these corporations has also cleared the misconception that mammoth organizations cannot fail simply due to their size. Well we don’t see mammoths today! And so is true for the abovementioned corporations.

The causes for instances of failing corporations cannot be looked in isolation, it reflects a trend in which the companies are run and concerns of stakeholders (including society and environment) are overlooked for increasing the bottom line. Incessant use of natural resources, increasing pollution and GHG emission and focusing merely on profits cumulatively point to a trend of governance in business organizations that is too heavily inclined towards short term profits; unmindful of long term impacts.

According to Wall Street Journal study (21-23 Nov 2008), of public companies, top executives and directors of the firms who had filed for bankruptcy cashed out a total of more than $21 billion during the period reviewed. The negotiations at Poznan failed to make headway on consensus towards concerted efforts to combat climate change.

All these events raise a question on what the 21st century in which we are already 9 years old hold for us and what will be the conditions and questions facing our future generations when they shall enter the 22 century. In order to make sure that their challenges are much different from what we have today, we have to discuss and evolve a new way of doing business that is more long term and priortizes issues in a way they should be.

Expanding Family ;)

Well this is not Aparupa....but her not so better half (considering that shez my my better half, i automatically qualify as not so better one... :( ; ne ways we can have anoter blog for it).. well i am a bit lazy (by my standards, but my better half has a habit of exaggerating things, so she does that with my laziness also....well lets put it for another blog..) so instead of creating new one for myself, i chose to hang on the pre existing one of my wifey.... so from now on u'll find most of our blogs joints but some also solely by me... discussing world economy, quantum physics, astrogeophilosophical sciences, human psychology....... i hope ull have a ery intriguing time reading it, as much as we shall have writing it.... happy blogging with us... :)