In the past, economic growth was considered as the first priority, then environmental sustainability followed it. However, now that we are facing serious environmental crisis such as global warming and water shortage, we need to tackle with this issue. This is the grave concern not only for our generation but also for that of the future. I am seriously concerned about this issue because natural environment is our asset for mankind. I’ll talk about this issue with two points. I’ll mention how our awareness has been shifted from economic growth toward environmental sustainability.
First, the establishment of evaluation system. It seems that big corporation’s policies have been changed and they’ve tackled with environmental sustainability citing “CSR” which stands for Corporate Social Responsibility. This is a good trend. But to extend this trend further, I propose establishment of evaluation/ranking system. I believe, audit body formed by media/authorities as watchdog is effective. Companies are significantly sensitive to media coverage. Therefore, they will make strong efforts to earn good reputation from public. For example, the company I work for ranked the last place of the latest Greenpeace ranking system. The CEO issued instructions to all employees to take environmental deliberation into our consideration. It has become clear that through earning good reputation, we can make more profit. In other words, good reputation plays vital role for making profit. Nowadays, handling environmental sustainability has been a significant impact on corporate sustainability.
Second, I’d like to shed light on technical effort. Let me take actual example from my work place. I’m working on semiconductor chip design field. We design chips which are geared for mobile phone, GPS and so on under some criteria. One of fundamental goals is related to power consumption. As the first priority to save power, our design is constricted by how much power the chip is allowed to consume. This is an effort to hold buttery as much as possible for environmental sustainability. In short, we create better products and offer better service to customers through this kind of improvement.
In conclusion, environmental sustainability enhances corporate growth and technical improvement. We should positively accept environmental sustainability as the first priority for our prosperity.
2 comments:
Big Corporation Contributing to Environment Pollution
It is a kind of issue "which do you prefer to, environment or profit?"
When humanity entered new era of industrialization, it seemed apparent that we took precedence to environment because we human beings loved something new.
It seems this is our disposition that we get a short term high, and we suffer long term health problems. The air pollution, the sedentary life styles, and the global warming are all injurious to health.
Although nowadays, environmental pollution problems are replaced with other environmental concerns like deforestation, global warming, water shortage, and population expansion, Japan experienced a number of serious forms of environmental pollution from the 1960s to the 1970s. Besides Minamata disease, an seriese of other pollution-related diseases have surfaced, one after another, such as itai-itai disease, which broke out in the Jintsugawa river basin in Toyama Prefecture; respiratory disorders in the Tokyo-Yokohana industrial belts; and chronic arsenic poisoning in Miyazaki Prefecture.
These forms of pollution occurred as a result of the priority placed on rapid economic growth and the downplay of standards to protect peoplee's health and safety. The consequences led to Japan's setting strict regulations to protect the environment. And this type of problem that is disposal of industrial waste discharged by factories and businesses is still there.
With the advancement of technology, now this issue has changed its outfit: High-tech pollution. This relatively new type of environmental pollution is caused by cutting-edge industries, such as integrated circuit production. Ground water pollution is caused by solvents. Examples are trichloroethylene, used for washing integrated circuits, and tetrachloroethylene, used largely in dry cleaning. Both of these chemicals are CARCINOGENIC, and it can seep into ground water, then can be taken into your body!
Now we are living in era in which we are surrounded with affluence of materials, and we are now looking for something made of not substance to make ourselves happy. We also have come to understand the importance of nature. So now we need carefully to monitor damages given by human beings.
Just one correction.
on line 5, "took precedence to environment" -> "gave precedence to profit"
Thank you.
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