Do Corporations Have a Responsibility Only to Make a Profit?
Do corporations have a responsibility only to make a profit?
Corporations have a responsibility to make profits but not to make profits alone. They also have a responsibility toward the environment. A responsibility toward the environment should be something that is universal for corporations. This ties into the Kantian Ethical Theory which is the idea of acting on maxims that should become universal laws for everyone’s behavior is the fundamental principle of right conduct. To prove that corporations not only have a responsibility toward making a profit, but also to the environment, I will use several corporations that have an environmental policy as examples. First I want to define corporate responsibility. Corporate responsibility is a term which describes the ethical approach that companies should incorporate into their business practices and p
Even corporations from other countries not only try to make profits but also acknowledge that they have a responsibility to the environment. Take a corporation from the United Kingdom for example. Reckitt Benciser is committed to running its business in a responsible, environmentally sound and sustainable manner. We recognize that our processes and products have both direct and indirect environmental impacts. We will seek to identify adverse impacts and find effective ways of reducing them, aiming for continuous improvements in our environmental performance and progress towards sustainable development objectives. Throughout our operations we will regard compliance with the law as a minimum standard to be achieved.
Another corporation is the Westinghouse Corporation. Their environment, health, and safety commitment states ‘It is our policy to design,