The Environment & Business

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Environmental Issues

All businesses have some impact on the environment. In recent years, many businesses have been put under pressure by customers, governments and employees to reduce their negative impact on the environment. Companies can impact the environment through:

Traffic congestion

Companies can cause traffic congestion because of their staff, delivery drivers or consumers using cars around the company’s offices, warehouses or shops.
- This is particularly noticeable for manufacturing businesses that use just in time (JIT) production processes like Jaguar Land Rover. More goods are delivered to the manufacturing locations on a more regular basis.

Careless waste disposal

Businesses can reduce the impact that they have on the environment by making sure that there is a suitable recycling scheme in place for the waste that they produce.
Materials that are harmful to the environment, like soft plastics, can be recycled instead of being disposed of in a landfill site or the sea.
Companies could be more careful about where they dispose of the waste that can't be recycled in order to minimise pollution.

Air and noise pollution

Noise pollution affects the local community where a company operates.
- Factories and construction sites can be a source of disruption for the local community and businesses can minimise this by only working at certain times.
- Some shops, like Debenhams, will only deliver to stores near residential streets during daytime hours.
Using renewable sources of energy, as well as more efficient machinery can reduce air pollution too.

Poor choice of materials

Banks like Barclays and Santander have recently encouraged their customers to go “paperless”.
Instead of receiving paper bank statements, they can now receive emails containing the same information.

Lack of encouragement of public transport use

Businesses can also encourage employees to carpool, use public transport or cycle to work.
Larger businesses could even subsidise the use of public transport to gain local authority Green Business Awards (as with Birmingham City Council).

Business and Sustainability

Sustainability means acting so that the Earth and all of its resources are fit for use for future generations. Businesses can improve their contributions to sustainability by:

Using renewable energy resources

Many of the resources used by businesses to generate energy (coal, oil, natural gas) are non-renewable. Non-renewable resources cannot be replaced once we run out of them on Earth.
To be sustainable, a business could use renewable energy, but this may be more expensive and the business may have to invest in new machinery.

Contributing to global warming

Many of these non-renewable resources release greenhouse gases, which contribute to creating a warmer climate. This could lead to disastrous weather and flooding events for future generations.
Businesses in many industries produce a large amount of greenhouse gases and therefore these businesses have a responsibility to help make the planet useable for future generations.
Reducing air pollution may increase a company's costs.