This is not a political blog, but I find many of my ideas lately are sparked by what I am hearing in the Presidential campaigns, which will wrap up in six days. How businesses will meet challenges related to critical global issues, like environmental change, poverty, and health care system, is crucial for our American society and for our world. So I see business and politics as connected, and I believe our political context in the US will have a big impact on how businesses change in the next decades.
After the second Presidential debate, I wrote about ways that business might encourage more environmental responsibility among employees, and limit travel which impacts the Earth's atmosphere. I wrote about sacrifice, and how we might choose to change our behavior at both the individual and the corporate level, to work toward a shared future. Last night, as I watched Barack Obama's 30-minute campaign ad, I heard the words "responsibility" and "moral" and "conservation" and "hope" and I realized how strongly I believe that businesses must shoulder their moral responsibilities at this time.
Because businesses use so much of the US supply of energy, and many businesses engage in activities that produce pollution or other negative impacts on the Earth, I see the environment and energy use as one area where businesses must change. It is not socially responsible for business leaders to say "well, it will cost too much to upgrade our production systems, or install new teleconferencing facilities, or take other conservation actions, so our stockholders would not approve."
Businesses have a responsibility to do more than make a short-term profit. They have stakeholders, as well as stockholders, and ethical leaders will take the long-term interests of all stakeholders into account when making business decisions. This may require making tradeoffs that limit short-term profit, but should have benefits for the company in the long term.
That's my stand. What's yours? Can you share any examples of businesses that are wrestling with these tradeoffs?
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