Annals of the University of Oradea: Economic Science (Jul 2013)
ETHICAL ASPECTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to outline the main economical and social benefits that can be obtained by adopting an ethical attitude of the organisations which use a performant environmental management. From the idea that the human being is the master of nature, it was passed to the view according to which the human being must ensure a balance between consumption and the use of resources. In order to achieve our goal we identified the factors that lead to long term or even permanent destructive effects over the environment and we briefly present the reasons for which the organizations adopt and implement environmental management systems. Also, the difficulties encountered in implementing environmental strategies have been briefly enumerated and the competitive and economic advantages that can be achieved by adopting an efficient environmental management and the main reasons that grant to the environmental management a special significance were exposed. This theoretical paper emphasizes the importance of the adoption by organizations of a "green behavior" and reveals correlations between sustainability, economic growth and environmental performance in organizations. The analysis of the ethical aspects of environmental management shows the links that can be created between the development of an ethical culture of organizations and the achievement of the environmental excellence. The research provides an overview of the concept of environmental ethics and encloses it within the scope of environmental management. Someone needs to explain why an increasing number of organizations, both large and small, are setting up environmental management systems, making environmental investments and reducing risks over and beyond legal requirements, even when the benefits are not at all obvious, even in the long run. Also, this paper provides some practical examples of organizations environmental problems and points out how these organizations adapted their environmental strategies. The main conclusion of this conceptual paper is that organizations’ competitiveness in any industry and environmental protection are two interconnected concepts and we believe that there can be no excellence in business without excellence in environmental protection or vice versa.
