College of Business Administration

Social and Ethical Issues in Business

American Forest Releaf

GROUP MEMBERS:

Arlan Arnsten
David Bickerton
Mike Fairchild
Traci Fette

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

Due to the deterioration of today's society mixed with the growing distaste of politics, it has become necessary that companies, including large corporations to small businesses, become more socially aware. Being socially aware does not simply mean that one cares for the environment, or that one thinks that recycling is a positive idea. Being socially aware involves being an active part of making our society a better place to live, and preserving this land for future generations. For this reason, our group contacted the agency of American Forest. Our goal was to challenge local businesses to assist in the donation of funds to the Global ReLeaf Foundation.

The Global ReLeaf Foundation is known as one of the oldest not for profit organizations that helps re-plant our forests. Through this foundation, sponsors provide the means by which the public can contribute to the planting of trees. For example, Eddie Bauer utilizes a program with their order forms and in their stores where a customer can add one dollar to their purchase to go towards the planting of one tree. To date, Eddie Bauer has contributed over $300,000.00 to the foundation, $75,000.00 of which they matched from the initial donations.

As a group, we felt the desire to take on this project and include as many businesses that would help. The response initially was not as positive as we had hoped. Yet, we knew that the program was worthwhile and that people would respond if they only knew more about the foundation and the good that it does. On November 6, 1996, we set up a booth on the SDSU campus in the free speech area. We handed out flyers informing passersby of the program and encouraging them to contribute to the foundation. The contributions received were more than expected, just over $45.00, including a T-shirt that we had designed. Afterwards we were able to contact a few small business to be able to use their sites for donation spots. With this small amount of effort, we were able to nearly double our donations.

The ethical frameworks that we associate with this program are the 'Land Ethic' and the 'Social Contract Theory.' The Land Ethic simply states that something is right when it preserves the biotic community, which is exactly what the Global ReLeaf Foundation accomplishes. What better way to preserve the community than to provide homes for animals and air for everyone to breathe. The Social Contract theory, in short, states that society should establish rules for our mutual benefit. The benefits of planting trees, and all the ramifications of not doing so, clearly provide the evidence needed to support this theory. It is not only in the benefit of humans, but the entire world’s inhabitants that trees are preserved.

From our efforts and those who supported the foundation, our group was able to collect enough money to plant 75 trees in America's forests. That may not seem like an enormous number of trees, but it is 75 more trees than there were before the project began. Our slogan, 'Plant a forest--One dollar at a time,' came to life with this project. If nothing else comes from this project, there are four college students who believe that people can make a difference in the world. And it does not matter how big the difference is, but that the effort was made.

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