College of Business Administration

1) Some critiques say that being green is no longer cost of doing business. American vice president Al Gore argues, making environmental improvements is often the best way to increase a company’s efficiency and, therefore, profitability. Many environmental thinkers suggest “the environment must be integrated into everyday business decisions”. How would you respond to this statement?

2) Thomas Birch says “ Western culture’s approach to wilderness and wildness, the otherness of nature, tends to be one of imperialistic domination and appropriation.” What do you think about this statement? Are we really trying to bring the law to wildness?

3) Environmental costs are sky-rocketing in most companies, with little chance of economic payback in sight, but Hawken says that “(b)eing green is no longer a cost of doing business: it is a catalyst for innovation, new market opportunity and wealth creation” creating a win-win solution. Do you feel ‘win-win’ solutions should be the foundation of a company’s environmental strategy?

4) Richard P. Wells sates that “(t)he key to maintaining continuous environmental improvement is management, not technology. Cost effective technologies will emerge so long as management systems identify, prioritize and evaluate environmental opportunities.” What do you think of this statement? Do you think business should invest in the technologies in order to go green?

5) “Business leaders and environmentalists have focused on the static cost impacts of environmental regulation and have ignored the more important offsetting productivity benefits from innovation. This mind-set has led to ever more costly environmental regulation.” Do you think that environmental regulations erode competitiveness or do you think that they increase productivity?

6) What are a few ways that environmental improvements can benefit resource productivity?

7) Porter and Van der Linde ask this question, “If innovation in response to environmental regulation can be profitable—if a company can actually offset the cost of compliance through improving resource productivity—why is regulation necessary at all? If such opportunities exist wouldn’t companies pursue them naturally and wouldn’t regulation be unnecessary?”