As a manager of a fine dining restaurant in an inner city suburb, I notice that there is an increase in the number of people enquiring about food items featured on the menu. Some are vegetarian; some ask where and how the food is produced, whilst others are celiac or show a high level of concern over the ingredients used in each dish, due to allergies. As a result, there will be a growing trend towards consuming foods based on informed choice.
On the other hand, there are also some concerns about the ethics of eating and the provenance of food used on the menu. Hence, I decide that incorporating principles of informed choice and ethics into the business could be a good way to respond to these emerging trends and promote the business as being sustainable, environmentally concerned and ethically responsible. There are some imperative issues that the business ought to consider about:
• environmental sustainability
• energy conservation
• ethical eating
• healthy eating and allergies
• locavorism and food miles
• vegan and vegetarianism
• recycling and waste management
• free-trade
2.0 Research issues. 2.1 Environmental Sustainability.
According to Asner et al (2004), agricultural activities and their complex effects on nature conservation, and the services that ecosystems deliver to humans are controversial. We present an overview of land abandonment, its driving forces and its consequences for landscape, biodiversity and humans. A descriptive met analysis of independently
He probes them to learn the what, where, and how of dinner – knowing what is going into the body, knowing where that food came from, and knowing how that food was made. By first knowing what is being consumed, people can make better informed decisions about their purchases. Nutrition, or lack thereof, is a key component in the battle against obesity. Food giants are hoping to hide the often unnecessary filler present in their products by use of dodgy claims and socially engineered advertisements. In general, most consumers probably couldn’t say where their food came from. This usually boils down to the fact that shoppers typically don’t think about it. Breaking this reliance on mass-grown foods is the second part of Pollan’s proposition. The third and equally important element is how the food is produced. More specifically, Pollan is concerned whether or not the food has been produced in a sustainable manner. Preserving the biodiversity of food, maintaining fertile land for future generations, and ensuring consumers receive food that does not compromise health are all factors of sustainability. Without informed consumers, what, where, and how will continue to be unanswered questions. Whether it is for nutritional or ethical choices, a particular food’s history is something that needs to once again become common
Sustainability from a strategic business perspective is the potential for the long-term well-being of the natural environment, including all biological entities, as mutually beneficial interactions among nature and individuals, organizations, and business strategies. (O.C Ferrell, Fraedrich, Ferrell, 2015). Business sustainably is often defined as managing the triple bottom line – a process by which companies manage their financial, social and environmental risks, obligations and opportunities. These three impacts are sometimes referred to as profits, people and planet. (Business sustainability definition from financial times lexicon, no date). This essay will discuss the idea of sustainability being an important element within a businesses and its core strategies and the importance of it within different businesses. Secondly, this study will look at how different stakeholders are affected and influenced by sustainability as this could be seen as a catalyst to improving the environment as a whole and. Then this study will look at how businesses not focusing
When it comes to food in today's day and age it correlates with being convenient, fast, and budgeting because people are usually on the go. Generally, people are used to a grab and go routine between work, school, and a family life. Government regulations such as the FDA and other laws given to factories and supermarkets are being trusted to keep the population safe from any food dangerous; therefore, people don’t do their own research on the foods they’re serving. Authors Pollan and Schlosser in Food Matters, allows individuals to analyze and think about the intake of foods used in their daily life. Pollan shares some rules to be considered when shopping for foods in the supermarket. If people read in detail the theories and information given
The ethical issues presented in this case are the different views that each individual has on how the idea of corporate social responsibility (CSR). This dispute is between Mr. Milton Friedman, John Mackey, and T.J. Rodgers; all of which has a different outlook on CSR. The definition of CSR refers to the responsibilities that business has to the society in which it operates and to those actions that a business can be held accountable. Most philosophers have come up with three different types of responsibilities that corporations can be held accountable for. The first and most important of the three is a corporation’s duty to not cause harm. If a corporation can
This information is very important for the health and social care profession, as individual tastes have to be taken into account when planning a person’s diet. More and more people are enjoying a diet with herbs and spices. This is partly due to our multicultural society and also because more people are travelling to other countries and tasting different types of food and drink. A person’s diet also needs to be tailored to their health requirements. For example, diabetics and some older people may need to exclude certain foods; likewise, a person’s religious belief may mean that halal meat is a requirement. Asking people about their food likes and dislikes, and what they can and cannot eat, is all part of considering and respecting their diversity.’
Ethics and moral obligations are issues we all encounter at one time or another. In the professional setting, all people should act in a manner that would uphold the good of society. To be ethical, one has to determine their obligations, moral ideas, and moral philosophy (Boatright, p. 19, 2009). The case analysis involving Jacob Franklin was a perfect example of how an individual can face the dilemma of doing what is right or wrong. Businesses have their own code of ethics, and the employees within the business have to determine whether or not they will follow the company’s code of conduct. I will discuss several ethical issues in the case analysis including; failure to report information, remaining silent regarding faulty equipment,
In the documentary Food Inc. The message is that the food industry does not want us to know about what we are eating. . This problem may be true however it is driven by the consumer’s continual interest in buying cheaper and cheaper products. The farmers way of life has been revolutionized. Modern farmers think faster, cheaper, bigger. It’s really not until when consumers demand
The concept of business ethics has tried to change the way businesses operate over the years. Business ethics is a form of ethics that governs the actions of businesses to circumvent the affects business has on every day society. But some question its effectiveness in the application of capitalism. Several case studies have shown that this is the case; many companies place the pursuit of money in front of the pursuit of virtue. Although, the majority of companies are not in the spotlight of acting unethically, can we conclude that they follow the ethical norms? It is natural for normal human beings to act ethical but businesses are on a completely different playing field. But could business ethics be clearly possible in capitalism?
The notion of ethics deals with people’s behaviors within a company. Social responsibility involves a company’s moral obligations and the manner in which the organization makes its decisions. Although ethics and social responsibility are similar on a conceptual basis, each has its own unique characteristics that express their differences and its independence of the other. Ethics and social responsibility have to be present and coincide with one another for a business to be ethically sound.
2. Ethical Issues in Business. It seems that every day in the news we are hearing of new company that has acted at least unethically and possibly illegally in the operation and financial reporting of their company's business dealings. There are many ethical issues in business. One major issue that we see is over and under reporting net income. Companies like to show that every quarter the net income of the business has an increase or profit. In order to show this they adopt unethical or illegal means in the operation and financial reporting. One such method is the indiscriminate use of stock options for employees that enable companies to take employment costs off balance sheet and inflate earnings. With the recent ethical issues we have
Do you agree or disagree with the following quotation: “There is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say engages in free and open competition, without deception and fraud.” Milton Friedman, a Nobel Prize winning economist. In other words, the social responsibility of business is to make a profit.
Business Ethics can be defined as the critical and structured examination of how people & institutions should behave in the commerce world. Furthermore, it particularises the involvement of examining appropriate limitations upon the pursuit of complete self-interest; however, this may also apply for firm profits when the actions of each individual or firm affects others in some form. If the business really has no ethics, it can be concluded that the environment will suffer since the intention of business growth is far greater than environmental responsibility.
nowadays, people do not know what they are eating. The majority of most Americans would not be able to pronounce the names of the ingredients listed on the package of the last snack food they consumed. Consumers “ignore certain critical questions about the quality and the cost of what they are sold: How fresh is it? How clean or pure is it, how free of dangerous chemicals? … When the food has been manufactured or “processed” or “precooked,” how has that affected its quality or price or nutritional value?” (Berry, 24) It is of utmost importance that we understand what the food that lines the grocery store shelves is actually
Deforestation for agricultural purposes and the expansion of human habitats is happening around the world. This
Ethics is the branch of philosophy that deals with the principles correlated to human behavior concerning the rightness and wrongness of specific conduct, and to the good and bad that influences and ends those actions (Ditonary.com, 2011). In other words, ethics is the choice people effect in regards to a decision they need to achieve. Without ethics directing the choice an individual makes, moral preferences of what should or should not be done becomes irrelevant. While ethical decisions are made every day there are two different regions in which these choices are made.