Week 38 (2/2) The business of business is to increase its profit

This statement limits the scope and missed other aspects when running a business that only focuses on increasing its profit. The operation of business involves many elements such as workers, customers, facilities, resources, revenue, expenses, and investment. Each element of a business unit is linked to each other directly or indirectly. Therefore, the operation of business units also creates varies impacts within and beyond the business network through the daily practices. When the only business goal is to increase profit, the elements within the business network act towards achieving the goal.

However, actions taken to increase the profit do not always create positive impact within the business network. For example, to create bigger profit margin, businesses may choose to cut down the cost. Given that the revenue stays the same, the lower the expenses are, the larger the business profit margin it will create. Using salary as an example, when employees take pay cuts to save the business’ operation cost, their household income drops, which might force them to look for another job in order to carry their financial burden such as mortgage, paying for tuition, or paying for medical treatment.

If not quitting the job, the employees might need to work a second job in order to generate extra income to maintain financial stability. Working two jobs usually takes away more personal time and leads to the reduction of social activities, recreational activities, and even daily activities such as sleeping, cooking or picking children up from day care. The lack of sufficient time for personal activities will then creates stress both physically and mentally, and impact work performance. Eventually, the business itself could suffer from poor work quality on the employee side and it could further shake the business stability because employees need to put more hours to get the same amount of work done as compared with no pay cut scenario.

Looking at this issue from a different angle, cutting down cost in business operation also has its good side. The limitation of the operation cost could also be a driving force for more efficient use of materials, energy use, or innovation. Companies might have an opportunity to review their energy use and find out possible ways to eliminate waste of electricity. The limitation of the material budget could increase sustainability because it decreases the environmental footprint by cutting down the resource consumption from upstream raw material production, the fuel burned during transportation, and the waste material.

There's no doubt that profit generating is a vital goal for businesses in order to sustain the business network. Increased profit could be used in many good ways such as sustainable technology innovative research. research. However, setting the increase of profit as the only goal in the business operation could create impact on the business in reverse and hurts the business. Therefore, the business of business should be more than just about increasing profit, aspects such as employee welfare, environmental performance, and innovative technological development can also be considered for business operation.

week 38 (1/2) Industrial Ecology inspired puzzle - use of plastic

Puzzle: Why do consumers buy plastic products even though it can't be easily degraded?

Plastic is a material that's widely used in modern society. It is a material that's being made into various products but it also stays in the environment for a significant amount of time after disposal. The volume of the plastic builds up in the environment over time and occupies a lot of land space in landfills. In countries with limited land area it poses as a concern because the solid waste inside the landfill is not easily broken down by the microorganisms in the layers of waste. Such countries can only built limited landfills until they are all saturated. Also plastic is a major part of marine debris that has caused major concerns because of the destructive consequences on marine animals after they ingest plastic or being choked by plastic rings. Three reasons why it is so widely used given its known low degradability are analysed in the following paragraphs.

Environmental organisation volunteers sorting 

the waste collected from the beach 

in Tainan, Taiwan. Plastic straws ranked No.1 

among all wastes collected.

First, the cost for plastic products are reasonably affordable compared with some alternatives such as metal or ceramic materials. When consumers purchase products, one of the most important deciding factor is the price, even if the product itself is environmental friendly and has all the functions that plastic has, if the price exceeds the consumer's budget, it is less likely that this environmental friendly product will be chosen. However, if the price of a plastic alternative product is at a comparable level with plastic, the chances that consumers purchase it becomes significantly higher.

Second, consumers are not directly impacted by the lack of degradability of plastic products. At the end stage of the product life cycle, consumers do not see where the waste ends up. In modern society, waste is collected by public services or contractors and the plastic waste is therefore transported to somewhere else outside of consumers' homes. Therefore, the moment that the plastic waste is in the public waste collection container, it is no longer the consumers' problem and there is no direct impact on consumers for buying or throwing away the plastic. If the consumers are forced to deal with all the plastic waste for the rest of their lives, the amount of plastic waste would occupy a large part of their living space instead of the landfill. When the accumulation of plastic waste reaches a level that the consumers cannot carry on their daily functions anymore, consumers' purchasing behaviour might start shifting towards favouring products that would be broken down by microorganisms in the soil.

Finally, the lack of degradability could also be the reason why plastic products are so popular with consumers. Consumers might favour purchasing plastic products because they are durable and not easily broken or damaged. Although the plastic waste does not break down easily in the environment, plastic products might be able to maintain its function and provide a longer service life because it is less easy to break the plastic product.