A Better Environment For Future Generations
What does the future hold for our planet's natural environment? No one has a crystal ball to tell us exactly what lies ahead, but we can look at past trends and current data to make future predictions. In the developing world, many development projects have come under criticism for damaging the environment, even when they are presented as helping it. Concerns have increased in line with the rising investment in the developing world.
The cost of pollution and other damage to the natural environment caused by the world's biggest companies would wipe out more than one-third of their profits if they were held financially accountable, a major unpublished study for the United Nations has found (Jowit. 2010). Everyone knows that rather than finding ways to exploit new resources, companies need to focus on finding sustainable ways to grow, while protecting the planet and the resources we have left. For every company that spills millions of gallons of oil into the oceans, there are plenty more companies operating under this new ethos. Without the environment there would be no humans, and there wouldn’t be any life as we know it. With this in mind, why do some companies treat it so terribly? One of these companies is Tim Horton the cafe and bake shop. Tim Hortons is a famously Canadian brand and the fourth largest publicly-traded restaurant chain in North America based on market capitalization, and the largest in Canada. According to the coffee and fast-food chain, eight out of 10 cups of coffee sold across Canada are from Timmies (Mahdawi, 2018, par.
Roll Up the Rim to Win is one of the world's largest customer rewards programs. Created in 1986 as a "thank you" to Tim Hortons guests at 246 restaurants in Canada, the unique contest has grown into a global annual event at more than 3,500 restaurants in Canada, the United States and Afghanistan. RRRoll Up the Rim to Win is back in action at Tim Hortons since 2011, delighting die-hard Tim Hortons enthusiasts. The main concern for many seems to be how to properly claim the prize printed across the rolled or chewed up rim of the disposable cup (Krucker, 2016, par. 1-2). “It’s a great marketing strategy for Tim Hortons,” said Dr. Franz Hartmann, executive director of the Toronto Environmental Alliance. “But it’s really bad for the environment. It becomes a disincentive for bringing your own mug in. ” (Krucker, 2016, par.
Those who bring in reusable mugs are continually offered disposable cups so that they too can have a chance to win. Although the company knows about it but there is no sign of any strategies to solve the problem. Another instance of company doesn’t care about the environment is Lyft and UBER. Ride-sharing services were born out of a desire to create an alternative to taxis. Services like Lyft and Uber sought to change that (Mitroff, 2015, par.
There, it’s not clear that Lyft stacks up as a good environmental citizen in the broader landscape of transportation, the sector that recently replaced power plants as the number-one source of U. S. carbon dioxide emissions. (Bliss, 2018, par. 2). Neither Lyft nor any other ride-hailing company has seriously addressed the real heart of the transportation problem, to which they seem to be meaningfully contributing: more trips, more miles, more greenhouse gases. “It doesn’t matter who owns the vehicle,” Clewlow told Wired last year. “It matters how many miles are driven on the road. So swapping out a trip that people would have driven themselves for a trip that they are riding in, is still the same number of miles. ” (Bliss, 2018, par. 7). On the other hand, there are some companies that behave so environment-friendly. Ikea is one of those. IKEA is a global destination store for home furnishing, appliances, ready-to-assemble furniture, home accessories and kitchen products, and it is the world’s largest furniture retailer with more than 301 stores and 30 franchised units (Loeb, 2012, par. 1). IKEA encourages the mass-consumption of goods that generally need to be replaced after a few years, putting an increasing strain on the world’s natural resources (Salisbury, 2011, par.
Ikea is deeply indebted to wood. This year it used 13. 56 million cubic metres of solid wood and wood-based board materials, not including paper and packaging. The company says that all wood used in its products is sourced from suppliers complying with its own Iway code of conduct. Now, the company says it is going step further. It will become "forest positive" by 2020, meaning that, despite its continuing high demand for timber, it intends its business to have an overall positive effect on the world's forests (Kelly, 2012, para
Considering the impact that organizations can have on the environment, depending on the nature of their practices, implementing a few changes to green their processes is an important thing. Sustainability is becoming more important for all companies, across all industries. 62% of executives consider a sustainability strategy necessary to be competitive today, and another 22% think it will be in the future (Haanaes, 2016).
