The Natural Environment is a Stakeholder of Business Actors: Based on what you see in the first 4:40 of the Pittsburgh video, how is the natural environment a stakeholder of business actors? Remember – stakeholders affect and are affected by a business actor’s activities.
In this case, the natural environment stimulates the surrounding businesses because it contains a key resource in the production of energy. The vast amounts of coal in the area are what make Pittsburgh a prosperous coal mining town in the 19th century. The abundance of this resource and the need to mine it creates jobs and contributes to the growth of the city. The natural environment is also affected by the businesses surrounding it because the coal mining and steel industries lead to an increase in air pollution and a rapid depletion of natural resources in the area.
Challenges to the Idea of the Natural Environment as a Stakeholder : Based on the two sections in the Mother of Slow Food video, what are the limitations to the argument that the natural environment is a stakeholder of business actors?
Alice Waters argues that clean eating can be achieved by everyone despite the extra expense. However, this is a case where the natural environment is not necessarily affecting surrounding businesses. The environment provides fresh fruits, vegetables, and other food ingredients that humans, especially Americans, could take advantage of, but instead, we are using frozen and processed ingredients to make fast and affordable meals for people who do not necessarily have time to cook. The problem is that fresh and organic foods are sometimes much more expensive than processed foods, so people are more likely to buy a pre-cooked meal that requires no work to make, costs relatively little, and tastes good, but has absolutely no nutritional value. In addition, the natural environment is not affected by business actors because not many people are taking advantage of the fresh food it provides. In this case, the natural environment and the fast-food industry are independent of one another.
Other Examples Like This?: As a future manager facing complex environments, where do you see this debate over the degree to which the natural environment is a stakeholder coming up in the future?
I believe that new innovations in technology will eventually spark this debate if they have not already. These new businesses will come up with brilliant ideas but may not consider the environmental implications of their new product because they deny that the natural environment is a stakeholder of business actors. However, new inventions have addressed the belief that the natural environment is a stakeholder by attempting to reduce air pollution and the use of nonrenewable natural resources. For example, the invention of electric cars has been an attempt to decrease our contribution to air pollution through less gas emissions and increase our use of a renewable energy source in order to preserve the nonrenewable sources of energy we still have left.