Business Ethics on Water Pollution

Ethics on water pollution

Table of contents

1.0 Introduction        3

2.0 Issue and impacts        3

2.1 Importance of the issue        3

2.2 Impacts        4

3.0 Ethical delimma        5

3.1 Utilitarianism        5

3.2 Kantian’s ethics        6

4.0 Recommendation        7

5.0 Conclusion        8

6.0 Reference        9

1.0 Introduction 

Water has been one of the most important natural resources for the organization of various human activities. It has contributed greatly to economic growth of nations. However, excessive and improper use of water resources in the past years has resulted in serious environment problems such as water pollution, water waste and soil pollution. It not only damages ecosystem but also affects survival of human beings. This serious issue even has caused health problems and deaths. This report uses business ethics theories (Utilitarianism and Kant’s ethics) to understand rights and wrongs in the ethical dilemma of water pollution.  

2.0 Issue and impacts

   2.1 Importance of the issue

According to report by National Environment Agency of Singapore, the 5 million population in Singapore every day consumed more than 10 million cubic meters and the over 1,000 companies consumers at least 1 billion waters in a day for various industrial activities. As a small island country, actually only 32% of the water resources are suitable for drinking in Singapore and the rest is sea water. It indicates that water is relatively rare resource in Singapore (Liu, 2016). However, as estimation reports indicate at least 60% of the underground water nowadays is unsuitable for human drinking. Industrial activities contribute to 73% of the water pollution in Singapore (NEA, 2016a). Various chemicals such as mercury, lead, oil, metal and pesticides are the major pollutants causing water pollution in the country.

According to statistics, the quantity of water polluted in the chemical industry has experienced an average growth rate of 10.9% since 2007. Poor sanitary sewer system of a lot of firms especially these pollution behaviors committed by firms from electronics and manufacturing is regarded as the most serious cause of water pollution in Singapore (NEA, 2016b). Even worse, despite of good recognition environment protection, it seems that water pollution level is getting to the worse. These hashing facts indicate the water pollution is becoming a serious issue in economic and social as well as environment aspects. A serious of water pollution activities not only violate the sustainability principle but also making water a rare natural resource in this country.