Business and the environment, ethical issues and pressure groups

Learning objectives

Show how business activity can harm the environment, for example by polluting it or by using up resources (depletion)

Explain what a business can do about environmental issues and why it may choose to act, for example to protect its reputation and win sales

Explain how environmental laws change the way a business works: how it produces, what it may produce or sell and where, and what that does to its costs

Recognise the ethical issues a business may meet (child labour, whether employees are paid a fair wage, whether suppliers are paid a fair price, whether its suppliers damage the environment) and suggest how it could respond

Weigh what a business gains and what it gives up by behaving ethically

Explain the ways a pressure group can push a business to change a decision