But as a general rule –

If a dam is instantly taken away (however it’s done), the reservoir of water behind the dam will be instantly released. The potential energy of the stored water (which is a lot, bigger and bigger as the reservoir gets bigger, especially as it gets taller) is quickly converted into kinetic energy in the form of water rushing down river. This will be very powerful, and very fast, and so it will gouge out the river channel, making it deeper and wider (this won’t just be done by water, but the force of the water will pick up large rocks and carry them along, which will help gouge out the river bottom). Depending on the size of that dam, the effects could be catastrophic to the immediate environment, wiping out fish, wiping out animals and plants near the banks of the river.

Downstream, (again, this depends on the size of the first dam) the force of the water could be enough to break the second dam, which would just add more force, and more energy to the water running downstream, making the effects even bigger (the potential to break the second dam lies in the size and shape of the second damn’s reservoir – if there is a long reservoir behind the damn, that will help to better "absorb" the force, which could save the second dam).

If that second dam breaks, then it will gouge out the riverbed even worse, as I already stated, and just like the second dam, could potentially destroy the third dam. It could theoretically be an enormous "domino effect" which would more than likely end up effecting human cities downstream.

There is a link below to explain about the destruction cause by the failure of the Teton Dam. It will give you lots of interesting information.

Thanks to anyone that can help

The Netherlands has had to deal with ocean levels for centuries. When people decide to live at or below sea-level, there are risks.

The main issue that the Netherlands has to deal with is unrelated to global warming. It is ‘subsidence (the settling of land) due to the extraction of natural gas.

"If natural gas is extracted from a natural gas field the initial pressure (up to 600 bar) in the field will drop over the years. The gas pressure also supports the soil layers above the field. If the pressure drops, the soil pressure increases and this leads to subsidence at the ground level. Since exploration of the Slochteren (Netherlands) gas field started in the late 1960s the ground level over a 250 km² area has dropped with a current maximum of 30 cm"

Societal marketing: McDonald’s
Business executives are often perplexed by the continuous expansion of society’s expectations of corporations. For example, in the corporate world, numerous laws and extensive government regulation affect virtually every aspect of business activities. They touch “almost every business decision ranging from the production of goods and services to their packaging, distribution, marketing, and service” (Carroll, 1979, p. 98). Thus, not only are companies held responsible for maximizing profits for the owners and shareholders and for operating within the legal framework, they are also expected to support their employees’ quality of work life, to demonstrate their concern for the communities within which their businesses operate, to minimize the impact of various hazards on the global environment, and to engage in purely social or philanthropic endeavors.
Among researchers, this issue has provoked an especially rich and diverse literature investigating the role of business in society. Research in this area has followed two major streams. The most popular of these studies have focused on the relationship between a firm’s social responsibility and its financial performance (McGuire, J., Sundgren, A., & Scheeweis, T., 1988, p. 858). The other stream of studies has examined the effect of board members’ demographic and non-demographic characteristics on their individual corporate social responsiveness orientation (Wood, 1991, p. 389).
Since the societal marketing involves some kind of corporate response to social demands, the first step is to identify and classify the numerous social needs. There are three categories of such needs. First, survival needs consist of the various needs that are necessary for individual members of the social segment to survive, such as Food, shelter, and the preservation or restoration of one’s health.
A second category is concerned with safety needs. These are the needs that are necessary to protect the members of the social segment from external and internal threats. Not only do nations have defense establishments for protection from external threats, but they also enact and enforce laws to protect individuals and groups from others in society. Such laws cover numerous areas ranging from environmental protection to safeguarding individual liberties.
The third category is composed of various growth needs which, in turn, can be broken down into material needs and spiritual needs. The former are concerned with the enrichment of the social segment through economics (the allocation of limited resources) and technology (the use of tools and techniques to generate wealth). Spiritual needs are related to the spiritual growth of the social segment; they include metaphysics, education, science, arts, and entertainment.
Social segments expect different agents to fulfill these needs. These agents can be an individual (e.g., a parent who supports a family), a group (e.g., political parties and interest groups who represent their members), a business organization (e.g., a corporation which supports inner city revitalization), a not-for-profit organization (e.g., a hospital that provides services to the community), and government (e.g., for protection from external threats). Both the type and extent of the needs to be fulfilled and the agent who is expected to satisfy these needs will depend upon the social segment’s culture and ethics, the legal environment, and the degree to which the members of the social segment perceive that such needs are not fulfilled.
As a key member of society, a corporation should take into account the societal needs that are expected to be met by business. These needs constitute a social demand. Thus, social demand incorporates not only demand for a firm’s products and services, but also extends to the fulfillment of other societal needs. With this framework in mind, it can be stated that the scope of a business organization, i.e., what products and services it provides, is determined both by the organization itself and by society’s expectations. In other words, it can be said that a given firm operating in two different social segments has, in effect, two different scopes. Failure on the part of an organization to understand and satisfy the various demands of the social segments within which it operates will lead to its rejection by society and its eventual demise. Consequently, a firm’s mission and objectives should not only address traditional organizational concerns such as profitability and markets served, but should also be concerned with determining and meeting various societal expectations.
One of the aspects of the societal marketing includes alliances that have arisen between environmentalist groups and businesses in the last decade. The new relationships have been described as path breaking and innovative (e.g., Long & Arnold, 1995; Wasik, 1996). Typically, they are distinguishable from the prior charitable (e.g., donations to or sponsorships of environmental causes) and commercial relationships (e.g., calendars, T-shirts produced for environmental groups) because they engage the expert knowledge of the environmental group and involve it, to varying degrees, in joint problem solving or strategic decision making with the corporate partner (Clair, Milliman, & Mitroff, 1995, p. 188). In this category are green product endorsements, audits by environmental groups of business programs or practices, and joint projects of the type engaged in by green alliance between McDonald’s and Environmental Defense Fund, where the corporate partner’s business practices are evaluated and improved according to ecological criteria.
Green alliances also function rhetorically in a more complex way than traditional business-environmentalist relationships. Here I follow Levy who has pointed out that environmental management – that is, corporate practices to reduce the ecological harm of economic processes – serves symbolic and political purposes by helping to construct business as green and thus to legitimate its role as manager of the natural environment (1997, p. 127). Green alliances, a strategy within corporate environmental management, also have symbolic and political value – for both partners. The corporation borrows not only the environmental expertise, but also the credibility, of the ecology group, which by its allegiance implicitly or explicitly endorses company actions – e.g., producing earth-friendly products and services or operating in pollution-free ways (Ottman, 1994, p. 86). The partnership also brings corporate actors into the group of those to be entrusted with the work of saving the earth.
McDonald’s is the leader of the fast-food industry, with worldwide operations employing approximately 500,000 people in 11,000 restaurants and serving 22 million customers a day. At the time Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) approached McDonald’s, its entanglement in controversy over its packaging frustrated the company. From EDF’s perspective, McDonald’s leadership position, its problematic history of waste management, and the iconic value of waste management as an environmental issue made the company an attractive candidate for partnership. EDF saw significant opportunity for both environmental action and a major, high visibility, opportunity to test its innovative approach to environmental problem-solving through corporate partnerships.
With environmentalism on the rise among the general public in the 1980s, consumer-driven businesses were particularly subject to and sensitive about public pressure (Livesey, 1993, pp. 2-4). Plastic had been demonized by several environmentalist organizations including the grassroots groups Greenpeace and CCHW. The use-and-dispose philosophy at the core of McDonald’s business and its distinctive plastic clamshell sandwich boxes, which helped to make the company one of the largest single users of polystyrene in the United States, had made McDonald’s a continuing target of ecology groups (Livesey, 1993, p. 4).
Throughout the late 1980s, McDonald’s instituted and publicized a number of environmentally positive steps in its domestic operations. It reduced consumption, for instance, by using lighter weight paper in straws, paper bags and other items and recycled paper and cardboard packaging. In 1987, it switched from polystyrene (used for the clamshells) blown with CFCs, the family of chemicals which destroy the ozone layer, to plastic foam that used hydrocarbon blowing agents (Annual Report, 1989, pp. 10-15). In 1989, the company instituted a pilot program in 450 New England stores to recycle its plastic clamshells (Livesey, 1993, pp. 12-14). In April, 1990, it committed $100 million, or one quarter of the company’s annual building and remodeling budget, to buy recycled materials for restaurant construction, remodeling, and operations under a program called “McRecycle” (Livesey, 1993, pp. 13-14).
In 1989 and 1990, McDonald’s bolstered its environmental management practices with a proactive public relations campaign. The centerpiece was the 1989 Annual Report, which highlighted the issue of the natural environment. McDonald’s also offered in-store flyers to educate customers about the company’s environmental management practices, policies, philosophies, and positions on particular issues such as rainforest beef and the ozone problem. Brochures on environmental topics, including packaging, were available from its public relations department. In addition, McDonald’s worked with several different environmental and nonprofit groups (e.g., the World Wildlife Fund and the Smithsonian Institution) to coproduce elementary school materials on the environment.
McDonald’s 1989 annual report represents an aggressive attempt by the company to manage the public discourse around the company’s role as an environmentally responsible corporate citizen and construct itself as green. The report belongs to the category of epideictic advocacy, the discourse of praise and blame that is commonly used to establish or consolidate value premises, especially in corporate issue management campaigns; such discourse often serves as a basis for later persuasive efforts (Cheney & Vibbert, 1987, p. 183). Epideictic rhetoric works by building on shared premises and borrowing from values and beliefs embedded in the common culture. In this case, given the new ecological awareness of the public, McDonald’s positions itself as having concerns ecological and practical, social as well as economic.
As described by the media, the 1989 Annual Report looks “more like an Audubon Society brochure than a financial statement” (Horovitz, 1991, p. D2). Nature pictures, poetry, and quotations from national and international figures prominent in the environmental movement (e.g., Gro Brundtland) are interspersed throughout the report, along with product and financial information. The cover contains a four-page foldout picture of the Northwest American forest with a quotation from Chief Seattle about man’s proper relationship to the earth. The report itself is “dedicated” to a “discussion of the [environmental] challenges which lie ahead” (McDonald’s Annual Report, 1989, p. 2). The discussion is contained in a 10-page supplement.
The themes of dialogue, rational discourse, pragmatic solutions, the value of individual effort, and stewardship or shared social responsibility for the earth that are played out in the supplement are initially articulated in the shareholders’ letter. This letter is as notable for what it omits as for what it says. It at once implicates the reader, inviting dialogue, and yet leaves the situation ambiguous, particularly vis-a-vis the company’s responsibility and intentions.
The supplement contains several distinct parts: an answer to a letter from Dan Getty, an 11-year-old boy who calls for responsible action from McDonald’s (Annual Report, 1989, pp. 7-8); a general outline of McDonald’s philosophy and historical commitment to “responsible [environmental] conduct,” including company founder Ray Kroc’s mandate to crews to clean up litter near McDonald’s restaurants (p. 9); three sections addressing facts and expert opinions about solid waste management, resource conservation, and recycling (pp. 10-15); and a collective call “to Help [sic]” in solving the challenge of the environment (p. 16).
The letter of response to 11-year-old Dan Getty illustrates several of the rhetorical strategies McDonald’s uses to achieve a symbolic identification with its customers and the general public. First, McDonald’s constructs itself as a naive, non-expert, and innocent individual actor. Like Dan Getty and “people of all ages,” McDonald’s is “asking questions about our environment” and learning that the answers to environmental issues are “complex” (Annual Report, 1989, p. 7). It eschews inaction in the face of complexity: “It’s easy for each of us to claim we’re not responsible for these complex forces. But then we have to ask, ‘Who is?’ “(p. 8). At the same time, it sounds a cautionary note: It is important “to do what is environmentally sound, when the responsible course of action becomes clear” (p. 7). Who or what will provide clarity leading to action is left ambiguous.
Second, McDonald’s positions itself as one of a community of stewards of the earth: “Each of us, knowing what we have at stake, must make a commitment to a course of action that will preserve and enhance the environment we hold in trust for future generations. . . . You can count us in” (p. 8). Through appeal to the words of Gala theory originator James Lovelock – “It’s personal action that counts” (quoted in McDonald’s, 1989, p. – and founder Ray Kroc’s dictum – “None of us is as good as all of us” (quoted in Annual Report, 1989, p. – the boy’s call for help from McDonald’s is transformed into a call for everyone to act. The actions and identification that it invites are personal. Identifying with its customers, McDonald’s asks that they identify with it. McDonald’s puts itself on a level with the 11-year-old. Thus, through rhetorical sleight, of-hand – in Cheney’s (1992) words “the sheer juxtaposition of images . . . as a substitute for reasoned discourse, for argument” (p. 174) – McDonald’s equates natural persons with the corporate persona, and power differences – the differences between producer and consumer, corporate giant and small child – are made to disappear: The people at McDonald’s, no different from people everywhere, must act to save the earth. Of course, at one level, McDonald’s people are like people everywhere and, like them, probably hold a range of opinions about the problem of the natural environment. However, at another level and at the same time, McDonald’s people constitute a corporate body.
McDonald’s defends its environmental record by listing specific actions that it has taken to manage waste and conserve resources by reducing, reusing and recycling materials. It cites experts who support its position on plastic packaging and who point out the small contribution of the entire quick-service restaurant industry to America’s waste. It also criticizes “the ‘Not In My Back Yard’ syndrome – or NIMBY” (for instance, people in McDonald’s communities who opposed company incinerators in their neighborhoods) as posing barriers to responsible waste solutions (Annual Report, 1989, p. 11).
Also, McDonald’s emphasizes individual personal action: Plant a tree, switch off a light, recycle a clamshell. Yet, it also describes itself as a proactive corporate actor looking for opportunities to work with individuals, public officials, and other companies, as well as with the communities we serve.
The more McDonald’s constituted itself as “green,” the more it was required to accommodate environmental issues affected by its business practices. McDonald’s attempts at recycling, resource reduction, incineration, and the like were not simply symbolic. The company was both the subject and the object of its own eco-discourse. The emerging storyline it constructed had positive environmental effects at the material level, in addition to opening the company to potential dialogue with EDF.
In April 1991, the McDonald’s-EDF joint task force released its final product, a corporate waste reduction policy and a comprehensive waste reduction action plan with 42 initiatives. Many real environmental improvements were generated by the task force. For instance, environmental criteria were integrated into corporate packaging decisions which before had been driven by quality and cost criteria (see McDonald’s Final Report, 1991). The media mostly praised the results of the alliance (Reinhardt, 1992, p. 14), and the story was recycled over several years (e.g. Gutfeld, 1992). Ultimately, the partnership entered the green business literature as a milestone marking a change in the relationships between business and environmental groups (Long, F. J., & Arnold, M. B., 1995, p. 80).
Thus, McDonald’s steps in managing environmental issues are the examples of societal marketing. People become increasingly aware of the damage that can be caused to the environment by products, packaging, by-products and production processes. They may gradually learn to adopt more environmentally friendly products and, in particular, reject throwaway products. Green issues are increasingly seen as important by consumers and this is being reflected in the types of products consumers want to use. Organizations have to change the nature of their products to meet these requirements. Many companies appear to possess a social conscience or see the benefits of meeting the demands of green issues; this is the case with McDonald’s.
The belief that environmental responsibility is now a corporate function is based on research indicating that consumers want such changes and will theoretically repay industry investments by accepting higher prices. In a survey by Dagnoli (1990), 82% of the respondents claimed to have changed their purchasing decisions because of environmental concerns. Seventy-seven percent of those surveyed also reported that a company’s environmental reputation influenced their choice of brands. Environmentalism is enough of a concern that 78% of the respondents said they would switch to an environmental container if it were priced 5% higher than a less-environmentally friendly container. Another 47% said they would pay as much as 15% more for environmental packaging.
Businesses currently involved with the environmental movement have noticed the increasing number of markets influenced by environmentally concerned consumers, and naturally are hoping this trend can boost their companies’ long run profits. Proactive companies like McDonald’s are attempting to take leadership roles in the area of environmentally friendly products in order to gain a competitive advantage (Smyth, 1991, p. 70).
For McDonald’s, environmental marketing has become one of the primary societal marketing tools. Although much confusion still exists concerning the specifics of green marketing, one thing that has been learned is that consumers will not always pay more for green products (Winski, 1991, p. 3). Despite consumer claims to the contrary, the initial sales of environmentally friendly products and packaging have been slow (Reitman, 1992, B1). Recent trends indicate a lack of willingness to actually pay premium prices for such products (Wasik, 1992, p. 17).
Thus, today’s market for environmentally-friendly goods is greater than ever. To capitalize on this movement, managers and marketers, as McDonald’s case shows, must promote the environmental benefits of their products and maintain prices in a range near that of their competitors that do not emphasize environmental concerns. Promoting the environmental friendliness of products will be most attractive to some customers, while attributes aimed at convenience will be attractive to others. Although these aspects of the product mix are important, competitive pricing of environmentally-friendly goods may be the key to capturing a significant market share. Once high market shares are reached, cost reduction programs should allow producers to increase profit margins from green products.

Andrew Sandon
http://www.articlesbase.com/marketing-articles/societal-marketing-mcdonalds-75498.html

Also, what are some ways to get noticed and get scholarships from these schools?

You will not get a full tuition scholarship to study outside the USA.

You need to stop thinking in terms of "Environmental" anything. It is the sign of an unemployable tree-hugger.

Environmental Engineering has the most credibility of any study, but even environmental engineers get little respect from other engineers.

Answer: The United States imports roughly 200 million pounds of beef from Central America every year. Aside from the fuel used in transport, grazing land is needed for all of these animals. Where does all that land come from in a densely forested region? The answer: from clear-cutting forests and rainforest A Smithsonian study estimates that the necessity for more grazing land means that every minute of every day, a land area equivalent to seven football fields is destroyed in the Amazon basin(1).
For each hamburger that originated from animals raised on rainforest land, approximately 55 square feet of forest have been destroyed. And its not just the rainforest. In the United States, more than 260 million acres of forest have been clear-cut for animal agriculture (2). With increased per capita meat consumption, and an ever growing population, we can only expect to see more deforestation in the future.

——————————————————————————

see links below for more topics…………

Fact of the matter is there are a million others things that cause more pollution than planes.

International Company and Ethics
The issue of business ethics is engaging companies more and more – both domestically and internationally. This trend is accentuated by high-profile examples of breaches of accepted standards of ethical behavior. For example, the recent Enron case where inadequate checks and balances within the firm enabled unethical behavior to occur, a development made easier by the failure of the external auditor to fulfill its role properly. Assumptions about ethics and business are influenced inevitably by fundamental beliefs about the role of business in society. On the one hand, there are those who believe that the sole social responsibility of business is to generate profit. For some proponents of this view, profit generation itself takes on a moral dimension whereas others see profits as the key to wealth generation – the main way of addressing social issues (Davies, 1997, p. 88). On the other hand, others believe that the role of business is much broader than that of profit generation and that all those who are affected by the way a company operates – shareholders, employees, customers, suppliers, the local community, future generations (especially in relation to environmental issues) – have a legitimate interest and stake in the way a company conducts itself.
Many of these concerns are relevant to business whether it is domestic or international in nature. However, international business poses particular challenges and questions over and above those facing purely domestic business. In order to reconcile doing business internationally and remain ethical, the company should follow the main principles of human rights, comply with legal norms related to labor, avoid corruption and correspond to standards of environmental protection. Even though it is not easy to combine making profit and adjusting to ethical principles, sometimes failure to comply with legal norms and standards my result in negative public image for the international company and loss of customers. Therefore, international company can suffer even more damages if it decides not to follow the ethical principles.
The first issue related to ethics is human rights. It is a generally accepted principle that international company should not engage in direct infringement of human rights the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is commonly taken as the appropriate benchmark. However, some people would go further, preferring companies to refrain from doing business in countries known to infringe human rights on a systematic basis. Opponents of this view argue that if an international company abstains from conducting business in a country with an ethically dubious regime, the only concrete result is to hand over business opportunities to companies without such reservations (Barlett and Ghoshall, 1998, p. 110).
On coming to office in 1992, for example, President Clinton proposed to withdraw MFN status from China as a result of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 in which many pro-democracy demonstrators were killed (Kepstein, 2001, p. 108). Such action would have provoked retaliation against US companies operating in China and US business lobbied hard to persuade the president to change his mind. They argued that US business interests would be irrevocably damaged in a rapidly growing market and that the outcome would not be an improvement in human rights in China but a boost to the business prospects of American business rivals in China. The lobbying campaign was successful: the link between trade and human rights was broken and replaced by the doctrine that the possibility of bringing about change is greater if business and other links and contacts are maintained.
International labor issues can be linked with human rights, especially regarding matters of forced labor and child labor. Ethical labor issues also occur outside the framework of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in circumstances where certain labor practices may be legal and commonplace in the host country but do not necessarily represent fair and equitable treatment of the workforce. The issue facing an international company is: does it maximize its competitive advantage by locating in a low-cost/low-regulation country and adopt local practices or does it refrain from reaping all the labor cost benefits by adopting higher standards and more ethical practices than strict compliance with local legal norms requires? A firm may choose to take the latter path and still experience significant competitiveness gains.
Corporate codes of conduct governing general corporate behavior and treatment of the workforce in particular are not new. Their modern manifestation began in the mid-twentieth century in the form of codes from the International Chamber of Commerce and other collective codes (Donaldson, 1989, p. 55). Their popularity surged once more in the 1990s in response to pressure from NGOs, the emergence of corporate social responsibility as a key consideration for firms and the phenomenon of socially responsible investment and shareholder action. Additionally, discussion of the possible inclusion of labour regulation under the WTO umbrella encouraged international firms to assume greater responsibility for their own labor standards, if only to demonstrate that international regulation was unnecessary. Corporate codes of conduct take many forms. Many international firms have developed their own individual codes to cover their own employees and those of their contractors and suppliers. Some industries have developed their own codes. Whatever form they take, codes are necessary for the positive public image of international company and they demonstrate that the company reconciles doing business and acting ethically. Codes need to comply with a number of conditions before they can be said to operate equitably and with credibility (DeGeorge, 1993, p. 88):
1.the contents of the code must be clearly worded and, at a minimum, comply with core standards;
2.the company adopting the code must be committed to it and be prepared to provide the resources to ensure its implementation, including training, information systems for monitoring and compliance and staff to implement new procedures;
3.knowledge of the code throughout the organization is essential to its implementation: in particular, employees of the firm and its subcontractors and suppliers must know of the contents of the code and a reporting system must be established that enables workers to report infringements without fear of reprisals;
4.the code should be subject to verification by independent assessors who have access to the site unannounced at any time.
The application of such codes can enhance internal governance and facilitate internal management across geographically dispersed sites. There is some evidence to show that real commercial benefits can be gained from the proper application of fair and equitable labor standards, although more widespread research needs to be done on this (DeGeorge, 1993, p. 111). Provided the code of conduct adopted by a firm has external credibility, it can both protect and enhance a firm’s reputation, particularly important these days when more is expected of firms in terms of corporate social responsibility.
Levi Strauss is one of the world’s largest brand-name clothes manufacturers and also one of the first international companies to adopt a corporate code of conduct to apply to all contractors who manufacture and finish its products and to aid selection of which countries in which to operate (DeGeorge, 1993, p. 118). The Code of Conduct has two parts:
1.Business partner terms of engagement: Levi Strauss uses these to select business partners that follow workplace standards and practices consistent with its policies and to help identify potential problems. In addition to meeting acceptable general ethical standards, complying with all legal requirements and sharing Levi Strauss’s commitment to the environment and community involvement, Levi Strauss’s business partners must adhere to the following employment guidelines:
-Wages and benefits: business partners must comply with any applicable law and the prevailing manufacturing and finishing industry practices.
-Working hours: partners must respect local legal limits on working hours and preference will be given to those who operate less than a 60-hour working week. Levi Strauss will not use partners that regularly require workers to work in excess of 60 hours. Employees should also have at least one day off per week.
-Child labor: use of child labor is not permissible in any of the facilities of the business partner. Workers must not be below 15 years of age or below the compulsory school age.
-Disciplinary practices: Levi Strauss will not use business partners who use corporal punishment or other forms of physical or mental coercion.
-Prison/forced labor: no prison or forced labor is to be used by business partners nor will Levi Strauss use or buy materials from companies using prison or forced labor.
-Freedom of association: the rights of workers to join unions and to bargain collectively must be respected.
-Discrimination: while respecting cultural differences, Levi Strauss believes workers should be employed on the basis of their ability to do their job
-Health and safety: Levi Strauss undertakes to use business partners who provide a safe and healthy working environment and, where appropriate residential facilities
2.Country assessment guidelines: these are used to address broad issues beyond the control of individual business and are intended to help Levi Strauss assess the degree to which its global reputation and success may be exposed to unreasonable risk. It was an adverse country assessment that caused Levi Strauss to cease its engagement in China in the early 1990s, largely on human rights grounds – a decision that has subsequently been reversed. In particular, the company assesses whether:
-the brand image will be adversely affected by the perception or image of a country among customers;
-the health and safety of employees and their families will be exposed to unreasonable risk;
-the human rights environment prevents the company from conducting business activities in a manner consistent with the global guidelines and other company policies;
-the legal system prevents the company from adequately protecting trademarks, investments or other commercial interests;
-the political, economic and social environment protects the company’s commercial interests and brand corporate image.
Levi Strauss is the example of the company that successfully combines doing business and following ethical practices. As we see, the company code of ethics demonstrates that Levi Strauss complies with the most labor norms and environmental standards; at the same time such actions of the company do not have any negative impact upon its business. On the contrary, since Levi Strauss has positive public image the customers should be more attracted to its products.
Some of the other important ethical issues that the company should consider is bribery and corruption. Bribery/corruption is not as clear-cut an issue as might first appear; indeed it can be rather a grey area. In some cultures, it is regarded as perfectly normal to give an official or host a gift (Asgary and Mitschow, 2002, p. 245). In others, only minimal value token gifts or no gifts at all are allowed. A problem arises when it is the norm for a contract to be signed only after the payment of a ‘commission’ to a key official or officials (Asgary and Mitschow, 2002, p. 240). Such circumstances place international companies in a difficult position: without payment of these commissions, the contract will not materialize and, if they do not make the payment, many other companies will (although that is not an ethical justification for going ahead with the commission). The position of the US is unequivocal about this: it regards all such payments as bribes and, as such, they are both unethical and illegal. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Law forbids US companies from making improper payments to foreign governments, politicians or political parties to obtain or retain business. Therefore, the only choice that American companies have regarding bribery is not to make any payments regarded as bribes; otherwise, it can be considered that a company violates the law.
The last ethical challenge that international companies face is related to environmental protection. Firms can encounter damaging publicity as a result of the environmental outcome of their activities as pollution attracts more and more media attention (Barlett and Ghoshal, 1998, p. 98). For many, environmental protection and corporate responsibility in this field has a clear ethical dimension. This debate is couched in terms of the ‘global commons’ in which all human beings have both a stake and a responsibility to ensure the well-being of the environment for future generations (Donaldson, 1989, p. 211).
In order to reconcile doing business and meeting Environmental ethical standards an international company should comply with the following underlying principles in environmental policy.
The first norm refers to the “polluter pays principle.” It stipulates that polluters should pay the full cost of the environmental damage they cause (DeGeorge, 1993, p. 100). Environmental costs are often referred to as ‘externalities’ (for example, damage to health, rivers, the air, etc. arising from economic activity) that are not incorporated into the costs of a product but are borne by society as a whole (DeGeorge, 1993, p. 100). By making the polluter pay the full cost of its activities, including externalities, this principle provides an incentive to make products less polluting and/or to reduce the consumption of polluting goods. This internalization of external costs can be met through the use of market-based, policy instruments.
The other principle refers to prevention. If the company decides to follow the prevention principle it changes to products and processes to prevent environmental damage occurring rather than relying on remedial action to repair damage after it has taken place (Davies, 1997, p. 108). This implies the development of ‘clean technologies’; minimal use of natural resources; minimal releases into the atmosphere, water and soil; and maximization of the recyclability and lifespan of products.
In conclusion, international business adds an extra dimension to ethical issues within the firm. All organizations have their own culture based on common language and terminology, behavioral norms, dominant values, informality/formality, etc. This inevitably becomes more complex when an organization has a presence in more than one country. Some companies believe a strong corporate culture is a means of overcoming diverse national cultures whereas others evolve different cultures in different organizations and incorporate cultural diversity in their management strategy. Many organizations like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s do use core brands but still adapt their products for local markets and follow ethical standards, either out of necessity or to maximize returns. Ethics and corporate social responsibility are closely related. Debates about corporate social responsibility have been dominated by labor and environmental issues but a growing number of corporate governance scandals involving multinationals is increasing pressure for stricter regulation. International companies can reconcile doing business internationally and remaining ethical if they comply with labor and environmental norms enacted at the international level and establish and follow the code of ethics. In the long run, corporate commitment to sound ethical principles and socially responsible behavior is good for business.
Produced by ProfEssays ( www.professays.com ) – professional custom essay writing service: custom essays, custom term papers, custom academic papers, custom research papers, compositions, book reports, case study. No plagiarism, high quality, prompt delivery.

Andrew Sandon
http://www.articlesbase.com/ethics-articles/international-company-and-ethics-67615.html