Running a socially responsible and ethical company isn’t just the right thing to do, it is often the best thing for your business. By creating a company that stands for ethical values, you show people integrity and empathy, characteristics that many seek in the people with whom they do business.
Here are three good reasons why social responsibility and ethics important are in business:
People Want to Buy from Ethical Businesses
Take the wholesaling industry for example. This is typically a cut-throat industry with very low profit margins, often under ten percent. Yet manufacturers of green and eco-friendly products are finding that more and more wholesalers are placing orders from them rather than their more established competitors.
Why? Because more and more people are choosing to buy socially responsible products and not purchase from companies that damage the environment. Socially responsible and ethical products don’t cost much more than their socially irresponsible counterparts. More and more smart consumers are switching to socially responsible products.
People Want to Work for Ethical Businesses
Many employees would rather work for a company that stands for something benefiting humanity as a whole, rather than for a company that just stands for its own profits.
Employees in ethical businesses are often willing to work harder and with more passion, sometimes even for less pay than for more cut-throat companies. These employees will give more to your business without you having to ask.
People Want to Partner with Ethical Businesses
Socially responsible and ethical businesses often find that other businesses come to partner with them before they look to partnering with other less socially responsible companies.
Take Kiva for example, a non-profit micro-loan facilitation website. They get hundreds of thousands of dollars every year in free legal and organizational work that they would never receive if they were primarily motivated by money. You don’t need to be a non-profit company to get the same treatment. If your company as a whole conducts business in a way that benefits the greater good, people will generally want to do business with you rather than the other guy, all else being equal.
The bottom line is that people want to be associated with businesses that are moving towards being socially and ethically responsible. The days when businesses can walk all over their employees, trash the earth, destroy the long-term health of the economy and still prosper are over.
Today consumers, employees and business owners alike are becoming very aware of the many social and ethical issues that abound in today’s world. Building a business that caters to this awareness is not only the right thing to do, it’s smart business.
