Natural Capitalism in Economic Exploratory Essay

Businesses are among other economic units that ensure sustainability goals are achieved. Scholars define natural capital as “the natural resources and ecosystem services that make all economic activities possible.” Businesses are the major cause of environmental, social and economic problems in the society.

Most people perceive businesses to be units that strive to achieve maximum profit at the expense of the society. The central aim of most businesses is profit maximization. However, they forget that their customers have needs that must be addressed. This paper tries to determine whether businesses should be concerned with satisfaction of customers’ needs or profit maximization.

Companies should ensure that they cohabitate with the society that host their businesses. With the aim of maximizing profit, firms end up depleting the available natural resources.

Almost all businesses have embraced corporate social responsibility as a way of ensuring that they remain competitive in the market. Several businesses that adopt social responsibilities still fail. The best solution to problems facing firms is creation of economic values by applying the shared value approach. The creation of economic value ensures society values are stimulated through proper address of challenges and needs.

Growing companies such as Google, IBM and Wal-Mart apply the shared value principles in their business operations. Managers should acquire new knowledge and skills to cope with the principle of shared value. Leaders in the organization should appreciate that the societal needs, improved productivity and profit maximization are the main objectives of a firm.

Capitalism is a means of efficiency improvement, job creation, and wealth creation. However, part of capitalism has prevented businesses from concentrating on societal needs. Society needs increase each day as employees and customers expect businesses come to their aid.

In the future, businesses should consider adopting value capitalism. A distinction between short-term and long-term goals of a firm is the key to success. This is because to shareholders, wealth maximization is the long-term goal. Managers can only achieve this if they focus on factors such as consumers, suppliers and the public.

Implementations of the shared value principle in the organization would ensure that innovation and productivity growth are efficient. A social responsibility action such as hiring a disabled employee initiates a constraint to the firm in the shareholder’s perspective. This is because such a project increases costs and reduces profit of the organization.

Firms should aim for minimizing their costs. In this case, social costs such as pollution can be avoided. Policies penalizing firms that exercise pollution of the environment should be adopted. Social and environmental problems are relevant considerations that firms must address.

Governments and non-profit making organizations are the major solvers of social problems. Many businesses take up social responsibility programs to enhance their public image.

In conclusion, the concept of shared value address societal and economic needs. It also appreciates that some social responsibility programs end up creating additional costs to the firm. The use of new operation methods, management approaches, and technologies lowers operational costs. Low operational costs result in increased productivity and large market share in firms.

From this analysis, no decisive answer can be given to whether firms should consider customer satisfaction or profit maximization. Both concepts are important because they relate with each other. Customer’s needs should be a short term goal of any firm. Consequently, profit maximization should be a long term goal.