Over the past few decades, many companies
have been found harming the environment. So, it has been generally argued if giving
a huge fine, tax or penalty is the best way to stop companies from doing more
harm. Some might argue that giving them a huge penalty is the fastest and
direct way to stop them; nevertheless, others might disagree with this.
However, I think there are other ways to suppress them from doing harm on the
environment. Actually, I have a few reasons and would like to explain the
details in the next following paragraphs bellow.
To start off, giving companies fines when
they harm the environment is not very effective as it seems. When giving such
fine, usually, no matter high the cost is, companies just pay the ransom and
just go on with what their evil deeds. Some might disagree and say that when
companies are given a high fine, companies will be more careful and make more environmental
friendly products to avoid such fine. This might seem true but it isn’t.
Usually, when companies are given such fines, they manipulate the system and
find another way to dump their waste. To be more specific, recently a study was
conducted by the Korean Environmental Center. They wanted to know if the high
fines reduced the waste of companies. So, they investigated 50 companies that
were given a high fine for harming the environment. At first, it seemed as if
most of the companies had reduced their wastes. However, as they dug deeper,
many dirty things started to come up. First, many problems came from big
companies. Even though they were given a high fine for their harm on the environment,
they just paid the fine and kept dumping waste because the product’s profit
exceeded the fine. Moreover, both big and small companies found a way around
the law. To be more specific, some companies wasted their waste abroad because
there wasn’t a specific law about it. Also, they dumped harmful chemicals that
weren’t on the list of restrictions. This study clearly shows that no matter
how high the fine, companies will find another way to keep on doing what they
did.
Moreover, if people want companies to stop
harming the environment, the consumers must campaign, boycott and protest
against them. To give a huge impact on a company is for the consumers to stop
buying their product and to do this is to give them awareness through campaign.
Some might argue that these campaign, boycott and protest take too much time,
while huge fines take only a short amount of time. This might sound reasonable
on paper, but it isn’t. Even if theses penalties take a short amount of time,
they are not consistent. In other words, it is temporary. Yet, these campaigns
give a huge impact on companies, forcing them to be more careful with their
actions. To be more specific, recently, in Korea, there was a scandal where one
of Korea’s big companies was exposed of dumping waste and harming the local environment.
People complained to the government and as soon as they heard the complainants,
they gave a huge fine. At first the company seemed to be more careful, but after
a few months, they were doing it again. This angered the consumers, and they
started a campaign to aware people of what the company was doing. It was very
slow like a turtle, so the company didn’t care because it didn’t impact their
sales at all. However as weeks and months passed, many people started to notice
it. This concluded to a huge boycott and a big protest in front of the company.
Also, the company had a huge hit on their sales and eventually apologized to
the public. Like Aesop’s fable, the turtle won. After the incident not only is
the company being careful, but also they are investing hugely on programs that
clean the environment. This example shows that when the consumers act, the
impact is very big and suppresses companies.
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