Business Ethics and Climate Change- Air Pollution in Singapore

Question: Discuss Business Ethics and Climate Change- Air pollution in Singapore? Answer: Introduction Air pollution is one of the key environmental issues of the developing countries. Within the environmental issues in Singapore, air pollution is one of the key issues. To improve the situation, government has established Singapore Green Plan in 1992. This assignment has been focused upon the concerns related to the air pollution in Singapore, due to the effect of haze, contributed by smoke and Indonesian fires. In 2015, the Southeast Asian haze was developed as an air pollution crisis, which significantly affected several countries in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, southern Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam and Cambodia (Kusumaningtyas and Aldrian 2016). The impact of this air pollution upon the society and the ethical issues related to the environmental issues, in the context of Singapore would be discussed in this assignment also. The assignment would also include recommendations for improving the situation and mitigating the environmental issues in Singapor e. Impact on society Te air pollution is one of the key issues in the society, causing several harm to the lives. The smoke haze coming from Indonesia is an annual problem for Singapore and its northern neighbour. Indonesia has informed that the issue has been caused by peat blazes that firefighters are struggling for extinguishing during hot and dry weather. This has became an annual problem in Singapore. Singapore is starting to look like New Delhi or Beijing as nothing is visible through the haze. Somg has disrupted outdoor events, educational activities to be ceased and people to wear mask all the time, while going outdoor for work or anything else (Forsyth 2014). Farmers and plantation companies on the Indonesian islands of Borneo and Sumatra, light fires for clearing land of farming and production of paper and palm oil. The smoke arising from this burning event is carried through air to the neighbouring countries across the Malacca Strait and the South China Sea. After a worse event in 1997, still Singapores air quality stood at unhealthy levels. In 2013, the air pollution index was 400 in Singapore, although readings above 200 are considered as unhealthy weather (Islam et al. 2016). The dry conditions, leading to extreme polluted weather forced the city-state and neighbouring Malaysia to shut schools and cancel a number of public events. Government distributed N95 masks to vulnerable and needy citizens as well as the permanent residents through the island last year. It was also presumed that the rising pollution may affect the annual Singapore Grand Prix. This annual problem is constantly disrupting lives, cost, billions of dollars, living millions of people at risk of respiratory and other diseases. On the other hand, the land that is being burned is extremely carbon rich, which is causing the rise in the carbon dioxide level in air, raising the nations contribution in global climate change. Figure: Singapore Air Quality (Source: Mahrotri 2016) The Indonesian companies are attempting to expand their operations, deliberately setting the fire, asking the community people to burn their lands nearby and ensuring the expansion of their plantation area. It has been reported by Wahab et al. (2016) that there are approximately 1143 hot spots of fire burning, which is leading to the creation of extra dry conditions, which fan the flames. The severe fire incident in 1997 was estimated to have cost of $20.1 billion spent by Indonesian government, which affected the Singapore and caused the loss of $9 billion through increased healthcare costs and disruptions to air travel and business. The health impact of breathing in this smoky air is severe. The CO and other particles in the air increase the risk of cardiovascular, respiratory diseases and cancer. The annual fire incidents and wide range of negative impact caused the Singaporean and Malaysian government to pressurize Indonesia to give more effort to stop them. During this period, the PSI reading was above 400, which is characterized as life threatening. The medical consultation was increased by 20 % (Betha et al. 2014). That time of the year was typically the hottest and driest. There were also reports of flight delays on Singapores Changi airport. The overall impact of the event induced change in climate, by delaying monsoonal rain. In Singapore, the incident a 30 % increase in hospital attendance was reported by health surveillance due to air quality related symptoms. Although Singaporean government declared to wear masks as a protective measure against this harmful smoke, a large part of the population in Southeast Asia were unable to buy a protective measure due to the absence of protective measures such as respiratory masks and air condition, whereas some of them were also unable to cease their outdoor work during high air pollution due financial uncertainty and survival issues. Ethical dilemma The Indonesian organizations are conducting the annual fire burning event as a part of their business expansion operation; but the events are causing significant environmental concerns within the community. Thus, this is creating an ethical dilemma. The issue can be demonstrated in context of ethical theories. For instance, Kantian theory demonstrated the rightness and wrongness of an action, which does not depend upon the consequences, but depends upon fulfilling the societys duty. The theorist believed that there was absolute principle of morality, which was referred as the categorical Imperative. Therefore, according to this theory Indonesia should think about the negative health and environmental impact of fire burning activities of the plantation industries and should reduce their land burning activities. However, it may hamper the economy of the plantation industry of Indonesia (Lin et al. 2017). However, the control measures would hamper the production of palm oil, which would also affect the livelihood of poor farmers in Indonesia, as the palm oil production is a major source of income for them. The theorists depicted that if there is a right intension, there must be a right consequence. Indonesia government has allowed illegal burning of land to be continued, which is a questionable action. Although they are taking action upon being pressurized by Singapore and Malaysia. The Utilitarianism is an ethical theory, which focuses upon the purpose of an action and the result of it. The end result of fire burning of land is for expansion of plantation business, production of more palm oil, financial stability of the workforce and boosting countrys economy. Thus, the action has significant benefit to meet worlds demand for palm oil and supporting a major productivity of palm oil for the country. However, it is not right to consider only the benefits of the country, rather should consider a wider context of the environmental disadvantage. This is contributing to significant climate change and global change. Thus, ethically they need to consider the global well being rather only countrys perspective (Zhou et al. 2016). Recommendations Unprecedented legal action In the year of 2015, the government of Singapore stated that it has written to four organizations that are suspected for contributing to haze pollution. Those organizations are asked to step up their firefighting efforts and submit plans on how they would prevent any future burning to the National Environmental Agency. NEA is also conducting its own investigations to find out more about this issue. It is strictly recommended that the government must carry out more initiatives like this and must penalize companies that will be found guilty. People power People of Singapore will have to take the matter in their own hands. Civic groups can be created and those groups can submit lawsuit against the companies that are responsible for any type of illegal burning. Environmental activism In this situation it is necessary that The Singapore Environment Council (SEC) that administers the Singapore Green Label certification scheme must conduct checks to make sure that paper products that it certifies are absolutely not related to the haze. Selecting haze free products The consumers of Singapore will have to come forward to deal with the issue related to haze. The consumers will have to select only those products that carry the roundtable on sustainable palm oil (RSPO) certification logo. However, it is true that sustainable palm oil are not frequently available or precisely labeled in Singapore. Therefore, in the absence of labeling the customers of Singapore can decide which brands to assist based on the palm oil scorecard which is published by the Union of Concerned Scientists (Chen et al. 2016). Advocate Several non-profit organizations and the citizen of Singapore will have to write in to newspaper forums and will have to speak up on radio. All the business organizations must be alerted through emails that they will have to go haze free. Most of the companies are resisting going haze free as there is no protest from the end of the consumers. Several pages must be created on Facebook to spread awareness about the issue among the other consumers. Conclusion In conclusion, it can be interpreted that Haze from Indonesia is a significant global concern, as it is influencing climate change and global warming. In this context, the ethical dilemma has been demonstrated, in respect to the social impact of the issue. Finally, the recommendation for improving the situation has also been demonstrated. Reference List Betha, R., Behera, S. N. and Balasubramanian, R. (2014). 2013 Southeast Asian smoke haze: fractionation of particulate-bound elements and associated health risk.Environmental science technology,48(8), 4327-4335. Chen, A., Cao, Q., Zhou, J., Yang, B., Chang, V. W. C., and Nazaroff, W. W. 2016. Indoor and outdoor particles in an air-conditioned building during and after the 2013 haze in Singapore.Building and Environment,99, 73-81. Crippa, P., Castruccio, S., Archer-Nicholls, S., Lebron, G. 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