Chapter 3 Ethics of green engineering

Publisher Summary This chapter clarifies when with regards to green engineering, an organization and its leaders behave morally for the right reason—that is, they choose to do the right thing not because it is beneficial to the survival and profitability of the firm, but because they believe that doing the right thing will benefit the greater society and future generations. The historical and political initiatives are described in the chapter that have emerged to create the concept of green engineering and then use examples to show how most corporate green engineering programs are often simply self-serving actions that also happen to be beneficial in terms of global environmental pollution and resource use. Finally, it is argued that true moral worth comes when a corporation decides to practice green engineering because doing so benefits others, and not because it is the profitable option.