Business Ethics, Responsibility and Sustainability in Clothing Industry

Business Ethics,
Responsibility and
Sustainability

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Examine and discuss the key challenges relating to corporate responsibility and sustainability
relating to your chosen sector.................................................................................................3
Analyse and explain what you consider to be 'best practice' within the sector, making
references to ethical and moral issues....................................................................................6
Make recommendations for businesses in the sector to show they are being more responsible
by taking into account global considerations.........................................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCE.................................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Businesses ethics is a two different word that is business which means buying or selling
of product to make a profit and ethics means as division of philosophy that deals with both moral
values and morality. Business ethics refers to as the taking the right course and doing business
which comprises of business processes, production and behaviour of the organization including
their consumers and also the communities where they operate. It is regarded as doing the things
in a right manner in everything the firm does. Sustainability is refers to as appropriate balance to
the economic activities, environmental responsibility as well as societal benefits. It is the
challenges that met in ensuring the coming generations could enjoy the similar sort of life that
people enjoy in present days. This includes the long term view points of the economic,
environmental and societal beliefs (He and et. al., 2019). With a strong business ethics and
sustainability structure is essential for both the present scenario as well as future situation of the
organization. The chosen industry for this report is clothing industry. Marks and Spencer is
taken as base company. Marks and Spencer is a British retailer store which specialises in selling
of home products, clothing and food products. This organization was established in 1884 by
Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer in London, UK. In report, it covers the challenges relating
to corporate responsibility and sustainability with the best practice within the sector in context to
ethical and moral issues and recommendations showing how they are being more responsible by
taking into account global considerations.
Examine and discuss the key challenges relating to corporate responsibility and sustainability
relating to your chosen sector
Corporate social responsibility has become a successful contribution in an organization to
make sure that its ability for gaining competitive edge in the marketplace. It is considered as an
effective mean in effort to mitigate the threats that is known as social risks. Also it is a
continuous commitment by the organization for using the resources in an ethical manner and also
give contribution towards the economic development and also improving the quality of life of the
personnel as well as local community and also society as a large. Sustainability is the capability
for maintaining several systems and procedures (Dodds, Novotny and Harper, 2020). Many
organization reject the idea of corporate social responsibility as it implied as law to the society as

well as future generations that included in the legal requirements of the organization. Now a
days, organization are coming up with their corporate social responsibility. Some organization
make investments in CSR as reputation management as well as to sustain the effectiveness and
productivity of the firm and also some firm make investments in CSR for moral obligation to the
society. All these assets and resources concentrate on the corporate social responsibility as well
as sustainability in regards to the moral obligations and provide key knowledge in ethics which is
relevant to economic sustainability, environmental sustainability and social equity (Cancela and
et. al., 2020).
The organization under clothing industry faces many challenges in adopting business
ethics and sustainability. There are various challenges that clothing industry is facing in business
ethics as well as sustainability which are mentioned below:
Ethical challenges
Stiff competition: In a stiff competition environment, there would be pressure to perform
well and gain a competitive edge in the marketplace. Also, the pressure to explore the trending
fashion styles than the competition and its unique style for maximizing their effectiveness as
well as profitability. To effectively and efficiently implement, ethical considerations needed to
be taken for achieving the set aim and objectives of the organization. Moreover, there is also
competition from in terms of the quality of the cloths.. The losing of their footprint by the
clothing sector in the marketplace would leads to threat to the clothing industry (Naciti, 2019).
However for maintaining the stability, some ethical considerations could be looked for the
clothing organization. It could recognise as an outcome as course of action. When the results are
beneficial for the organization and also to affect the other individuals, these actions would not
matter a lot.
Cost cutting: The reduction of costs of production is actually assists the organization to
profit maximization. This reflect the cost of production which is to be kept minimal for
increasing the profit margin of the organization with the help of their commodities. In the
clothing industry, the cost cutting means to jeopardizing some another issues and concerns such
as environmental and safety issues.
Increasing pressure to focus on value creating instead of output: There is always a
increasing pressure by the shareholders for concentrating on the value creation for the customers
as opposition to the focusing on results owing to a low return on investment. This leads to a