Companies as parts of natural ecosystems

A company is not only a part of the social structure but also a part of nature. We should not forget that we are animals of planet earth. Our bodies come from the soil, the air and the water of this planet and they return back to those. Along with the rest of the animals and plants we are the organic portion of the planet. They are our relatives and cohabitants on the planet, as the well established theory of the evolution of species has clearly shown. With them we constitute a chain where each of its rings has its distinct role. Thus if we want to progress as humanity this can only happen in harmony with the environment of which we are a part. A company that focuses exclusively on profit or on the production of a product and takes nothing more into consideration is destined to be harmful towards humanity and the rest of the world. Of course, no activity could cause zero harm to the environment and neither this is the goal. We do not support a position claiming that nature is perfect neither that we should fully return to our natural origins.

Nature is neither some kind of a metaphysical entity that has designed a plan nor something perfect. Its parts be it its atmosphere or its plants and so on are related, and through a constant flow of – to a great degree if not completely random – events they have reached the condition in which we have observed them. There are very often in nature destructive events like a volcanic eruption, which cause disharmony or creations of it which are at least partly problematic such as animals consuming the flora of a region leading to its extinction along with the extinction of the fauna that can no longer sustain itself. Despite the fact that after millions of years of evolution the creations of nature are still on top of the art of creation compared to what we as humanity can produce, they are for sure not perfect and they are always evolving. The distinction between humanity and nature is certainly to a great degree artificial; actually when we create a spaceship we are not that different from any other animal like a beaver building its home with twigs.

So within the context of the evolution of life, production and technology is one more possible way to improve life. Crafting clothes protects us from several natural phenomena, producing technologies which can prevent an asteroid from hitting the earth protects us from an existential threat that poses a danger for all the living organisms of the planet, and creating telecommunications means among other things that we can store and share information gaining time while sprinting to prevent several existential threats. It should be stressed out here that technology does not only have a utilitarian purpose. It does not aim only at solving problems, but also at the pleasure of its creators, as it happens in the case of games. These are just a few examples for us to show the positive side of technology which is necessary to the course of evolution. Thus, focusing again on the role of companies, our task is to find out how production can be more beneficial rather than harmful to the world.

There are countless kinds of companies. To save time we are focusing on the example of a software developing company, which was the reason for writing this essay in the first place. The decrease of the ecological footprint and getting in harmony with the environment are the first priorities. Several measures could be taken on an everyday basis. Some of them would be decreasing the use of expendable products to the necessary, decreasing the use of non polluting products like plastics as much as possible, the consumption of zero or minimum animal products according to necessity only if they are produced with respect towards animals in case the company provides food to its members, the consumption of plant based products produced with respect towards the earth and the ecosystem without toxic pesticides for instance, carpooling among the company’s members in order to go to work to minimize the energy required for transportation per person and that the purchase of any product – expendable or not – should be as close to the location of the company as possible to minimize again the required transportation energy. The cultivation of environmental awareness among the members of the company and choosing members with this kind of mentality is important. On one side the personal freedom of the members to make their own choices is to be respected, but on the other side a person who every year buys a new car for example contributes to some kind of disaster that one could overlook only under special circumstances. Such circumstances could be a person producing extraordinarily valuable work or studying mechanics.

As far as the company’s infrastructure is concerned the use of renewable sources of energy is pivotal. If there are electronic services providers and material suppliers such as computer suppliers and so on, it should be ensured that they have the same policies. This along with ensuring that supply companies follow the rules of ecological production such as the use of proper filters when there is combustion as part of the process. The company itself should use facilities that are well insulated with minimal energy demands and are built with ecologically friendly materials like mud, while they comply with the right security and functionality standards and incorporate valid architectural techniques. The development of effective algorithms which reduce the energy consumption as well as the minimized use of electronic devices by a software company is also important. There needs to be some careful planning so that the devices like computers are replaced by newer ones as rarely as possible taking into account productivity and of course they should be recycled. The facilities of the company could have outdoors spaces with trees thus creating local ecosystems.

A company alone cannot solve all ecological issues in the same manner that a person cannot solve all social issues. What can be done towards the right direction is the company acting proportionately to its abilities and networking with social movements and organizations. Social and economic networking with companies sharing similar policies, funding or obtaining ecological practices and technologies like computer processors with lower energy loss are also some steps towards the aforementioned direction. On a mentality level we need to stress out the importance of not obsessing with creating more products and technology. We need to produce in order to live better and not to live in order to produce and consume more.

Moreover each action is part of a cycle. For instance, when a new product is created, a mobile phone for example, some time for it to become an organic part of the community which uses it is required. Some time for the community to learn it, to educate itself as to when it needs it and how to use it without harming itself and also to invent those methods which will allow it to produce a phone without destroying the environment. In our society we omit this cycle and we head directly towards the production of a better phone thus causing disharmony to the environment as well as to human relations. Companies should apply an ecologically sustainable pace of production, aim at the durability of their products so that they don’t have to constantly produce new ones, use their facilities to create products of similar technologies and expand to other sectors of production and services like educating a population on the use of technology, so that the reduction of creating a certain product will not lead to their demise.

Near this point this essay is about to end. We are facing huge ecological problems as a society and they constitute one of the basic existential threats on planet earth. The plants and the rest of the animals along with the balance which has been achieved with the planetary environment are artworks of immeasurable value, which we have not yet even understood and they run the danger of being lost. Every inch of a forest contains millions of cells each one of them being a masterpiece of mechanics, to a degree where the cities that we build with accumulated tones of cement look like a barbaric farce in comparison. There are serious indications that humanity is largely responsible for this ecological catastrophe. This is a call to us to act if we want to have a future. The subject of ecology is not easily exhausted, but here there is a summary of some important principles and practices. If companies and organizations adopted these proposals on a large scale, there would be a substantial and tremendous progress towards solving the ecological issues. So let’s do whatever we can as individuals and groups with love to ourselves and to our organic and inorganic environment of which we are a part.