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Running head: BUSINESS IMPACTS ON THE ENVIRONMENT

Business Impacts on the Environment

Final Paper: Business and Society Seminar

Kassia Webb

International College of the Cayman Islands

Seminar on Business and Society BE/SO425

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Introduction
As a part of the International College of the Cayman Islands, a local seminar on

Business and Society was held on November 13th to 19th, 2017. The Business and Society

seminar consisted of local tours, presentations in Grand Cayman and then visits to

Cayman Brac and Little Cayman. For the seminar, I was assigned to complete my final

paper on the topic Business Impacts on the Environment, in addition to choosing a

Cayman company that depicts how their business effectively models the topic. Further, in

my paper, I will speak about my main topic Business Impacts on the Environment and

why it is important for businesses todays society. My company feature is Intertrust and I

will give details about Intertrust mission, vision, and organizational structure. Also, I

will explain how the company portrays Business Impacts on the Environment based on

an interview that I conducted with Betty-Ann Duty, the Operations Manager of Intertrust

Cayman. The seminar experience consisted of tours and lectures which I will explain how

they were related to my main topic. My paper will explain how I have changed as a result

of this seminar experience and how has Business Impacts on the Environment and

Intertrust influenced my own understanding of the topic and the company as a whole.

Businesses have a great impact on our environment as they contribute to it in many ways

as a result of their day to day operations.

Business and Society Topic Exploration

Operating an eco-friendly business can beneficial as it reduces the impact on the

environment and conserves natural resources which are very important to society today.

Being eco-friendly is not only an advantage to the environment but also help businesses

to save money. Businesses that promote eco-friendly measures usually stand out from

their competitors and entice consumers to support their businesses. Pieters (1991) states,
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Environmentally friendly consumption can be defined as those consumption activities

that have a less negative or more positive effect on the natural environment than

substitutable activities" (p. 59). According to Green & Peloza (2014),

When consumers engage in environmentally friendly consumption behaviors,

they are typically motivated by one of two benefits. Many of these behaviors,

such as purchasing fuel-efficient vehicles that produce fewer emissions, offer

consumers a chance to protect the natural environment. However, they also

provide the opportunity for the consumer to save money. (p.128)

Depending on how eco-friendly businesses are, they can impact the environment both

positively and negatively.

Businesses impact the environment negatively as the materials that are used to

construct buildings are not renewable sources; businesses leave machines such as

printers, fax machines, photocopiers, lights and computers running on electricity all day,

365 days per year. Other negative impacts are disposals of waste and electronic

equipment, printing an excessive amount of paper, burning gasoline from transportation

to get to work, and industrial procedures. In Cayman, while some businesses are trying to

become eco-friendly there will be a minority who are greatly impacting the environment

by not taking certain eco-friendly measures.

Some positive ways that businesses can impact the environment are by taking

some eco-friendly measures which are recycling plastic, aluminum and glass,

implementing automatic shut on and off systems, limit paper printing, using natural

resources such as solar systems, using recycled materials and reducing overseas travel by

doing conference calling. Businesses can also encourage staff to be eco-friendly by

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printing double-paged, reusing scrap paper and shredding unwanted paper. In Cayman, I

am aware of some businesses that are eco-friendly, but Intertrust, in particular, portrays

some eco-friendly measures that are certainly beneficial for the society, the environment

and the business on whole.

Moreover, one of the biggest threats to the environment and businesses is climate

change. According to the state of Queen Island (2007), "Climate change refers to the

build-up of man-made gases in the atmosphere that trap the sun's heat, causing changes in

global weather patterns. It has environmental, economic and social impacts" (para 1).

Climate change affects the society due to increased diseases, shortages of clean water,

flooding drought and heatwaves. Even businesses are affected due to frequent change in

weather as over last couple of year there has been an increase in extremely strong and

dangerous hurricanes and typhoons, wildfires, and earthquakes. This has led to increases

in premiums due to damages and loss of buildings and resources. Extreme weather

conditions will also hinder customers from going to businesses and suppliers will have

the inability to transport products. If businesses are not sustainable and if their goods are

not eco-friendly, they could have a decrease in demand due to customers who prefer to

support businesses whose products are eco-friendly, and unfortunately, this affects

revenue. Climate change could also have an impact on suppliers from abroad as weather

conditions will not permit them to transport goods and services to countries; however,

people will be forced to support the local market. There can also be cost increases in

electricity and water and this can impact businesses. Being proactive and promoting

eco-friendly can limit the risk of climate change and can also prevent businesses from

encountering additional expenses and issues that will affect them.

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Company Featured

I have chosen Intertrust in the Cayman Islands as a company that depicts how

their business effectively models the topic Business Impacts on the Environment. An

interview with Betty-Ann Duty, the Operations Manager of Intertrust, was also conducted

pertaining to how the company represents eco-friendly measures. Intertrust is a global

leader in the trust, corporate and funds services sector. They offer a comprehensive range

of specialized administrative services that ensure the sound financial administration of

companies and enable clients to comply with their applicable legal, tax and regulatory

regimes, as well as financial reporting requirements. Intertrust operates in 30 countries

across Europe, the Americas, Asia and the Middle East. Intertrust vision is to be

recognized as the global leader in the trust, corporate and fund services industry

(Intertrust Group, 2017). They achieve this by being the most professional firm in their

markets, maintaining the highest standards, and working together as One Intertrust, One

Team.

Intertrust mission is to invest in people and technological capabilities, build long-

lasting partnerships with their clients and their advisors, grow organically, by expanding

our global network and broadening our service offering, acquire new companies and

successfully integrate them, foster a culture of exchanging, connecting and sharing

knowledge and best practices (Intertrust Group, 2017). This company is well positioned

to implement a strategy based on five key elements; invest in human capital, grow

organically, lead market consolidation; continuously improve operational excellence; and

maintain industry-leading risk management practices (Intertrust Group, 2017).

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The organizational structure consists of the Management Board who is David de

Buck- Chief Executive Officer, Maarten de Vries- Chief Financial Officer and Henk

Pieter van Asselt- Chief Commercial Officer who all reports the Supervisory Board. The

Executive Committee supports the Management Board in the day to day management of

operations and the of the companys employees. The Executive Committee is made up of

Johan Dejans- Chief Human Resources Officer, Colin Mackay- Managing Director of

Cayman, Dick Niezing- Managing Director of Netherlands, Madelein Smit- Chief

Information Officer, Frank Welman- Managing Director of Luxembourg and Paul

Willing- Managing Director of Atlantic Region (Intertrust Group, 2017).

Intertrust Cayman effectively models the topic Business Impacts on the

Environment as they limit the environmental impact of their facilities and operations as

much as they can. They have established a global Green Task Force that monitors their

energy and paper consumption and helps them set targets for reduction (B. Duty, personal

communication, December 12, 2017). B. Duty also claimed that, they also share

environmental best practices across local Intertrust offices and implement these globally

whenever possible (personal communication, December 12, 2017). B. Duty also

mentioned that the objective of the Green Task Force is to reduce the environmental

impact of Intertrust operations worldwide and their focus is on two main key areas which

are paper and energy consumption; because they are measurable, allow for multiple

possible improvement measures, and help to focus their efforts (personal communication,

December 12, 2017). In addition, B. Duty said they will be promoting all further efforts

that help to reduce waste, get cleaner buildings as well as show the environmental

concern within our local communities (personal communication, December 12, 2017). B.
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Duty explained that the Green Task Force approaches are to analyze the environmental

impact, show best practices, support offices in target setting and implementing best

practices, set up monitoring framework, continuous communication, and celebrate

milestones (personal communication, December 12, 2017). They also encourage

everyone to participate in taking environment-friendly measures.

Additionally, B. Duty listed that some local activities and initiatives comprise

recycling, staff dress down day to raise funds for the Green Task Force, Community Park

clean-up and tree planting and logo competition and prize giving, Eco-awareness week,

new Eco-friendly building and green award for the office/jurisdiction making the most

effort in implementing green initiatives (personal communication, December 12, 2017).

In an attempt to control the height and mass of the George Town landfill, B. Duty

claimed that Intertrust has placed recycling bins in all four tea areas of their Cayman

office to encourage staff to participate in their recycling activities (personal

communication, December 12, 2017). She also explained that the Green Task Force

awarded the Intertrust Group Green Award to Intertrusts greenest office. The first

office that won this award was Intertrust Luxembourg in 2013, for its continuous efforts

in reducing the environmental impact of its operations: they have actively reduced paper

consumption and put energy saving measures in place, like auto shutdown on all their

computers, double-sided printing, and participation at the Luxembourg Green Business

Summit. In 2014, Intertrust Cayman was the winner of the Green award. Intertrust

offices have implemented, automatic on/off computers, default to double-sided printing,

encouraged less printing by implementing standardized outlook signatures that read

please consider the environment before printing this email, and support telecommuting
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and using video-conferencing instead of travel in the Global Travel Policy (B.Duty,

personal communication, December 12, 2017).

B. Duty also claimed that Intertrust has contributed to environmental-friendly

measures by inviting all Intertrust offices to participate in Earth Hour by asking

individuals to volunteer at home for this event by turning off their electricity for an hour.

They have also reduced and maintained the amount of paper consumption by

implementing a new printing system which is controlled by simply using an employee

security swipe card. Once emDecemployees swipe their card, they are given the options

to select or cancel the print job. This has limited the number of papers that were wasted in

the past. Even better, the Finance department in Cayman, recently launched a paperless

billing software in early October 2017 which they have now issued over 15,000 invoices

(personal communication, December 12, 2017). With outstanding efforts, we can imagine

how significantly they have decreased the number of papers that were used in the past.

Their old billing process allowed them to print papers for over 15,000 clients to be

reviewed, edited and for some clients they would be reprinted again. Also, flexible work

policies have also been an added benefit to environment-friendly measures. Directors and

other Senior Managers can occasionally work from home and this has made a great effect

on the companys carbon footprint.

The Seminar Experience

Attending the lecture at Department of Environment on Tuesday, November 14,

2017, with Mr. John Bothwell about environmental impacts, was related to my main topic

Business Impacts on the Environment. According to Cayman Islands Environmental

Centre (2017), The Mission of the Department of Environment is to facilitate

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responsible management and sustainable use of the natural environment and the natural

resources of the Cayman Islands; through environmental protection and conservation,

wise use, scientific research and public education (para.1). Briefly, he explained that the

change in climate, also known as global warming has a great impact on our coral reefs

and it the biggest problem globally that has affected weather, natural ecosystem, societies

and businesses (J.Bothwell, personal communication, November 14, 2017). Lawrence &

Weber (2017) wrote, A critically important challenge facing the world community is

climate change (p.191). J.Bothwell explained that due to rise in ocean temperatures it

affects the corals and result in coral bleaching. Corals become bleached when it is

stressed and the algae leave the coral. In addition, the factors that cause coral bleaching

are rises in ocean temperature, pollution, overexposure to sunlight and extreme low tides

all contribute to causes of coral bleaching (personal communication, November 14,

2017).

In Cayman, tourism is one of our main industries and many tourists mainly visit

the Cayman Islands for diving, hence it is very important to protect the coral reefs. In

addition to protecting the coral reefs for tourism in Cayman, it is also important that we

as the community help to maintain and preserve our reefs as it is used as a habitat for sea

creatures. According to Lawrence & Weber (2017), Marine ecosystems are important to

human society in many ways. Fish, marine mammals, and sea plants provide food and

other useful products such as fertilizer, animal feed, cooking and heating oil, medicines,

clothing, and jewelry (p.197). In other words, every community plays a vital role in the

impact on the environment so we should protect the ecosystem.

Application of the Learning

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Firstly, attending the lecture at the Department of Environment here in Grand

Cayman has educated me on the impacts that businesses, but especially the society has on

the environment. In my view, we as the society who do our daily activities and

entertainments sometimes do not know how much we are impacting the environment like

damaging the reefs when anchoring yachts, removing conchs or lobsters from the sea out

of season as permitted by law, littering and not cleaning up community parks after special

events. Additionally, if we as the society do not take eco-friendly measures such as,

decreasing our energy, waste and paper usage then it will have a major effect on climate

change which can cause declines, disasters, and damages to our natural resources.

Moreover, I have changed as a result of the Business and Society seminar. For

example, I am now considering to limit the amount of plastic bags that I purchase weekly

from the grocery store or to quit buying them completely and to also partake in a

recycling program at home and at work. Also, I have already started reducing energy

usage at home and this been beneficial not only to the environment but it has also reduced

my electricity bill. Based on Intertrusts initiative to reduce travel and exercise the use of

conference calls instead, I have also decided that I will cut down on some traveling as

well because now to think of it, I wasnt aware that my frequent trips also had an effect

on the environment. On the other hand, I have learned that businesses are affected when

there is no availability to services and products due to extreme weather conditions.

The topic Business Impacts on Society and my company feature, Intertrust has

influenced my own understanding and appreciation in general, as it has made me more

aware of why it is important to take eco-friendly measures, and the positive and negative

outcomes on the environment. What I have taken from this topic, my company feature
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and the seminar experience, in general, is that we should go green and save mother earth.

It is important to conserve and preserve our natural resources in order to keep our natural

ecosystem safe from harm and damages. In essence, this is essential for the life cycle of

our plants and animals.

Summary and Conclusion

The Green Task Force at Intertrust is always making continuous efforts to seek

support from Management, I.T. department and staff for the key energy saving initiatives

in paper, energy and waste reduction. Businesses should make it a priority to reduce their

carbon footprint as much as possible as it significantly impacts the environment.

Intertrust has executed ways in which they reduce their carbon footprint and they have

positively promoted the reduction in electricity and paper consumption to achieve more

significant decreases. With all their new implementation of environmental-friendly

measures, such as paperless billing, auto shut off on computers, printing machine and

lights, reduced fuel use by less traveling, recycling more to prevent waste in our landfill,

Intertrust has seen a substantial decrease in their paper and energy consumption. They

have saved costs and have become attractive to the community for its care for the

environment. It is also important to note that they have contributed to preventing some of

the negative impacts that businesses have on the environment. These eco-friendly

measures are tremendously beneficial to the environment because they will help to save

our ecosystem and to even avoid the effects of climate change as it is one of the biggest

problems facing our environment today. We as the society should seriously act now to

implement other solutions so that we can lessen or prevent severe impacts.

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References

Cayman Islands Environmental Centre (2017). Welcome to the Cayman Islands

Department of Environment. Retrieved from http://doe.ky/
Green, T., & Peloza, J. (2014). Finding the right shade of green: the effect of
advertising appeal type on environmentally friendly consumption. Journal of
Advertising, 43(2), 128+.
Lawrence, Anne T. & Weber, J. (2017). Business and Society: Stakeholders, Ethics,
Public. Policy, 15th Edition.
Intertrust Group B.V (2017). Annual Report 2016. Retrieved from
https://www.intertrustgroup.com/~/media/Files/I/Intertrust-
Group/documents/results-reports-and-presentation/intertrust-nv-annual-report-
2016-final.pdf
Pieters, R. (1991). "Changing Garbage Disposal Patterns of Consumers: Motivation,
Ability, and Performance," Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, 10 (2), 59-
76.
The State of Queensland (2017). Environmental risks to your business.
Retrieved from https://www.business.qld.gov.au/running-
business/environment/environment-business/risks