Introduction In business actions always arise a lot of ethical questions. The main goal of all companies is to earn profit but it is not always in perfect harmony with the ethical codes of the society. People tend to observe ethical behavior of companies more than they used to few years ago. A big issue concerning consumers is the life-time (durability) of a purchased product. There are many rumors among consumers telling that in certain industries the producers are using planned obsolescence to reduce the life-time of a product to a certain period of time. By reducing the life-time of product the manufacturers “force” people to buy new product that the manufacturer brings to the market as the replacement for the old product. The purpose of this research paper is to evaluate all aspects like ethical issues, environmental affects, laws and regulations considering planned obsolescence. The question is whether using this business technique is ethically acceptable or the company that uses planned obsolescence to make higher profit should be punished. Types of planned obsolescence In a marketplace there are more types of planned obsolescence that are used in order to devalue the old product. All types of obsolescence have major task of enhancing sales and increase the company’s profit. The main idea of all obsolescence is the same, to make the old product ineffectual, unfashionable or useless. Technical or functional obsolescence is a common method when a producer on purpose uses low-class materials that are prone to become damaged. The cost of repair work is usually comparable to the replacement cost and that force consumers to buy a new product or spare part. An applicable example is LCD screen where are heat-sensitive components... ... middle of paper ... ... EESC proposes a system of labeling, which should guarantee a minimum product lifespan. It is not a legal obligation yet, but maybe in a few years it would be normal in each state of EU. Mr. Haber also states “Furthermore, manufacturers should also cover the cost of recycling if their goods have an expected lifetime of less than five years” (EESC, 2013). This is a great idea how to motivate manufacturers to produce more durable products or if not so at least pay the cost of recycling in order to protect the environment. To sum up there are still not any laws regulating the production of goods with planned obsolescence, even though European Economic and Social Committee adopts measures against it. Works Cited http://www.eesc.europa.eu/?i=portal.en.press-releases.29603 http://search.proquest.com.proxy.cityu.edu/docview/198170190/8AD083B8560E4CDCPQ/1?accountid=1230
...and the useful life of the machine should be calculated. Then, depending on the method used, the total cost of the machine is considered as a long term asset and depreciated over the life expectancy of the asset.
regulations and so forth limits the value expense crevice. The OEMs need to settle on key choices how to make most extreme edges to maintain in the business sector. They need to force imprint ups in a commanded business to get overall revenue and ought to stick routines to cut down the expense in the operational level.
Caterpillar’s Chairman and CEO, Doug Oberhelman is a member of the Board of Directors of the WRI. The WRI is an environmental group that uses research to find applied ways to safeguard the earth and improve people’s existence (“Sustainability Report,” 2012). Remanufacturing is one of the processes that Caterpillar utilizes to create sustainability throughout the world. Remanufacturing avoids waste through its salvage of materials and the associated resource savings. Sustainability organizations need to forge sustainability strategies which distribute them with cost-effective benefits and social benefits accomplished through environmental accountability. This paper will analyzing different ethical, legal, and economic issues relevant to sustainability as it pertains.
Within the last century, the advancements of modern science, technology and research have increased the average human life expectancy worldwide. While new research has produced drugs to help us live longer with diseases like cancer, AIDS and diabetes, it has also created designer drugs to aid and relieve the side affects of aging. With these benefits come personal rights and social responsibilities not faced by previous generations. For all of the of those that work tirelessly to bring these drugs to improve the daily life of others for little rewards, there are pharmaceutical giants whose profits climb to new heights by marketing drugs to the aging population. This paper will discuss two ethical issues surrounding longevity, the ethics of pharmaceutical companies associated with keeping us alive and comfortable, and the right to an individual’s definition of quality of life.
Product life: Product will be long life as annual market growth is expected to be 30%.
With the creation of newer technologies, such as smartphones, that are made more complexly made, recycling these devices are becoming much more difficult. Not only are these technologies difficult to recycle, but the accessories that come with them. The majority of people who own an expensive smartphone want to protect it with a phone case, and typically in style. The smartphone market is extremely competitive and with that, every year, a new smartphone with a completely new design will be introduced. This then creates a surplus of phone cases as consumers look into switching for the most recent model that has been launched within the phone industry. However, many of the old phone cases are not reusable on newer devices, and are simply thrown out into the garbage and end up at the landfill. Plastic takes at least 500 years to decompose, and some plastics are composed of numerous toxic chemicals, which are then being exposed to the environment. There are currently not many recycling programs that directly address how to dispose of phone cases. Although, doing so is quite crucial as it will only continue to grow as many more models of smartphones will continue to be released in the
There have been many products that have caused major damages to consumers because of the poor quality that they were made in or due to unaware circumstances that the company producing the it...
According to Catherine Rampell of NY Times magazine, planned obsolescence is the act of “deliberately limiting the useful life of a product so that consumers will be forced to replace it”. For example, notice how each year, Apple introduces an iPhone that is only marginally better than the last. This is because they want to make the previous iPhones irrelevant, but they also don’t want to upgrade it too much so that they can’t significantly upgrade the iPhone in the future. If Apple were to roll out its best technology on an iPhone today, they would have nothing to upgrade it with in the future. But if they displace these upgrades over different generations of iPhones, they can deliberately make past models obsolete and force consumers to upgrade to the newer, “better” version. Apple is promoting a wasteful consumerist society by intentionally making their products obsolete in a few years, which pressures American consumers into buying the newest version of the product and discarding the other. In the 1980’s people bought things in excess, but it was not like they bought them knowing that they were going to upgrade only a few years later. Wasteful
Biswas, Lucata, McKee, Pulling, and Daughtraige (2000) claim that recycling objectives or items reduces its economical value because the product costs rely on its used materials more than the manufacturing service. Therefore, recycled items are usually cheaper than no recycled ones; but still consumers prefer the products that is not recycled because of its higher quality that the recycled product (Biswas et al., 2000).
As people become more concerned with recycling and saving the planet, there has been a growing movement to source old unneeded items to reuse in the manufacturing of new inventions. Not only can this result in lower overheads for makers, it can also keep broken or obsolete items out of landfills. For example, 26 year old Jack Zylkin modified an old typewriter so that it could be used as a standard keyboard (Kalish 2010). Rather than going out and buying all the necessary components to make a new typewriter from scratch that is compatible with modern computers, he literally just took an old typewriter as is and did a minimal amount of work to create his finished piece, which saves him both time and money and is also better for the earth.
Planned obsolescence is a nasty mechanism of the consumerism economy. The side effects are a cause of harm to the environment, due to higher pollution and waste, an increase in living costs, and increased resource spending. Since most countries around the world are living this life of wastefulness, it is impossible to sail back to port on this sinking ship. If society can figure out an alternative to the current consumerism lifestyle and fix the boat, our dependence on consumerism might seize to exist.
2. (1) Benefits of the “half-life”: it will encourage the company to reduce cost and defective rates. The total quality of the production has been improved.
Every day companies compete by inventing by inventing a new product. Some of these things are very useful and we don’t know how we would live without them. Many of these products don’t have much impact on society and fade out throughout the years.
Planned obsolescence is acknowledged as the "designed for the dump," planned out- marketing strategy. This strategy is employed by companies to intentionally produce a product that is non-functional and outdated for a short time to convince buyers to drop the product even though it is operating well. Perceived obsolescence is when a buyer believes they need an updated version of the previous generation or model. For example, Apple iPhone or any other smartphone manufacturers dump $1,000 phone into the market; individuals believe they need to get their hands on the latest iPhone because of the wider screen, improved features, and more extended- lasting
Toyota issues in automotive industry resulted from a lack of moral and ethical obligations to loyal customers. In fact, people encounter ethics at one time or another. A business expectation is to act in manner upholding society values. According to authors Trevino and Nelson, (2004) states, “a set of moral principals or values, or the principals, norm, and standards of conduct governing a group or individual.” On the other hand, three ethical criteria determined in this discussion like obligation, moral ideas, and consequences which this article highlights an ethical dilemma with automobiles makers.