130. Some people believe that corporations have a responsibility to promote the well-being of the societies and environments in which they operate. Others believe that the only responsibility of corporations, provided they operate within the law is to mak

What are the responsibilities of local agencies, national enterprises and international companies? Some people assume that making money is the only responsibility of corporations, however others appreciate the responsibility to promote the well-being of the societies and environments. In my opinion, two contentions have both merits and flaws. Making money is no doubt the first need for corporations but it can be achieved through the contribution to social and environmental welfare. Corporations should respond to the social and environmental challenges actively within their competence. Furthermore, for companies to strive a harmonious balance between making money and doing charities, governments and non-profits organizations should make some efforts.

To begin with, making money, getting profits are the first task for corporations to fulfill, so that they can win a standing point in the intensive competitions with others. There are several reasons. First, the nature of the corporations is making money. Corporations are different from charities and non-profit organizations, the latter run as a "child" and receive financial supports regularly from their "parents". Corporations work as an "adult" and they have to find a way to make money to pay for the bills, the debts and the costs. Secondly, making money is also one way to promote the well-being, but of their workers. Employees, who work for an enterprise, count on the salaries and year-end bonus to improve living conditions and to gain a better learning chance for children. If one company which cannot even fulfil their employees’ basic needs, how can we count on it to save refugees of another continent? To resume, chasing after profits is the nature of corporations. Only after standing firm in the competition, companies will have ability to promote social and environmental well-being.

That being said, making money is not the only responsibility of corporations and it is not opposite with the promotion of social and environmental well-being. As long as corporations gain enough money to make sure their daily operation, devoting themselves actively to the social and environmental improvement is necessary and obligatory. This is because improving social equality, preserving cultural diversity, protecting environment, saving resources are the inevitable challenges faced by everyone. To promote social and environmental well-being, in other words, is finding solutions to these challenges. If corporations refuse to accept, turn their backs on and ignore these problems, they will definitely be marginalized by the society because they fight against the main trend. However, if corporations embrace current social and environmental problems actively, they can win the fame and fortune. Take the famous luxury company LVMH as an example. This company donated 200 million euros to renovate the French landmark, the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris. This behavior not only help LVMH to save hundreds of million euros for annual advertisement, but also create a positive, appealing and culture-friendly images for LVMH. This image will associate with this brand tightly and make their products more competitive than other luxuries. This example elucidates how to resolve social and environmental problems and make money at the same time. By unifying these two responsibilities, corporations can gain both material and immaterial benefits.

After two arguments presented above, we come to consensus that both two responsibilities are inevitable to corporations. However, somebody may ask that how to unify these two responsibilities, to what extent we respond to each one, how to distribute limited energies to strive a harmonious relationship between two responsibilities. Imagine that there two paper factories, factory A adopts an innovative, environmental-friendly but also expensive production process, and factory B employes a traditional, polluting but cheap working method. By lowering the prices and selling more products, B can gain more profits than A. In fact, this seeming inequality derives from the public's unknown of the production process and the lack of official assessment of two the factories from authorities. Under this circumstance, we need to introduce the third part, such as governments or industry associations, to assess and certificate corporations' efforts to promote social and environmental well-being, thus, to encourage corporations to devote more.

All in all, we confirm corporations' basic need as making money, but money is not the corporations’ only purpose. Corporations should also respond actively to the social and environmental challenges and this process embellishes their images and may bring to them more profits. However, for enterprises to achieve a balance between material and immaterial benefits, we need to set up an assessment and certification system to measure corporations’ efforts in promoting social and environmental well-being, thus to create a positive circle.