New Belgium Brewery (NBB)
Business ethics and social responsibility
are not equivalent concepts.
Ethics guides behavior regarding
appropriate business practices of
individuals whereas social responsibility
is organizational behavior that is
directed toward the greater community.
At New Belgium Brewery, environmental ethics
are part of the core value system of the company's
corporate culture. Jeff Lebesch, owner of NBB, started
the firm with very low capital investment, low volume
production, and small margins. He and his company
were forced to think outside the box. And think they
did! Looking to cut costs, the company was able to
reduce the amount of resources used as raw materials,
invested in technology to achieve broader energy efficiency,
re-uses resources, and recycles materials that
cannot be immediately reused in the process. All of
these goals are part of the core value system of social
responsibility.
Social responsibility, environmentally safe production
processes, and a corporate culture that is
supportive, combine to create an organization where
individuals forgo personal gain in order to achieve
social responsibility for the firm. These values run so
deep in fact that the employees voted to use part of
their bonus pool to invest in longer-term solutions to
achieve environmentally safer production methods.
The cost savings achieved by using a socially
responsible approach have more than compensated
for the investments made by Jeff and his employees.
Discussion Questions
What would be considered the basic "ethical
dilemma" for New Belgium Brewery?
Is there a difference between ethics and values?
Theoretically, how did the decisions to be environmentally
conscious and create a socially responsible
corporate culture, evolve at NBB?
