Business environment report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Business environment report - Essay Example The oil and gas industry, established after the discovery oil pits near early civilisations and subsequent utilisation of the liquid, is characterised by numerous petroleum products that are because of purification processes accorded the crude oil. Petroleum is a crucial element to the economy with numerous applications across all industries, and it is, therefore, critical to maintain the supply to drive the global economy. Apart from driving the global economy, the industry provides employment chances to many workers around the world. BP plc is a major player in the oil and gas industry and is ranked fifth by market capitalisation as well as revenues. Owing to the significance of this company in the society, it is serves as a prime subject of evaluation based on performance in view various environmental factors. While focusing on environmental scanning, this paper seeks to explore the political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors that influence BP†™s performance. However, this paper overlooks the physical infrastructure and corporate organisation with regard to governance since these are internal aspects influenced by the institution’s service mandate. ... Governments exercise their regulatory powers in the oil and gas industry through trading policies that seek are geared to ensure sustainability of the much-depended commodity. The recent oil spill at the Gulf of Mexico involving BP asserts the role of political organs in organisations. Following this incidence, President Obama visited the site and offered to increase the work force in efforts to clean up the spill while calling for stronger oversight to avoid such incidences. Evidently, BP has been under enormous scrutiny following the incidence that caused rifts among entities calling for harsh penalties against the company and those assisting in the clean-up exercise (Kapucu 2011, p.23). It lies within the government’s responsibility to ensure that environmental accidents are avoided or responded to promptly. Similarly, the oil industry is often subject to political stability where prices fluctuate owing to harsh economic environments created. Political instability and tensi on affects the cost of production by encouraging hoarding, which creates artificial crisis in the sector. Moreover, diplomatic relations play a critical role in fostering international trade and expansion of multinational corporations. BP is placed in a unique platform that is supported by favourable political structures, which encourage foreign investment and understand the benefits realised by the endeavour. With its headquarters in the United Kingdom, compliance to the European Union’s regulation policies with regard to fuel components is key to BP’s operations. Economic Notably, prevailing economic factors play a major role in influencing the national and international economy. For this reason, it is

Environmental Trends in Supermarket Sector Assignment

Environmental Trends in Supermarket Sector - Assignment Example There are costs associated for the supermarket sector with the environmental trends. For the right way of producing food in a sustainable manner and to consume the food as well in sustainable ways, environmental impacts should be factored into the cost of products on supermarket shelves (Russell 2007) because the supermarket sector has to incur high costs as compared to any other sector when it comes to environmental trends. This is because it is one of the largest sectors in UK. This paper will firstly discuss the environmental trends and how important they are to the businesses and then move on to their impact on the supermarket sector. The positive and negative impacts are considered and finally a conclusion is presented. The environmental trends are becoming an integral part of the economy and are thus affecting almost all the businesses. The environmental issues have now become a part of the business decision making due to their significant impact on the businesses. The importance of the environmental trends is so immense that it has been said by the former South African minister that (Black 2008) the "companies should have directors with environmental experience". Valli Moosa, the president of International Union for the Conservation of Nature says that like in all the other businesses we have marketing executives, accountancy executives and accountancy executives, there should also be environmental executives as well (Black 2008) who have a working knowledge of the environmental issues and can link the business and the environmental trends and can capitalize on their resources through mitigating the negative impacts from the business and in turn contributing to the environment as well. Environmental issues are basically defined as those problems which are created by environment. There are different environmental issues which are affecting the supermarket sector as a whole (Ellen, 2008). The environmental trends include a host of issues from reducing waste, recycling, reducing flood risk to efficiently utilizing energy sources, reducing carbon footprint and global warming. The climatic changes have impacted the biodiversity to a great extent, global warming is a huge issue due to the climatic changes and also as a result the depletion of ozone layer. The solutions to these as predicted so far include reforestation i.e. planting more trees and to use carbon sinks to absorb carbon dioxide. These all environmental trends have been impacting the businesses to a great extent as the businesses have to take into effect the negative impacts associated with these environmental trends. The business sector which is the most impacted by the environmental trends is the supermarket sector. The environmental trends specific to the supermarket sector are the carbon dioxide emissions, genetically modified (G.M.) food and the impact of climatic changes which has lead the supermarket sector to go greener and take measures which assist in mitigating the negative impact these environmental changes have been causing. The next section discusses the impact of the environmental trends on the supermarket sector in detail. Effects of the Environmental Trends on the Supermarket Sector The supermarket sec