But there is a corollary to this basic business idea, and it is that any business that aims at profit alone – with no other concern or any sense of its other social responsibilities — would in time be unsustainable. This is because profit is only the bottom line result, and to get there, any business has to move from the top line and down several other lines: Every step of the way, it has to exercise due care and diligence in living up to its responsibilities. If it fails to do so consistently, it may entangle itself in so many complications that by the time it gets to the bottom line, the results may well be negative, and over time disastrously negative.

Consumers have to be properly served and taken care of: Otherwise, top line results could be adversely affected. Then there are other stakeholders, whose stakes and interests in the business must be properly acknowledged and fairly rewarded. Officers and employees, suppliers and creditors, regulators and community needs, let alone the internal needs of the business to renew itself and invest for its future have to be attended to, also with a deep sense of fairness and social responsibility. Otherwise, the running of the business would be far from smooth and sustainable.

A current concern that business needs to address – in addition to its basic concern of earning good returns – is the concern for the physical environment. Business may have to spend resources, oftentimes considerable, in scrubbing, cleaning and then in properly disposing of its waste. It should be prepared to go some distance, in compliance with environmental laws and regulations, to ensure that the inevitable pollution it discharges is minimal and well within tolerable levels. It should also look for positive ways and means by which to contribute to the improvement of the physical environment so that on a net basis such environment ends up cleaner and greener as a result of its operations and their impact upon it.

Waste treatment and proper disposal of previously scrubbed waste materials, anti-pollution and other environment-friendly programs can cost an arm and a leg. They can be very expensive. They do make a dent on the bottom line at least over the short run. Nonetheless, they should be treated as a necessary expense out of a sense of social responsibility.

Indeed, the social responsibility of business leads to these following considerations: No business has the right to dump its wastes and pollutants on the physical environment, which would thereby be damaged by them. No business has the privilege of imposing social costs on the community, which then suffers the negative consequences of environmental degradation. No business has the prerogative of skimping on the expense of cleaning up the physical dirt and possible pollution its operations can spread in the physical environment. Any failure to take these considerations seriously leads to a violation of positive and natural laws, which cannot be blithely disregarded with impunity.

Violation of positive laws brings retribution that the laws and regulators may impose. But disregard of natural laws faces consequences from the Supreme Regulator, whose justice in the end can be very severe, particularly for those who aim only at profit with no consideration given to the duties and demands that social responsibility imposes.