General Motors has released their 2017 Sustainability Report, which outlines a series of core objectives regarding future mobility. While it addresses forthcoming product lines, it really goes beyond only producing cars. The report reflects GM’s careful examination of society’s more challenging issues and pressing concerns, adopting a series of socially responsible objectives to address said challenges.
With Teeth
When looking at these initiatives from GM, Nobel Prize winning economist Kenneth Arrow and his writings in Social Responsibility and Economic Efficiency come to mind. In my engineering studies this past semester at Wayne State University in Detroit, we read this very piece from Arrow in my Professional Ethics class. Dr. Ryan Fanselow, who taught our section, likened Arrow’s position to one that “had teeth.” During lecture, Dr. Fanselow said Arrow’s work supports the notion that corporate social responsibility is more than just good PR, and there are two forms of it: one with teeth and the other without. The “without teeth” approach is more lax, as in it would be nice if companies considered social responsibility, contrasted to the view that “has teeth” and says such obligations to society are non-negotiable.
GM’s most recent Sustainability Report has teeth.
Sustainability as it pertains to the automaker is broken down like this:
Visionary Thinking
It’s best to conceptualize this in terms ...