Social Responsibilities Of Organizations

Reflect on the tutorial discussion about the games. What did you learn about the social responsibilities of organizations and environmental sustainability and organisation?

It has been only in the past seventeen years that the Olympic Games had strived for the protection of the environment. (“Management Dynamics by Agrawal, Balnave, Mahony”) Major events like the Olympic Games can have a negative impact on the environment; however the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games made a strong commitment to the environment and were considered as one of the “greenest games” ever. The Sydney Olympic Games has major social responsibility to its stakeholders and also had sustainability commitments to its organisation. Social responsibility refers to doing the right thing for society beyond what is expected of the law. Environmental sustainability means that long-term maintenance is required for the ecosystem to ensure that the impact on the environment is positive and beneficial to the future generations. (“Management Dynamics by Agrawal, Balnave, Mahony”)

Organisations can be for profit, not for profit, totally government run, government subsidized or non-government organisations. Many different organisations were engaged in the games for example. Many non for profit organisations such as the Greenpeace and Green games watch 2000 were made a “watchdog” of the games. For profit organisations were also involved for example builders and consultants. Consultants included engineers and architects. Government run organisations included the inspecting bodies such as the local council and state government. Another type of organisation that engaged in the games was non government organisations for example suppliers such as Sydney Waters and Energy Australia. With the examples given it is clear that many different types of organisations were involved in order for the green games to be successful. These organisations had social responsibilities to the environment and sustainability commitments.

Some examples of the social responsibilities that the organisations had are major environmental issues of global warming, air and water pollution, protection of the environment and waste minimization. The Olympic Games fulfilled its environmental commitments by using solar energy in the athlete’s village and Olympics venues, by expanding the train line and airport links, this encouraged people to take public transport with helped reduce air pollution. There was also treatment of 400 tones of toxic waste and water recycling systems for example recycled water used for toilet flushing at venues throughout Sydney Olympic Park reduced the consumption of drinking water by 50 percent. (www.gamesinfo.com.au, 2001)

Other examples of the social responsibilities were temporary housing in the athlete village. The Department of Fair Trading for example, undertook measures to monitor and detect any Olympic-related impact on the tenancy market in the lead up to the Games. The Department of Housing and OCA developed a plan to ensure that homeless people who sleep in public places continued to have access to essential support services and were treated sensitively and appropriately during the Games.

Dealing with such matters involved productive coalitions between government agencies, welfare groups, Olympic organisers and the police, and were in themselves valuable legacies of the process. (www.gamesinfo.com.au, 2001)

Lastly technology was used to avoid ozone destructive chemicals at Olympic venues.

The staging of the Olympic Games provided great benefits to the people of New South Wales in terms of training and employment opportunities. In particular, the tourism, hospitality, building and construction, retail, transport and property services