Environmental Considerations and Recommendations
Company X does not currently have any environmental initiatives. A few initiatives that would benefit the organization and be socially responsible would include going paperless, turning off the computers at night, and a telecommuting option. Each one of these can help protect the environment by reducing pollution in one manner or another. These are all small changes that could have a big impact. With a company size approaching 150 employees, we can generate quite a bit of pollution just in our day to day activities without knowing we did so. Going paperless has some specifics at Company X that make it attractive. The organization is already recycling as much paper as it can within the office, but that only goes so far. If Company X could reduce the amount of paper it uses it reduce the amount of trees being cut down and the pollution put off during the recycling process. Company X fills up 4 – 26 Gallon Recycle bins per month with paper and we shred another 4 - 30 gallon bins, I am assuming the bins being shredded are also being recycled. Much of the paper Company X is using can easily be turned into online assets that require no paper. The organization has invoices coming in and it sends invoices out. It could utilize the electronic invoicing with in the CRM to handle these invoices. This would also benefit the customers, as invoices would not get lost in the mail. The employee expense reports, which average three pages per employee, could also be moved to an online system reducing roughly 450 pages or roughly 1 ream of paper being wasted each month. According to Conservatree, one ream of paper is the equivalent of 6% of a tree (Trees Into Paper). I am not sure exactly how many reams of paper a year we use but I am sure we could save a few trees over the course of a year. Another way Company X could become more “Green” is having the employees turn off their computers at night. The organization has 150 employees with each having at least one computer and most having two monitors. I have been at the organization for 2 ½ years and I do not know anyone who actually shuts their computer down at night. According to Ann Arney, at Class5 Energy, a company paying 10 cents per kilowatt-hour can save $83 per year per computer just by putting them into sleep mode (Arney). If the company goes one-step further and completely shuts them down, they can save an additional $6 per computer (Arney). If we use those numbers of $83 plus $6 giving us a total savings of $89 per year we can calculate that we are using 890-kilowatt hours of electricity to run a computer that are doing nothing for the business or anyone else. If we take those 890-kilowatt hours, we can then determine that how many pounds of CO2 we are causing or our carbon footprint. The numbers as of April 17, 2014 are showing that the best we can do is 1.22 pounds per one kilowatt hour (How much carbon dioxide is produced per kilowatthour when generating electricity with fossil fuels?, 2014). Using those numbers, we can determine that our carbon footprint from just our 150 computers sitting idle overnight is 162,870 pounds of CO2. Now that maybe small compared other things that can be offset but if every organization did that it would add up tremendously. This discussion does not even take into account the natural resources that would not be used for the creation of that energy.
An interesting topic that more and more companies are considering that Company X could do is telecommuting. In order to illustrate the impact this could make we will have to use some assumptions. The first assumption is most people are driving a 2010 model year vehicle with an average fuel economy of 22.1 miles per gallon (Turkus, 2013). The second assumption we will have to make is the average distance someone is driving which according to U.S. Census the average commute between 2006 and 2010 was 18.8 miles (Melanie A. Rapino, 2012). Using the numbers of 22.1 miles per gallon and 18.8 miles 1 way we can find that the average computer is using 8.5 gallons of fuel per week to get to and from work. If we moved 50 of the employees only 1/3 of our workforce to telecommuting we could reduce the fuel consumption due to commuting by 21,266 gallons of fuel or over 1000 barrels of crude oil saved per year. Again though it is not a huge impact in itself but it makes a difference.

Ethical Leadership Considerations Company X strives to be a great place to work with a healthy and supportive environment. There is always room to improve though. For the company to be socially responsible and have ethical leadership it is necessary to determine what makes an ethical leader and how do we find or create additional ethical leaders. Company X has some weaknesses in this area, a code of ethics has not been established and leadership is diverse when it comes to their standards. Establishing a written code of ethics is an excellent starting place for Company X. Having the written code of ethics would provide a foundation for leadership and the employees. The primary goal of ethical leadership is being able to make the good ethical decision when faced with the tough questions. The written code gives some guidelines in area that is “grey” making that decision process just a little bit easier. Company X should include in the code of ethics items around social responsibility such as going paperless as much as we can or making certain we turn off the computers at night. This will help foster that ethical and socially responsible culture within the organization. It gets the people thinking about what is good for the business and good for everyone involved. It really helps set the values of the organization and begins the development of future ethical and socially responsible leaders. Research has also shown that having a code of ethics is good for the employees moral which works right back into leadership striving to make the organization a great place to work (Josephson Institute, 2013). Once Company X has a code of ethics established, they can take this ethical leadership one-step further and establish an ethics review audit. The review audit will serve dual purposes within Company X. The audit will be used to help make sure leadership is making ethical decisions and bring to light areas that need improvement. The audit also shows the employees how committed leadership is to ethical and social responsibility within the organization. The Triple Bottom Line would play a big role in conducting the audits making sure that they are taking into account the people, the planet, and the profits. These audits would quickly reduce some of the unethical behavior that is currently occurring like the lavish dinners that organization pays for. With the leadership now living by ethical and socially responsible standards they become role models for the employees. This again helps foster that culture within the organization and helps develop employees into new ethical leaders. Now that Company X’s leadership is living by and committed to ethical leadership it reaches a state of maturity where change can really start occurring from the bottom up. Leadership is no longer in the position where they have to push ethical decision-making down from the top. Now employees can start influencing the ethical decision making from the bottom up. In order to help this process it would be beneficial to establish an Ethics Officer. This is someone that employees could go talk to about how to make handle situations that they run into. Not only would this person be their go to person for questions but this could also be the person at Company X that employees can go to that can help them promote socially responsible ideas they come up with. A great example of this would be the going paperless recommendation from the first section of this report. Employee Y could have an idea on how to improve our purchasing process to reduce paper usage and make it easier on the people doing the purchases. Currently there is no structure in place to promote this model so in most cases Employee Y sits on this idea without ever voicing it. This would give them an avenue to voice their ideas and by doing so help promote ethical and socially responsible leadership throughout the organization.

Organizational Viability Viability of the organization is a topic that every employee in the company should take the time to consider when making any decision. Company X has a lot of room for improvement on this. As discussed in the previous section the lavish dinners are a waste of financial resources. In the first section of this report, the concept of the computers not being turned off is another waste of financial resources. Also in the first section is the discussion of the telecommuting. Currently Company X does not use a Triple Bottom Line approach however; the various recommendations will be evaluated using the same bottom lines of People, Planet, and Profits. The lavish dinners are an area of great concern from a viability standpoint. The business cannot continue spending $100 per person on dinners multiple times per year in some cases once a month. If you cut out the dinners over the course of a year it is highly possible that they could hire an additional employee to help with our customer service. This use of funds would provide our clients better support, give the local community one more position, and has a direct positive result on the future of the business. Eliminating the dinners matches up well with the People and Profits section of the Triple Bottom Line. Turning the computers off at night is such a simple process yet every night we leave 150 of them running for no reason. As discussed in section one this costs the company approximately $89 per year per computer that equates out to $13,000 per year that could be saved. This is just the Profit piece of the Triple Bottom Line. If we include the Planet piece of the bottom line, this looks even better. The CO2 produced by leaving the computers on all night is 162,870 pounds, which is being produced for no reason. If we turn them off this is eliminated and it is no negative impact on the business the computers sit idle all night. It is socially irresponsible for us to continue doing this. It is not green nor is it financially responsible. Telecommuting is one of the most interesting recommendations here. This is only recommendation I made that goes across all three bottom lines. To begin we will evaluate Profit, which is the P most businesses are interested in. Telecommuting reduces expense for the business by a couple factors. These factors include a smaller office space required due to fewer people needing to be in the office. With fewer people in the office, it results in reduced energy cost in the office. One of the most over looked factors is fewer missed days of work due to not having to call in sick for fear of making everyone else sick. I do not have numbers to show how much this effects the Profit bottom line but it is a positive change. Next, we will evaluate the People bottom line for telecommuting. According to the U.S. Census the average person commutes 52 minutes per day to work (Melanie A. Rapino, 2012). This means the average commuter is spending 6.25% of their awake time during the week commuting I do not know anyone that if you told them you could give them an extra 6.25% time to their day wouldn’t want it. Looking at the People part a little more telecommuting also opens the job up to more people you could have very qualified individuals that would love to work but do not because they are a single car family or they have to take the kids to soccer at 5 pm and jobs prevent them from being home before then. Looking more at the commute there is another side benefit to not having workers commuting to and from work every day. This is where the third P, Planet, arrives. Not having an employee commute to work reduces fuel consumption on average by 8.5 gallons per week. Less fuel consumption means less pollution an overall win for the Planet!

Legal Considerations Company X has two laws that deal with frequently the laws are FERPA and COPPA.
FERPA is the Family Education Rights and Privacy it is party Federal Code Title 34 (Family Education Rights and Privacy, 1988). Having dealt with FERPA quite a bit while handling the creation of an assessment system I found that the law has some loopholes and vagueness (Family Education Rights and Privacy, 1988). COPPA the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act is a law meant to protect children under the age of 13 while on the internet from predatory practices (COPPA - Children's Online Privacy Protection Act). Both of the laws we deal with on a regular basis are designed to protection children or children and their families. After spending nearly a year writing an assessment system for teachers, principals, and students to retrieve grades from FERPA has proven to be interesting law to deal with. FEPRA has loopholes in it that make certain activities questionable along with vagueness in general. One of these points of vagueness is how do you transmit student data securely to someone. We have gone to the extent that in order for an individual to receive grades from Company X they have to have a registered account with us. All accounts are verified before they receive access to any student information. If for some reason we need to transfer grades between employees within Company X, we have to send a password protected zip file or we transfer them through a password protected Hightail transfer. We do not email grades to anyone under any circumstances because you cannot be certain it is secure. Other parts of FEPRA are not as established within Company X yet. Currently we have no rules beyond what is legally required regarding student information that is considered directory information. Title 34 Part 99 Subpart A 99.3 defines directory information as information contained in an education record of a student that would not generally be considered harmful or an invasion of privacy if disclosed. This typically includes name address, telephone listing, date and place of birth (FERPA Model Notice for Directory Information, 2011). According to title 34 Part 99 Subpart D 99.31 Company X is allowed to disclose directory information without prior consent (Family Education Rights and Privacy, 34 C.F.R. § 99, 1988). Currently you could call in and we could verify yes this person is in our system and provide some information about that person even if you have no educational reason for needing it. To be socially responsible Company X can go beyond the the legal requirements and actually make it an opt-in type system requiring prior written or online consent to release any information about an individual other than to their direct instructor, principal, or self. While writing the assessment system another law that I had to deal with daily was The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. It has proven to have many loopholes and vague descriptions in it as well. This is a challenge for us because it makes it difficult in some cases to be sure you are fully complying with the law and when you are complying what does it take to move to that next step beyond just mere compliance. According to Title 16 Part 312.5 Company X is required to obtain parental consent before collecting, using or disclosing personal information from children (Children's Online Privacy Protenction Rule, 16 C.F.R. § 312). Company X currently complies with Title 16 Part 312.5 by requiring children 13 and under to get parental approval prior joining the site and/or receiving correspondence from the organization. Company X can make a socially responsible decision and expand the requirement all students, 18 and younger, to require parental consent. This does put additional workload on us as we have to deal with the phone calls of “Why can I not just sign up like every other site out there”. The teachers also get frustrated because they want the students to sign up during class but it requires parent or legal guardian consent. The question becomes is it socially responsible to take it to that point. I believe it is. The law was put into effect to protect children. Even though it specifically states children 13 and younger there is no reason we should not afford this same protection to all children. By Company X adopting an 18 and younger policy instead of the 13 and younger it could be a first step in starting a trend causing the acceptable level to raise to 18. This in return could potentially cause the law to be changed for the greater good of all children. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act also has another section Title 16 Part 312.6 “Right of parent to review personal information provided by a child” (Children's Online Privacy Protenction Rule, 16 C.F.R. § 312). Currently Company X requires a parent to call in and provide some information to confirm who they are then they will mail the information the child has provided to the parent. Company X could have the parents create an account on the site while providing the parental consent that is linked to their child’s account. This would allow Company X to provide the necessary functionality online for the parents to review the child’s information at any time and even remove the child’s account at any time. Allowing the parents this type of functionality on the site would be the socially responsible decision because it allows the parents completely control over their child’s account and information.

Bibliography
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