Sustainability, Ethical Responsibility, and Environmental Impacts of the Aviation Industry

Sustainability, Ethical Responsibility, and Environmental Impacts of the Aviation

Sustainability, Ethical Responsibility, and Environmental Impacts of the Aviation Industry.

The world we live in does a pretty good job at self-destructing and repairing itself. A number of technological creations and the rise of the industrial era accelerated the consumption of materials and energy at a concerning rate. Businesses have conducted operations with little regard for the natural environment causing environmental consequences that if ignored will have irreversible negative results for our planet. The aviation industry is no exception and since its deregulation it has continuously grown parallel to its negative effects to the environment. “The 1978 Aviation Deregulation Act brought an end to all regulation of the domestic aviation market in the US” (Gossling & Upham, 2009). The deregulation of the US civil aviation influenced other markets such as the European and Southeast Asian markets. Furthermore, it allowed the qualities of a free market to take place lowering fare prices, causing the demand for air travel to catapult to unprecedented heights. These business growth brought profitability while simultaneously giving rise to a number of ethical issues in the aviation industry.

Although the aviation industry is showing great progress towards social responsibility, it will take the industry’s executive echelon, environmental groups, and society all together to act in concert in order to achieve sustainability, set realistic standards, and bring about constructive changes. The main purpose of this paper is to utilize a number of ethical concepts and data to study the industry’s effects on the natural environment and the actions taken by major airlines such as Delta and American Airlines. Climate change, air pollution, energy conservation, aviation related emissions, and ozone depletion have been the subject of...