By: Sheena Jean Natal, Deepak Malik, and Jaspreet Kaur

What is public and private company? And why does businesses choose this type of structure to their company. A public company is owned and traded through stock exchange and shareholders can sell securities to general public. Shareholders have the rights with the assets and profits of the company. That’s why public company are most likely to be profit driven company. They also must disclose the company’s financials to the public. On the other hand, private company restricted their private members and investors to sell their shares publicly. They have the full control of their finances and not obligated to disclose their finances to general public.

Sustainability is the ultimate goal of every company whether it is public or private. Both do their best at their own level. Talking about these, the private sector provides goods and services, generates tax revenues for financing key social and economic infrastructure, and develops new and innovative solutions helping to solve development challenges. It also plays an important role in combating climate change. Promoting sustainable economic growth involving opportunities for value creation, the private sector plays an important role in development. Further, certainly, sustainable development action will also improve the business environment and markets. The donations of money can be done to the Sustainable Development Goals. For example, Patagonia reaches sustainability by doing good for the environmental issues by implementing many tricks like the Black Friday sale. They donate a lot of money to environmental causes. 

In the case of public companies to promote sustainable development, governments will need to form coherent cross-sectoral policies – concerning the environment, agriculture, energy, economy, trade, foreign affairs, and development cooperation – that will improve integrated water resources management and governance. For example, Beyond Meat. The company has seen a business boom in recent years as its meat-free burgers have entered restaurants and grocery stores. Each product offers plant-based nutrition through ingredients such as pea protein, coconut oil, and canola oil, which have a smaller environmental impact than conventionally raised meat and dairy. As we know meat accounts for nearly 60% of the greenhouse gases from food production.

Relation to business ethics:

Well, both the public and private sectors follow the norms of business ethics. It is the government that issues the guidelines irrespective of the type of company to do the business in an ethical way. Profit-seeking private companies and public companies hold an ethical, and often legal, responsibility to protect their employees, customers and local environment from potential health hazards Laws and regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency protect local residents and wildlife from the unethical dumping of pollutants that can cause fires, property damage, a toxic environment, disease, deformities, and even death. For example, in India, it is noticed that a lot of industrial waste is dumped on the grounds and a huge amount goes to rivers. The government also has guidelines to protect consumers from unethical marketing and privacy practices, such as false advertising and the misuse of personal data. Unlike most ethical business guidelines, government requirements regarding public disclosure and transparency are distinctly unique for private companies. With the adoption of these, both private and public companies can easily reach the goal of sustainability. 

In conclusion, both private and public companies play an important role to promote sustainable development. It is the duty of the Government to make the goals for sustainability development, according to the individuals and the development would not be increased by the government without the help of private and public companies. The private sector helps the government to achieve sustainable goals. “According to the world economic forum, the private sector is responsible for jobs which are available now in the world”. That means the private sector is eligible for facing new challenges. “The private sector does those investments which help the business to achieve sustainable development goals and sustainable development goals create the opportunities for any business,” Moreover, if private and public companies do work in ethical ways then they make more profit and they run their business in the long run, and they help society to keep growing by using ethical ways because doing work in ethical ways gives a positive attitude. Private and Public companies use ethical ways to attract more consumers because if consumers take an interest in them then they make more profit. 

References:

Momentum Novum. (2020, December 17). Does the private sector play a role in sustainable development? Momentum Novum. Retrieved April 7, 2022, from https://www.mnovum.com/post/does-the-private-sector-play-a-role-in-sustainable-development 

Horton, M. (2022, February 8). Why are business ethics important? Investopedia. Retrieved April 7, 2022, from https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/040815/why-are-business-ethics-important.asp#toc-benefits-of-business-ethics 

Thakur, M. (2021, July 1) Public company vs private company. EDUCBA. https://www.educba.com/public-company-vs-private-company/