Purpose and benefits

Business ethics focuses on identifying the moral principles by which we can evaluate business organisations.
Companies often behave unethically, having a harmful effect on people or the environment.
Unethical behaviour is typically not caused by a single bad apple, but is rather the outcome of complex interactions between individuals, groups and organisations.
Ethical behaviour can be defined either as behaviour that maximises happiness and minimises harm or as behaviour that is motivated by principles of duty.
While behaving unethically may have some short-term benefit, in the long term it will harm stakeholder support.
Long-term sustainability comes from concentrating on the triple bottom line: being concerned with the social and environmental as well as the economic impact of a business.