Burlington Vermont Business Sustainability
Every person, whether they be producer or consumer, or both like most of us, has a vital role to play in the economy and without everyone working together it would not be good, honest, or sustainable. These ideas of goodness, honesty, and sustainability have had many different definitions and connotations throughout history, evolving into what they are today. Given these troubling times that have forced the way most of us do business to change, Burlington has evolved with these hard times, and has adopted a new way of doing things to keep the economy going for the long run.
Burlington, Vermont businesses definitely have a mindset of sustainability in most work that they do, and in turn many consumers in the area take part in helping to be more sustainable as well. This focus on sustainability definitely helps the economy thrive, bringing attention to the businesses that are environmentally friendly. The idea of sustainable development is defined by the World Commission on Environment and Development as “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,” which sounds exactly like what Burlington business is all about. Burlington, being named the most green city in the country, definitely focuses most of its attention on becoming more sustainable for the future, following only the best business practices. If the main goal of a community is sustainability, the only thing that can be done is allow the same goal to be possible for those that will be your successor, and so on and so forth. When the dream of a sustainable community is gone, there will be no chance to save the community because it can not be sustained any longer and has already perished. The Burlington business community is going to be around for a long time, because of this drive for a sustainable community that will be passed down from generation to generation, sustaining for centuries.
The entire purpose of an economy is for it to be “good” for all of the people in it. The idea of goodness in general can have many definitions in and of itself. Philip Emeagwali, the inventor of the world’s fastest supercomputer explains that “Although the elusive definition of external “objective” goodness could be used to construct rational morals and legislation, a subjective definition of goodness could be useful to help one live a good life.” showing how even one of the world’s smartest people can not find one singular definition of goodness. Rather, Emeagwali divides goodness into two subsections, one being objective, and one being subjective. The objective side of goodness as he mentions, is rationale and can be explained using logic. The subjective part of goodness is the definition that each person gives it pertaining to their own life, and what they believe is the perfect life. This form of goodness can be thought of as “perfect goodness” like a goal everyone has for what they view as their perfect life. The subjective part of goodness is what helps legislators make laws to regulate businesses to uphold good practices, which have to be followed or else there will be legal ramifications. The Burlington business community values the idea of being “morally good” by following the laws that have been enacted pertaining to their business. This community also highly values the subjective part of goodness, setting a goal to work toward what they as an individual company believe is the “perfect business”.
Within any economy, there has to be a backbone of honesty and transparency for it to be considered just. Burlington as an economy is considered by many to reflect these ideas, and so many small business owners thrive on the fact that they follow them. Good people respect and support good businesses, and that is Burlington in a nutshell. Over the past year there have been many changes with the downtown scene in Burlington relating to business, especially with restaurants, which are not sparse in Burlington. With the crackdown on seating restrictions and limited capacity there has never been a more difficult time to own a restaurant in the area, and many businesses were, and still are, struggling because of this. To combat this, the community has really stepped up by continuing to support many of their favorite restaurants with a large amount take-out orders that offset the lost money from the limited amount of dine in options. This take-out option is obviously is not as enticing as eating in the restaurant but the people of Burlington are smart and they know that if they ever want the chance to be able to eat in the restaurant again they are going to need to continue support so one day when things go back to normal that business will still be standing. This way of doing business and economic flow is something that really has never happened before, and has brought out the true colors of the consumers and business owners in many areas and I am proud to say that Burlington as a whole has really done a great job staying honest and transparent about the situations they are in, which helps everything continue as normally as ever. Burlington businesses will recover, because of the fact that they are doing good for the community, and the community is responding in the same way, by doing good for the economy, each supporting the other to make a sustainable economic practice that will surely outlast these bad times.
