Blog 4: Lecture 19 - How to Have Social Impact ​

Post-Lecture Thoughts and Reflection ​

Once again, I would like to thank Lyel for coming to class on Monday and sharing his insights/perspectives with us!

The idea of social impact is really important, especially when a company makes a product that impacts a tremendous amount of people. Companies, the products they produce, the methods at which they go about manufacturing/developing these products, as well how they go about their daily business impacts a tremendous amount of stakeholders, and I believe that it is important to consider and maximize stakeholders' utility instead of solely shareholders' utility (and needless to say, and as we discussed in class, shareholders are stakeholders too).

As Lyel noted during the lecture, supply chains are a quintessential component of our modern global economy, and the breadth/scope of the supply chain impacts a tremendous amount of people. Accurately considering, measuring, and evaluating this impact (and potentially basing design decisions based off of these impacts) can help companies ensure that their products/decisions have a positive impact.

I think the idea of socially responsible and impactful companies is very important. Sometimes, it's not very difficult to modify a product to use a different material that is more responsibly sourced, or to avoid a certain supplier which only drives costs up a marginal amount. As Lyel pointed out during the lecture, B corporations and other companies that make an effort to ensure that they are socially responsible can still be very profitable. Granted, it is very difficult for huge companies with very vast supply chains to ensure that all of their vendors as socially responsible, but any effort that they can make would be hugely impactful.