Hello, my name is Alex Deebel! I grew up in Hershey, PA, and have lived there since my family moved from Washington D.C. when I was 4 years old. I am a senior majoring in Finance with a minor in International Business. I will be moving to Philadelphia, PA after I graduate this spring to peruse a career in consulting with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). My International Business minor focuses a lot on sustainability and corporate social responsibility, so I thought GEOG 030 would provide a more scientific perspective to the topics. Sustainability is something that every company should be concerned with, as consumers tend to demand better and have higher standards for the businesses in their community. I don’t consider myself to be a sustainability expert by any means, but I enjoy learning about all the innovative ways we can protect the environment while businesses are still able to make a profit.

A topic I think geography is well suited to explore is corporate sustainability. I consider this topic to be very important and time sensitive, and fits well into the category of human impact on the environment. Consumers demanding more responsible actions from corporations is a quickly growing trend around the world. Many people look immediately to major manufacturers with large power plants and harmful chemicals to change their processes and decrease their pollution. While this is a good start, we shouldn’t forget about the major businesses that are not necessarily manufacturing physical goods. The services sector makes up a larger percentage of the economy than goods, so we need to focus our attention on their processes and effects on the environment also. Globalization has caused the demand for US services to significantly increase around the world. Stricter standards of more ethical environmental protection need to be introduced quickly. Examples could include reducing the number of people and/or the amount they travel to clients, or keeping electronic copes of reports instead of printing multiple copies.