ABSTRACT
Ethics is very hard to define and it should have a definition understandable or relevant to more than a few, as in philosophical ethics. In the context of the built environment, professional ethics are often quoted in the form of professional codes of practice, but there is some criticism as to the effectiveness of these codes and some public suspicion that they might be self-serving. The discipline of business ethics has many overlaps, though not exclusively so. The Journal of Business Ethics 1 describes ethics simply as ‘all human action aimed at securing a good life’, putting the responsibility on us to work out our own solutions. The context of business is understood ‘to include all systems involved in the exchange of goods and services’, which is relevant also to the supplier-customer relationship in many of the transactions that take place to create and maintain the built environment. This book will also consider the broader public policy issues which also influence the quality of our lives attributable to our physical surroundings.
