Management for a Small Planet

Third Edition

Jean Garner Stead, W. Edward Stead

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781906093310
• eBook ISBN: 9781351279109
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Negocios en general

When this classic text was first published in 1992, it provided a unique focus for the burgeoning concern for sustainability and sustainable organizational practices. The book's impact continues to be felt today as large multinational corporations such as Wal-Mart and GE are making substantial commitments to the "triple bottom line" of economic success, social responsibility, and environmental protection, and sustainability has become a part of curricula in business schools around the globe.

Featuring extensive new material throughout, this new edition of Management for a Small Planet is now widely available outside of North America for the first time. The book maintains the same unique vision and approach that made the original so influential. Unlike other texts on the topic, it employs a strategic, general management perspective within theoretical frameworks on how organizations can be instrumental in moving humankind toward a more sustainable world. Part I includes chapters dedicated to each dimension of sustainability: biophysical, economic, and social. Part II contains the specifics on the formulation and implementation of sustainable management practices, all grounded in the principles of organizational behavior, leadership, and business strategy. The book is an ideal text for any course concerned with environmental management and sustainable management practices.

Part I
Business Happens on a Small Planet

For most of the Industrial Revolution, business organizations have operated as if they didn't exist on planet Earth. The economic models that have driven the rise of the global economy over the past 350 years have historically been based on the assumption that humans can produce, deliver, consume, and throw away billions upon billions of products every day forever without stressing either the Harth or the people and other species that inhabit it. The primary purpose of Part I, which consists of the first four chapters, is to debunk this assumption and replace it with a more realistic, twenty-first century view of the relationships among business organizations, society, and the natural environment. In this new view, business organizations function in an economy that coevolves with the planet and its people.

1
Management Meets a Small Planet

It is important that readers understand from the beginning that we are not in any way trying to convince business managers that it is their altruistic responsibility to help "save the planet." Nothing could be further from the truth. After all, as James Lovelock (1979) clearly demonstrated in his "Gaia hypothesis," the Harth does not need saving. It can take very good care of itself. Recall that 65 million years ago, a giant comet or meteor collided with the planet somewhere off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. Pallout from the collision covered the Earth with a huge layer of ash, and it created a nuclear winter that eventually wiped out 70 percent of the planet's species including what remained of the dinosaurs (Anonymous 2002). However, despite the massive collision and resulting fallout the Earth was not destroyed and has since renewed itself many times over.

Thus, even if all of the combined powers of every corporation and every nation on the globe were focused on destroying the planet, the Earth would survive and continue to thrive. What would be lost with such mass destruction would be a human-friendly habitat—farmable land; abundant natural resources; supplies of fresh water; rich, life-sustaining oceans; protective, biodiverse forests and wetlands; and a favorable climate—that make the Earth such a nice home for humankind. There is little doubt that the Earth itself will remain and continue to cany numerous living species, probably including some humans, as it rotates on its axis once every 24 hours and around its energy-giving sun once every year. However, if humans continue to foul their own nest through incessant global production, delivery, and consumption of products and services then the water, trees, land, atmosphere, and oceans that make this planet such a nice place to live will shrink. Thus, we see no need to offer managers some overly sentimental formula for saving the planet. Rather, what we are offering managers is an approach to managing their organizations that will help them to make positive contributions to improving and preserving humankind's habitat and quality of life now and in the future.

The Earth Is a Small Planet

Lovelock (1979, 1988) has shown that the Earth humans know today is neither a product of geology nor biology alone. Rather, it is the result of coevolution in which "the evolution of the species and the evolution of their environment are tightly coupled together as a single and inseparable process" (Lovelock 1988, 12). Before the Industrial Revolution began around 1650, these coevolutionary processes had resulted in an ecological balance between plant life, animal life, and the planetary systems that support both. Up to that point global human population was small, and people employed their machines in very limited ways—using wheels for wagons and grain mills, for example. Most of the population was engaged in agriculture, and most people spent their time simply trying to survive. Life was very hard and tenuous, and population growth was slow.

Then came the Industrial Revolution with its powerful fossil-fuel energy sources, mass-production techniques, and modern transportation and communication systems. Over the past 350 years humankind moved away from older forms of society whose primary activities were hunting, raising livestock, planting, gathering, and milling to the modern industrial society of today. During that time, survival has become much easier and more secure for those who can afford it. Modern farming techniques have made it possible to raise sufficient amounts of food for humans to consume. High-speed communications and transportation have made it possible to speak and carry on face-to-face conversations with almost anyone in the world in a matter of seconds and to be on their doorsteps in a matter of hours. Modern medicine has transformed deadly illnesses of the past into minor irritations today. During this time the human species has survived and thrived on the planet, growing to 6.6 billion people in 2008.

However, the Earth isn't getting any larger. This beautiful blue-green marble is still only 25,000 miles in circumference, 75 percent water, and much of the rest uninhabitable mountain, desert, and frozen tundra. The Earth's natural resources are being depleted, and wastes arc being generated at rates unheard of in human history. Ecologically the climate is changing, tropical forests arc being cleared to make way for economic progress, water tables arc being drawn down to dangerous levels throughout the world, and soil erosion is exceeding soil replenishment rates. Like the lemmings of Arctic Norway, human breeding and consumption are outstripping existing resources.

All of this would be acceptable if it were not for the fact that the life-giving and life-supporting processes of the Earth are currently operating in a rather closed ecosystem. The more open a system is—that is, the more it can exchange energy, information, and wastes with its environment— the more renewing it can be. This is because an open system is able to import sufficient amounts of energy from its environment, and it can expel the waste products back into the environment. However, the more closed a system is, the less renewing it can be because it can neither import sufficient quantities of energy, nor can it develop sufficient capacity to dispose of its wastes. Open and closed are relative terms. As a system, the Earth has only one significant energy input from its environment— solar flow, the sun. Through photosynthesis, solar energy provides the Earth with the power to feed its species; it also provides the basic energy for water and wind cycles. The remainder of the planet's energy is tied directly to terrestrial resources such as oil, coal, wood, natural gas, and uranium. Further, the Earth must absorb the wastes generated when energy is converted into products and services consumed by human beings. These wastes are often buried in the ground, dumped in the water, or spewed into the air.

For all but the last 350 years of the 4.5 billion-year history of the Earth, these mechanisms provided a more than adequate amount of openness to meet the needs of life on the planet. It has only been during the Industrial Age that humankind has been using the Earth's resources and discharging wastes at rates faster than renewal can take place. This means that the balance the planet once enjoyed has in 350 years—a split second of eternity—essentially disappeared. As humans are now learning the hard way, this unprecedented short-term human experiment has the potential for disastrous social and ecological consequences for both present and future generations. Climate change, poverty, human health, food security, water security, gender equity, literacy, the digital divide, urbanization, suburbanization, political instability, and failing states are some of the consequences.

As these environmental and social issues make clear, the Earth is indeed a small planet, one that must support a rapidly growing number of human beings seeking the improved lifestyles promised by the Industrial Revolution. By 2050 this planet will have 9 billion people or so, and that puts humankind in somewhat of a mathematical bind. Like the lemmings, humans are doing everything possible to squeeze more and more from less and less. In the process, the Earth's natural resources are being consumed faster than they can be renewed, and social issues are growing in terms of both quantity and severity. Although it has been known for years that the results for the human species may be nothing short of disastrous if civilization fails to adjust its rates of economic activity to the evolutionary processes of nature, the experiment continues at full throttle. Many believe that humans can save themselves from these problems with new technologies; however, this promise remains unfulfilled. Real change will require new values and new ways of thinking.

Becoming Part of Something Larger

Developing these new values and new ways of thinking in business organizations begins with the understanding that making positive contributions to quality of life while earning a profit is a critical part of doing business on today's small planet Earth. In his keynote address at the 1992 Institute of Noetic Sciences convention, engineer, psychologist, author, and philanthropist Charles Garfield talked in depth about his career which has included being an engineer on the first moon landing project, a venture capitalist, and a clinical psychologist working with indigent terminal cancer patients. His clear and profound message that day was that his career had been so fulfilling because he'd had so many opportunities to contribute to something larger and more important than just himself by helping put a person on the moon, providing opportunities for budding entrepreneurs, and providing comfort to those who needed him the most. In fact, contributing to something larger and more important has long been recognized as a primary pathway to fulfilling the human spirit. That is, contributing to the greater good provides humans with a sense of joy, happiness, satisfaction, enlightenment, peacefulness, self-control, and/or creative expression.

In fact, what Garfield did for himself is something that numerous scholars have advocated for years that organizations can and should do for themselves: contribute to the greater good (Halal 1986; Handy 1989; Maslow 1962; Schumacher 1973, 1977; Senge 1990; Senge et al. 2008). They have said that organizations should focus more clearly on their roles in contributing to the quality of life in the larger community and they should create structures, processes, and outputs designed to fulfill the social and ecological as well as the economic needs of the humans whose lives they touch (employees, customers, etc.). The principles, frameworks, and practices we present in this book, which we collectively refer to as "sustainable organizational management," open up many opportunities for organizations to achieve such a higher purpose by allowing them to put economic success, social responsibility, and ecological protection in their proper perspectives.

There is definitely a rise in consciousness happening regarding the health of the planet and the people who inhabit it. Hawken (2007,12) says that environmental, social, and cultural forces are currently converging into a worldwide "movement [that] expresses the needs of the majority of people on Earth to sustain the environment, wage peace, democratize decision making and policy, rejuvenate public governance . . . and improve their lives . ." In researching his book, Hawken (2007) began with the idea that there arc at least 100,000 environmental and social justice organizations across the globe that are part of this movement, but he soon discovered that the number is closer to a million. He found these organizations to be quite diverse, focusing on a wide variety of global, regional, and local issues.

Edwards (2005) also contends that there is a movement happening. He says that we are now making a transition from the Industrial Revolution to what he calls the "sustainability revolution." He justifies his stance by pointing to the fact that the sustainability revolution is currently going through the three phases typical of all social revolutions: genesis, critical mass, and diffusion. He says that the revolution had its beginnings (its genesis) in the 1970s and 1980s, and that it is currently in the process of building the necessary critical mass and worldwide diffusion. Speth (2008) echoes both Hawken and Edwards in their assertions that there is a new consciousness arising based on concerns for the Earth and its people.

Although both Hawken (2007) and Edwards (2005) present optimistic pictures of the kinds of changes that are happening, both along with Speth (2008) agree that things have not changed yet. Hawken (2007) says that the movement is currently long on ideas but short on solutions because it lacks the financial support it needs to develop and implement the solutions. Edwards (2005) sees the sustainability revolution moving toward but not yet reaching the critical mass and diffusion levels it needs to be truly world-changing. Speth (2008) expresses some disappointment regarding the impacts that the environmental movement has had to this point, and he (along with numerous others) expresses some doubts about humankind having enough time to change before real disasters occur.

We believe that business organizations pursuing the principles and practices of sustainable organizational management are the keys to the success of this movement. Dunphy, Griffiths, and Benn (2007, 4) say, "Corporations have contributed to the problems ... and they must therefore be part of the answer." If business organizations across the globe were to universally adopt sustainable organizational management, it would infuse a huge force for change into the sustainability revolution (Senge 2007). The one million social and environmental groups working hard to move the world toward sustainability would be joined in the movement by millions of business organizations seeking ways to make social and environmental responsibility a larger part of doing business. The addition of these organizations would create the critical mass of people and organizations across the planet necessary for changing to a sustainable world. Also, it would infuse into the movement the desperately needed financial resources so critical for turning the good ideas of creative people into actions that lead to real change. That is why we say that the time is now for business organizations to expand their responsibilities and strategies beyond the economic to the social and ecological dimensions. If the assessments of Edwards (2005), Hawken (2007), Speth (2008), and others are correct then this is the ideal time for organizations to contribute to a planet that is fiscally, socially, and ecologically welcoming for all human beings now and in the future.

A New Perspective for Managers

What managers do has remained constant since the field emerged in the late 1800s and early 1900s with the works of Frederick Taylor, Henri Fayol, Max Weber, and numerous other pioneers. Managers are as responsible today as ever for establishing strategies, building organizational structures, directing and leading employees, and establishing control systems that will allow their organizations to function in effective and efficient ways. However, while their responsibilities have changed very little the environment in which managers do their jobs has changed drastically. Since the days of Taylor and his colleagues, the environment has become more turbulent, more unpredictable, and more complex with more critical factors for managers to consider when making their decisions regarding the strategies, structures, and processes of their organizations.

Among the most critical environmental factors visible on the radar screen of managers in recent years are the impacts their products and services arc having on the global community and the natural environment. Classic business education has erroneously informed managers over the years that their decisions are made in a closed economic system which functions independently of both the social and natural environments. By assuming away both society and nature, managers have been taught (at least implicitly) that the organizational decisions they make are unaffected by the physical laws of the universe, the natural processes and cycles of nature, or the values and conditions of society.

Assuming away society and the environment has led managers to believe that the economy can grow forever without any serious social and ecological consequences as insatiable consumers seek to buy more and more stuff from further and further away to satisfy their never- ending list of economic desires. Unfortunately, the data say otherwise. For example in 2005 alone, 9.3 billion tons of oil (over 1.4 tons per capita worldwide) was used to power a global economy that spewed 7.6 billion tons of carbon (almost 1.2 tons per capita) into the atmosphere (Assadourian 2007a). Annual figures like these clearly show why all of the ecosystem services that support life on Earth—the atmosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere—are stressed due to humankind's insatiable economic appetite; yet, huge numbers of people continue to live in abject poverty without having their basic needs met. According to Assadourian (2007a, 9), "The economy, like a cancer, is consuming the very systems that we need to survive."

Data like these strongly suggest that today's managers require a different perspective on the role organizations play in society and the ecosystem. Thus, managers practicing sustainable organizational management recognize that both society and nature are critical factors in managerial decision making. They understand that there arc natural limits to economic growth beyond which human quality of life on the Earth is threatened, and they recognize that the economy functions within and serves the needs of society.

Sustainability: Transcending the Manager's Divergent Dilemmas

Sustainable organizational management is designed to provide managers with ways to integrate "sustainability" into the decision-making processes at every level of their organizations. The classic definition of sustainability is "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs" (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987, 8). Sustainability is generally considered to have three interdependent, coevolutionary dimensions: the economy, the society, and the natural environment. The interactions among these three dimensions are complex, and many of these interactions lie outside the realm of traditional, business models. As such, integrating sustainability into organizational-management principles and practices will require that managers think differently—not just act differently—about the relationships among the economy, society, and the natural environment.

It is well established that humans' thoughts and actions are framed and guided by their values. Thus, managers wishing to adopt sustainable organizational management will likely need to examine their organizations' values. Values serve both as data filters, determining what information managers attend to and how they interpret it, and as decision shapers, providing the frameworks upon which final decisions arc based (Schwenk 1988). Values arc generally arranged in systems, which are complex networks of related values. At the center of these networks arc "core values," values that define the essence of the value system. Core values arc considered good in and of themselves, arc typically few in number, arc enduring, and arc difficult to change. Core values provide the overarching ideals upon which organizational ethical systems and behaviors arc based.

E.F. Schumacher (1977) believed that quantitative measures and linear logic are quite sufficient for the plethora of linear·, "convergent" problems that humankind regularly faces. He uses the modes of transportation that have developed over the centuries as examples of the power of applying quantitative analysis and rational thought to convergent problems. However, he pointed out that value-based problems are not convergent in nature; rather, they arc "divergent." Thus, unlike convergent problems, divergent problems defy solutions attained with rational linear logic. The more straight-line logic applied to such problems, the more diametrically opposed and outrageous the solutions tend to become. Finding a mea...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Part I. Business Happens on a Small Planet
• Part II. Managing on a Small Planet
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Authors