Sustainability

Essentials for Business

Scott T. Young, Kanwalroop Kathy Dhanda

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781506318899
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Betriebswirtschaft
• Subtopic: Business allgemein

The first survey text of its kind to provide a comprehensive treatment of the relationship between business and sustainability, Sustainability: Essentials for Business gives students a thorough understanding of the complex interaction between the needs of society versus the ecological limits on natural resources. Part I provides readers with a foundation for developing a clear understanding of the major issues confronting our natural resources, such as wasted resources and polluted environments. Part II, Renewable Resources, discusses natural resources such as air, water, forests, soil, biodiversity, and energy to provide students with a starting point so that the later chapters on environmental challenges can be framed within an appropriate context. Part III, Stakeholder Interest and Choices, presents stakeholder perspectives such as the role of consumers, the role of corporations, and the role of governments and NGOs. This section also includes a comprehensive discussion of strategies and frameworks used to understand and implement sustainability. Part IV, Strategies for a Sustainable Future, presents chapters on reporting and measurement, carbon markets, the design of sustainable cities, and green marketing. This must-read text focuses on the three "Ps": planet, people, and profit.

Part I Sustainability—Essentials for Business

Introduction

Global forces such as the energy crisis, recession, and climactic catastrophies have resulted in the sustainability movement's growth in importance. With its origins from environmental management, the field of sustainability has emerged as a new business discipline—one that must find its way into the curriculum of business schools.

The position of the organization within the context of the natural world has caused a new awareness of our collective need for a sustainability emphasis. This book represents an introduction to the field. It will introduce the key business interactions with sustainable development while providing a basic background on environmental science.

What is Sustainability?

Sustainability is difficult to define since it is an evolving concept. Similar to other concepts like democracy and globalization, sustainability is one of the most “ubiquitous, contested and indispensable concepts of our time” (Tavanti, 2010). In a very general sense, the term sustainability means to endure. Hence, in ecology, sustainability pertains to “how biological systems remain diverse and productive over time” (Tavanti, 2010). For human beings, sustainability is about the “potential for long-term maintenance of well-being, which in turn depends on the maintenance of the natural world and natural resources” (Bromley, 2008).

There are more than 500 definitions of sustainability, and most of these pertain to the specific discipline or field—for example, sustainable community or sustainable design. Despite the varied definitions of sustainability, the concepts include these basic precepts:

• • Living on earth has environmental limits.
• • Humans have the responsibility of preventing or cleaning up pollution.
• • The economy, environment and society are interconnected and interdependent (Tavanti, 2010).

The most common definition of sustainability is one from the area of sustainable development provided by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), also known as the Brundtland Report, that states, “Sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987).

Sustainability-Related Definitions

Sustainable university: “A higher education institution, as a whole or as a part, that addresses, involves and promotes, on a regional or a global level, the minimization of environmental, economics, societal, and health negative effects in the use of their resources in order to fulfill its main functions of teaching, research, outreach & partnership, and stewardship among others as a way to helping society make the transition to sustainable life styles” (Velazquez, Munguia, Platt, & Taddei, 2006, p. 812).

Sustainable education: “Sustainable education involves active participation to create economic and social development programs and goals that will help balance and generate long standing improvements of a nation's basic quality of life standards and needs. This can help generate empowerment to the nation's citizens” (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization [UNESCO], 2002).

Sustainable city: “Sustainable urban development is improving the quality of life in a city, including ecological, cultural, political, institutional, social and economic components without leaving a burden on the future generations. A burden which is the result of a reduced natural capital and an excessive local debt. Our aim is that the flow principle, that is based on an equilibrium of material and energy and also financial input/output, plays a crucial role in all future decisions upon the development of urban areas” (Anastasiadis & Metaxas, 2010).

Sustainable community development: “Sustainable community development is the ability to make development choices which respect the relationship between the three ‘E's—economy, ecology, and equity: Economy—Economic activity should serve the common good, be self-renewing, and build local assets and self-reliance. Ecology—Human are part of nature, nature has limits, and communities are responsible for protecting and building natural assets. Equity—The opportunity for full participation in all activities, benefits, and decision-making of a society” (Mountain Association for Community Economic Development, n.d.).

Sustainable food: “Food that is healthy for consumers and animals, does not harm the environment, is humane for workers, respects animals, provides a fair wage for the farmer, and supports and enhances rural communities” (MeetGreen, n.d.).

Sustainable agriculture: “[Sustainable agriculture is] an agriculture that can evolve indefinitely toward greater human utility, greater efficiency of resource use, and a balance with the environment that is favorable both to humans and to most other species” (Harwood, 1990).

Sustainable design: “Sustainable design is the set of perceptual and analytic abilities, ecological wisdom, and practical wherewithal essential to making things that fit in a world of microbes, plants, animals, and entropy. In other words, (sustainable design) is the careful meshing of human purposes with the larger patterns and flows of the natural world, and careful study of those patterns and flows to inform human purposes” (Orr, 1992).

Sustainable society: “A sustainable society is one which satisfies its needs without diminishing the prospects of future generations” (Brown, 1981).

Sustainable value: “As a value, it refers to giving equal weight in your decisions to the future as well as the present. You might think of it as extending the Golden Rule through time, so that you do unto future generations as you would have them do unto you” (Gilman, 1991).

Sustainable processes: “A transition to sustainability involves moving from linear to cyclical processes and technologies. The only processes we can rely on indefinitely are cyclical; all linear processes must eventually come to an end” (Henrik-Robert, 2010).

Sustainability ethics: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise” (Leopold, 1948).

Sustainability in commerce: “Leave the world better than you found it, take no more than you need, try not to harm life or the environment, make amends if you do” (Hawken, 1984).

Sustainable economy: “A sustainable economy is one in which resources are not used up faster than nature renews them. It also marks a thriving climate for business that balances environmental, social, and economic vitality” (Oregon Environmental Council, 2010).

Environmental sustainability: “Sustainability means using, developing and protecting resources at a rate and in a manner that enables people to meet their current needs and also provides that future generations can meet their own needs” (Duncan, 2001).

Government sustainability: “A sustainable society needs local and central government to lead the way by consuming differently, and by planning effectively and efficiently in order to integrate sustainable practices in the services it provides to citizens, and throughout its estates and workforce” (“Public Sector Sustainability,” 1999).

More definitions of sustainability and sustainable development can be found at Sustainable Measures (2010).

History of the “Green” Movement

Modern civilization has seen a dramatic shift in technology, science, and the way we live. The world has gone from a primarily agrarian society a mere 150 years ago, to a highly mechanized, industrialized, and urbanized society.

The industrialization of society made work easier and less labor intensive, but as we progressed with technology and production, jobs shifted to cities and with it brought pollution and crime.

History reveals a pattern: We create new technologies only to discover that they lead to health complications. Then we solve the problem with science. In the 19th century, cities and towns relied on horses for transporting and shipping. The automobile was designed to eliminate these problems.

We have a tendency to find out much too late that modern living is also killing us—for example, asbestos, chemicals, the food we eat, air pollution. We drove for many years before the smog accumulated through exhaust fumes was identified as harmful to your lungs. Meanwhile the tobacco and automobile industries became two of our biggest economies, with a legal force behind them to fight any threat.

The sustainability movement is not at all new, but it grows increasingly important with the cost and scarcity of fuel for energy. Its prominence today is caused by a perfect storm:

• • Increased energy costs
• • A number of calamities—some caused by man, others by nature
• • The increasing attention paid to the green movement
• • Economic recession

History of Pollution

Throughout history, raw sewage and industrial waste have been dumped into our rivers and streams, leading to outbreaks of cholera. The Clean Water Act of 1972 (CWA) prohibited discharge into waterways, helping improve the quality of our drinking water.

The use of coal to heat caused deadly smog to envelop London in 1880, killing 3,000 people, and again in 1952, killing 4,000 people. This led to the passing of the Clean Air Act of 1956. Similarly, a deadly fog killed 1,063 in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1909. The death toll goes way beyond the immediate counts, due to the daily breathing of toxic materials. A grandmother of one of the authors of this book, a nonsmoker, died of lung cancer in 1946, most likely caused by her living and breathing the air in Glasgow, Scotland.

In 1977, rainfall in a community in New York resulted in corroding underground containers full of chemical waste. The resultant pollution leaked its way into homes and schools, leading to cancer, birth defects, and miscarriages. The Love Canal scandal exposed the damage caused by toxic waste and the care that must be taken in its disposal.

History is full of catastrophic events that cause immediate changes in process once the damage has already been done. In 1984, a Union Carbide plant in India released chemical gases into the air that killed thousands of people. In 1989, the Exxon Valdez tanker spilled oil off the coast of Alaska, decimating the ecostructure of the area. Twenty-four years later, an even costlier spill by British Petroleum (BP) wreaked havoc with the Gulf Coast. In 1986, a nuclear reactor in the Ukraine ex...