The Science of Sustainability
Completion requirements
Common sense tells us that air, water, food, and shelter are fundamental to the survival of humans and businesses. However, the pathway to healthily integrating the two remains a challenge. Read this chapter to explore the important interrelationships between the environment, society, and economics and their importance to sustainable business. What are the merits of both views of economics with limits versus no limits to growth? How do businesses and individuals threaten ecosystems and the environment? What roles can businesses play in addressing environmental challenges as well as the limitations?
2.2 Life and Climate System of Earth
Exercises
- Find an article from a business publication or website that talks about how a business considered its impact on a natural resource and included its impact on that resource as well as profitability in the action it took on a specific business operation. Describe the operation, the resource involved, and the environmental and economic outcome of the transaction. If you were CEO of that company, would you have made the same decision?
- Go to the United Nations Environment Programme's website, and read the report "21 Issues for the 21st Century." The report is available at http://www.unep.org/publications/ebooks/foresightreport/Portals/24175/pdfs/Foresight_Report-21_Issues_for_the_21st_Century.pdf. Identify an issue highlighted in the report and discuss a potential business idea that could address that issue. Discuss how the company could generate profits while at the same time addressing a contemporary sustainability issue.