Business and the Environment
Sustainability: Business and the Environment
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Explain the concept of earth jurisprudence
- Evaluate the claim that sustainability benefits both business and the environment
- Identify and describe initiatives that attempt to regulate pollution or encourage businesses to adopt clean energy sources
Public concern for the natural environment is a relatively new phenomenon, dating from the 1960s and Rachel Carson's seminal book Silent Spring, published in 1962. In 1992, Cormac Cullinan's Wild Law proposed "earth justice" or "earth jurisprudence,"
a concept underlying the law's ability to protect the environment and effectively regulate businesses that pollute. The preoccupation with business success through investment in corporations, in contrast, is a much older concept, dating back at least
to the creation of the British East India Company in 1600, and the widespread emergence of the corporation in Europe in the 1700s. If you were a business owner, would you be willing to spend company resources on environmental issues, even if not required
to do so by law? If so, would you be able to justify your actions to shareholders and investment analysts as smart business decisions?
Source: Rice University, https://opentextbc.ca/businessethicsopenstax/chapter/sustainability-business-and-the-environment/
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