Prof Scofied
Malotaibi
class_9_-_sustainability1.pptWhat is sustainability?
… and Sustainable Development
Sustainable Development
“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
Brundtland Report, Our Common Future, 1987 World Commission on Environment and Development
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- Project as it is now developed from that meeting
- Review purpose
Natural
environment
Economy
Society
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- Even as I say that, though, I want to stress that sustainability is NOT traditional environmentalism – we are beginning to understand that in a sustainable world, the environment, the economy and society will no longer be seen as competing elements, but rather complementary pieces of an integrated whole.
- That said, the overarching, or all encompassing dimension – the one that allows the possibility of the others -- is Nature, which provides the resources and processes that sustain us all day after day.
- So whenever we are talking about sustainability, we are talking about the responsibility of current generations to future generations, and we are talking about need to not just balance, but integrate all of our activities in a way that they support the continued well-being of Nature and Natural process.
What is globalization?
What are some of the ethical issues?
What Is
Globalization?
“…It enables us to reach into the world as never before and it enables the world to reach into us as never before.”
Thomas Friedman,
The Lexus and the Olive Tree
To what extent are you connected to everyone?
What Is Globalization?
To be global is incubating a mindset that is able to harmoniously unite multiple ways of thinking, belief and faith.
Ramnath Narayanswamy, 2005
Moral Complexity of Global Ethical Issues
In developing nations, are unsafe and unhealthy sweatshop jobs better than the alternatives of child prostitution and starvation?
Criticism of Corporate-led, Financial Centered Globalization
- Affect on various segments of society- widening gap between world’s rich and world’s poor
- Free trade?
- Power and politics
- Low taxes, weak regulations, vulnerable labor
- Environmental degradation
- Commercialization of local culture
- Political homogeniety
- There are four times as many billionaires and twice as many millionaires today as there were 10 years ago.
- Combined wealth of Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Carlos Slim Hulu- $177.5B
- Combined GDP of poorest 48 nations (2.5 billion people) - $78.2B
- Top 20 richest – 4 U.S., 4 India
Global spending in 2003
- Perfumes in Europe and the US - $12B
- Pet foods in Europe and US - $27B
- Cigarettes in Europe - $60B
- $9B would satisfy world’s fresh water and sanitation needs (UN Estimate)
- In 2004 - $400M in US on ring tones
Making Money and Growing Poor – Are we tracking the appropriate indicators?
Financial Assets
GDP
Net Beneficial
Output
Living Capital
Shrinking the World to 100
- 57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 Western Hemisphere, 8 Africans
- 51 female, 49 male
- 70 non-white, 30 white
- 50% wealth in hands of 6 (all U.S.)*
- 70 unable to read, substandard housing
- 50 suffering from malnutrition
- 1 with university education
- No one would own a computer
* 25% - 3 (U.S.)
Chi sem – Universal consciousness
“The fact that the population of the world has an equal right to improve their standard of living is in some ways more important than the affluent being able to continue their lifestyle.”
“The wealth of the rich is maintained through neglect of the poor.”
Dalai Lama
Sustainability and Ethics
What are the ethical issues?
What are the environmental problems?
Environmental Issues
- Sick Oceans and Coastal Communities
- Environmental Illnesses and Silent Spring (“Total Load”)
- Endangered Species/wildlife havens threatened
- Endangered ecosystems – e.g., mixed deciduous/coniferous Acadian forest
- Global Warming/Climate Change
- Air pollution/Ozone hole – diesel, auto, industrial
- Water pollution/water crisis/water borne diseases
- Toxic Pollution/nuclear waste sites/landfills
- Deforestation/clearcutting/illegal logging/forest fires
- Genetically modified farming techniques
- Growth of ‘brown’ megacities
- Environmental Injustice/Racism
- Ecoterrorism
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Coastal – development of tourism, dumping of sewage, industrial waste, effect on wetlands, oil and gas development, impact on sealife (seafood on humans)
Logging practices impact pygmies in Central Africa (20,000 – way of life)
Greenland warming – ice sheets moving faster since 1996
Diesel – 8500 premature deaths US study
Global warming – Bush admin admitted to severity (crisis) of global warming, but no real action – still want to use incentive based approach to reduce emissions (different from U.N. approach signed by Japan and EU - Kyoto)
Toxic pollution dropped 8% in 2000
Forest – repository for biological diversity – regulate climate, protect aquatic ecosystems
Clearcutting – increase in chemical and energy inputs to grow trees (not forests)
Don’t mimic nature – forest fires do not compact soil or remove source of nutrients
“For the sake of all species then, we should preserve each species” (p.724)
Agent Orange
Dad – skin cancer
Hoffman article summarizes some
Dumping at Sydney Steel Corporation (SYSCO) – 1980/day
- 735.5 pounds of phenol
- 10,447 pounds of ammonia
- 919.4 pounds of cyanide
- 2,058 pounds of thiocyanate
- 995 pounds of oil and grease
(Barlow & May, 2000, p.75)
Read All About It!
- Fish stocks face collapse ‘within our lifetime’
Experts sound alarm as worldwide study predicts seafood industry’s ruin by 2048.
- Global ecosystems under stress
The Earth’s renewable resources are being used 25% faster than the planet can renew them; humanity is no longer living off nature’s interest but drawing down its capital.
- Temperatures are rising
Time to avoid the worst risks of climate change is running out. Spending large sums of money now on reducing carbon emissions will bring dividends on a colossal scale.
- Extinction
A distinct species of plant or animal is being eradicated at the rate of one every 20 minutes, which is 1,000 times faster than naturally occurs.
- Gap between ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ is widening
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- In both of the definitions we’ve looked at, there is an assumption that our present world and way of living is unsustainable. And, as I’m sure you’ll all agree, it’s hard to pick up a paper or turn on the TV or radio, or hang out at the local restaurant these days without reading or hearing or seeing the latest evidence that something’s happening in the world.
- After centuries of taking it for granted that Nature’s resources were boundless and her capacity to absorb waste were limitless, we’re suddenly confronting a new reality.
- Interestingly when I was a young lad I remember that we (the western world) were still exploring this planet and discovering cultures that we never knew existed.
The Sustainability Challenge
Environmental?
Economic?
Social?
Cultural?
*Resources
*Ecosystem services
declining
increasing
*Global population
*Demand for:
Resources
Ecosystem services
ACSI, 2007
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- The systems view of the biosphere and human society reveals an important reality of today’s unsustainable society.
- Earth’s capacity to provide life supporting resources, such as clean air, clean water and topsoil, is declining.
- While at the same time, demands on these resources is increasing, e.g. as a function of population and our current patterns of consumption.
- You don’t have to be a world-renowned economist to recognize what will happen if present trends continue.
- So we are in a metaphoric funnel where over time there is diminishing room to manouver.
- The closing walls indicate that the problem of unsustainability is not only that we have emitted some pollutants that have caused some impacts we need to deal with on a one-off basis. The problem is that industrial society is so designed that pollutants are bound to increase in concentrations globally.
- The problem is not only that we have lost some natural forests and biodiversity, the problem is that we lose more and more natural forests, habitats and species on a global level, and will continue to do so as long as we maintain our current paradigm. Since 1945, we’ve depleted or destroyed over half of the world’s forests, and 11% of all of the Earth’s vegetative surface.
- The problem is not only that we have lost some productivity of agricultural land. The problem is that we lose more and more humus and nutrients in soils, we lose more and more biodiversity and, consequently, we need more and more fertilizers and pesticides to yield the same harvest.
- The problem is not only that we have over fished for some time, fish stocks are declining on a global level and require larger and larger fishing fleets for the same catch.
- Our natural systems that provide vital life support services are being overburdened & unable to process the waste or replenish what is being consumed.
- And what about society? Are we seeing a closing of the gap between the have’s and the have not’s or is it widening? What about our sense of trust is that strengthening or deteriorating?
- These are not simply social, economic or environmental issues these are sustainability issues.
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- To illustrate the fact that sustainability problems are integrated and holistic and cannot easily be categorized as “environmental”, consider the case of the Atlantic cod fishery. When the cod fishery collapsed, was it an:
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- Environmental issue? An economic issue? A social issue? A cultural issue?
- It was all of the above. It was a sustainability issue.
- The funnel provides an elegant, big picture answer to the question, “What is it with this sustainability stuff? Why should I be concerned?”
What Is the Root Cause of Environmental Problems?
Who Is Responsible for Solving These Problems?
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Wheel slide
Externalization of costs – market failure
What is ethical responsibility of business?
Firm impacts environment, most forms of pollution indirectly if not directly tied to business
Surrogate stakeholders
Conventional Thinking
Traditionally, we try to understand complex systems by reducing the whole and studying the individual parts.
This is called reductionist thinking.
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- This is the view that informs most of our thinking today.
- Reductionism has led to the specialization of knowledge, realized in different disciplines and professions – where we attempt to know more and more about less and less.
Ignoring Natural Capital –
An Accounting Issue
A country could exhaust its mineral resources, cut down its forests, erode its soils, pollute its aquifers, and hunt its wildlife and fisheries to extinction, but measured income would not be affected as these assets disappeared (Hinrichsen).
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GNP – primary measure of human welfare, doesn’t include environmental degradation
Germany – gross ecological product
The disconnect
- “We cannot continue consuming the world’s resources at the current rate without damaging the planet’s life support systems beyond repair” (JoAnne DiSano, Director of UN Division of SD).
- Innovation and invention have accelerated interconnectedness of a global society… Earth’s biodiversity, beauty, and safety are entirely unsustainable (Elkington, 2001).
- “You can’t have a successful company in a failed world.” (Global CEO Environics Survey 2003)
Challenge: Getting businesses to consider the true cost of waste
- Materials – obsolete inventory, cuttings
- Energy – waste heat not recovered, hot water
- Labour – cleaning up spills, material handling
- Equipment – fixed speed motors, narrow pipes
- Administration –supervising and reporting
WASTE= INEFFICIENCY
“Find waste and you’ve found something you have paid for but can’t sell – you have found inefficiency” Peter Coors, Coors Brewing co.
Challenging management assumptions
The primary/sole importance of economic responsibility
The emphasis on quantification, measurability, and fact
Self-interested, rational thought
The focus on the short-term & near
Firm-centered decision making
