Discuss The Essay On Corporate Sustainability Evolution.

Weak Sustainability

Discuss About The Evolution Of Corporate Sustainability Along.

and strong sustainability rotates around the issues of sustainability as both technical and ethical considerations. Weak sustainability considers that both natural and manmade capitals are essentially substitutable while the strong sustainability assumes that the natural resources can be treated as infinite stock of resources. However, it cannot be denied that the economic growth brings pollution and destruction of natural resources that have an adverse effect on the human beings as well as other species of the Earth (Mihelcic, Zimmerman, & Auer, 2014). Reduction in the destruction of natural resources needs strong governance and environmental policy by the top leaders of every country (especially from the developed country) that save our planet from future calamities. management, the fundamental debate among peoples regarding the adoption of weak sustainability or strong sustainability in the economic development to protect the natural resource and avoid environmental issues (Both long-term and short-term issues).

Weak sustainability considered that both natural and manmade capitals are essentially substitutable and there is no crucial difference the kinds of well-being it generates. The matter is the amount of input we used to generate output and which affect the adequacy level of natural resources that we should ideally maintain for our future generation (Charter & Tischner, 2017). According to weak sustainability perspective, it is assumed that the technological development provides a technical solution to the environmental problems caused by the maximum use of natural resources and excessive production of goods and services (Dedeurwaerdere, 2014).

The strong sustainability assumes that the natural resources can be treated as infinite stock of resources. In fact, numbers of researcher and economists favoured the concept of strong sustainability that states human-made capitals are not perfect substitutes, but complimentary of natural capital or resources (Pelenc, Ballet, & Dedeurwaerdere, 2015). The strong sustainability accepts the there is no replacement of natural resources and there are certain functions that are only performed by the environment and it cannot be duplicated by the man-made capital. The protagonists of strong sustainability raise several causes to show the non-substitutability of natural capital.

The man-made capital can be reversible and reproduced but the natural capital could not be reversible or reproducible and the destruction of natural capital is almost irreversible. The human being has very less knowledge about the functioning of natural systems, thus we are unaware about the adverse effect of destroying natural resources as we are doing it so fast speed (Shah, Lee, McAllister, Hunter, Nair, Whiteley, & Mills, 2015). Since the man-made capital involves natural capital for its production, instead it cannot be treated as a substitute for natural resources (Bhamra & Lofthouse, 2016).

Strong Sustainability

There are normally four types of contributions that are our environmental resources provide us: security, services, and products for good life, health and maintain a good social relation (Briassoulis, 2017). The ecosystem provides services through its natural capital playing a significant role in ensuring the well-being of human life and helps in determining the freedom of choice (Wilson & Wu, 2017). The excessive consumption of natural capital would restrict the freedom of our future generations and they will have to face heave challenges from the environment in form of polluted air, soil pollution, water pollution, flood, unexpected weather change, earthquake etc. This problem raises the issue of intergenerational justice issue (Barr, 2016).

In order to address the environmental issues, it is necessary to approach this from a systematic approach. Almost all the countries of the world are following economic system (Capitalism system) and focusing on overall development by increasing the economic growth, and it is absolutely against the ecosystem (De Mare, Granata, & Nesticò, 2015). Almost all of the systems need to reimagine about the current economic system that destroys the natural capital and dis-balance the stock of natural capital. Such a change in our ecosystem disturbing and threatening to most of the people, but instead of being prepared we will reactive and be scared (Mota, Gomes, Carvalho, & Barbosa-Povoa, 2015). The increasing population of the world is directly linked with the environmental problem. The needs of people are increasing day by day as well as the population is increasing. The political and leadership power could have the deep effect on the population to approach these changes with planned and sound scientific techniques. However, most of the leaders and politician avoid the population issues, which are the major cause of almost all the environmental issues.

 Role of society in environmental sustainability is a major concern. The people continuously destroying the natural resources and never think about their future generation. The government of every country must take strict action against those people who cut green trees, wasting water and useless consumption of electricity etc. Regarding these environmental issues, every government of the country should formulate a common rule and regulation to protect the natural resources (Hák, Janoušková, & Moldan, 2016). It has been seen that many rules and regulations are formalized by various countries but those are only working on documents. Here, the role of good governance is important which should be responsible for implementing those rules and regulations in reality. Most of the trees were cut down by the people for their development and growth, but it adversely affects our environment and which result in heavy air pollution and climate change. Here the government can take strict action against these types of people and limit the use of natural resources by strict environmental policies (Landrum, 2015). Other problems are water scarcity and loss of biodiversity, which are major parts of our environment and have significant effect to maintain the balance of our ecosystem.   

Role of Society in Environmental Sustainability

The overall development of human resource management beings needs the excessive production of manufactured capital and in turn, it results in the mass destruction of natural resources and capital adversely affect the life of human beings by dis-balance the ecosystem (Gibbs, Longhurst, & Braithwaite, 1998). This excessive use and destruction of natural capital generate a number of environmental issues and problems for human lives as well as for all the species lives on the Earth. These issues are divided into two parts: short-term issues and long-term issues.

Air, Water, and Soil Pollution are the major example of short-term environmental issues. These pollutions are closely linked with the climate change, especially air pollution. The polluted air and greenhouse gases are two major problems of the current decade. Almost entire world facing problems related to air pollution. China is a big example of where people can see horrible images of air pollution. In China, most of the cities are almost covered by the polluted smog in the winter. The other types of pollution i.e. water and soil pollution might not get the attention of media that air pollution does, but these are also horrible for the human health concern. Deforestation is another big problem because forests are the important part of the environment that helps in to establish a balanced eco-system. The trees absorb CO2 that reduces the level of CO2 in our atmosphere, otherwise, it causes worsen global warming (Wong & Zhou, 2015).

Many of the solutions to air pollution are applicable to other types of pollution as well. The major cause behind the air pollution is the smog-emissions from vehicles and factories. The government should ban these vehicles and only those vehicles on the road, which has lower-emission of pollution-causing gases (Hellweg & i Canals, 2014). To reduce the pollution it is necessary for people to switch over green energy, which is also essential for the cut back on fossil fuel emission.  

The excessive use of natural capital for the production of manufactured capital results in a heavy destruction of natural resources. The impact of destroying these natural capitals has long terms impact on our environment and ecosystem (Sorrell, 2015). The greenhouse gases continuously increase the temperature of the earth that causes the increased water level in the oceans. This causes the flood in the cities, which are situated near the seas (Hussen, 2018). The pollution level day by day increasing and it causes less availability of oxygen in the atmosphere that causes disease like cancer, tuberculosis, asthma etc. The politician and leaders of the world should take initiatives to reduce the level of toxic gas emission in the environment and ensure that the natural capital cannot be destroyed. The government should also take decisions about deforestation and make strict laws against those people who cut green trees for their personal interest. 

Short-term issues and long-term issues

Conclusion

Environmental issues and problems are the major challenges for the entire world. The number of researchers talks about the weak and strong sustainability concept but the reality is if we cannot care our nature, we will destroy the life of our future generations. Development of the world needs the excessive production of manufactured capital and it requires the too excessive use of natural resources. The mass destruction of resources always dangerous for the survival of human beings as well as all the species who live on this planet. The politicians and leaders of all the countries who can play a major part to protect our future from natural calamities like earthquake, climate change, air pollution etc. need to take corrective and precautionary measures against it.

References

Barr, S. (2016). Environment and society: Sustainability, policy and the citizen. UK: management.

Bhamra, T., & Lofthouse, V. (2016). Design for sustainability: a practical approach. UK: Routledge.

Briassoulis, H. (2017). Policy integration for complex environmental problems: the example of Mediterranean desertification. UK: Routledge.

Charter, M., & Tischner, U. (Eds.). (2017). Sustainable solutions: developing products and services for the future. UK: Routledge.

De Mare, G., Granata, M. F., & Nesticò, A. (2015). Weak and strong compensation for the prioritization of public investments: multidimensional analysis for pools. Sustainability, 7(12), 16022-16038.

Dedeurwaerdere, T. (2014). Sustainability science for strong sustainability. Cheltenham, United Kingdom: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Gibbs, DC., Longhurst, J., & Braithwaite, C. (1998). Struggling with sustainability: weak and strong interpretations of sustainable development within local authority policy. Environment and planning, 30, 1351-1365.

Hák, T., Janoušková, S., & Moldan, B. (2016). Sustainable Development Goals: A need for relevant indicators. Ecological Indicators, 60, 565-573.

Hellweg, S., & I Canals, L. M. (2014). Emerging approaches, challenges and opportunities in life cycle assessment. Science, 344(6188), 1109-1113.

Hussen, A. (2018). Principles of environmental economics and sustainability: an integrated economic and ecological approach. UK: Routledge.

Landrum, N. (2015). Evolution of corporate sustainability along the sustainability spectrum. In Poster session at Loyola University Chicago Climate Change Conference, March (Vol. 20, p. 2015).

Mihelcic, J. R., Zimmerman, J. B., & Auer, M. T. (2014). Environmental Engineering: Fundamentals, sustainability, design (Vol. 1). Hoboken, USA: John Wiley & Sons.

Mota, B., Gomes, M. I., Carvalho, A., & Barbosa-Povoa, A. P. (2015). Towards supply chain sustainability: economic, environmental and social design and planning. Journal of Cleaner Production, 105, 14-27.

Pelenc, J., Ballet, J., & Dedeurwaerdere, T. (2015). Weak Sustainability versus Strong sustainability. Retrieved from: file:///C:/Users/System04104/Downloads/2456893_1466598194_WeakSustainabilityversusStrong%20(1).pdf

Shah, A. S., Lee, K. K., McAllister, D. A., Hunter, A., Nair, H., Whiteley, W., & Mills, N. L. (2015). Short-term exposure to air pollution and stroke: systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ, 350, h1295.

Sorrell, S. (2015). Reducing energy demand: A review of issues, challenges and approaches. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 47, 74-82.

Wilson, M. C., & Wu, J. (2017). The problems of weak sustainability and associated indicators. International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology, 24(1), 44-51.

Wong, J. K. W., & Zhou, J. (2015). Enhancing environmental sustainability over building life cycles through green BIM: A review. Automation in Construction, 57, 156-165.