MANT337 - Lecture 2
Corporate Social Responsibility
"Corporate Social Responsibility is the continuing commitment by business to contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the community and society at large." WBCSD
Brundtland definition of SD:
"Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
• Like other political terms (democracy, liberty, social justice) sustainable development is a
'contestable concept'.
Case Study: NZ & Water
- 2 out of 3 lakes/rivers are polluted in NZ. Water pollution is the top environmental problem in NZ. - There are several stakeholders interested in the building (or not building) of this dam: councilors (e.g. Alan Dick, Paul Bailey), scientists, investors, government departments, farmers, citizens of nearby towns/cities. - With so many stakeholders (a multi-stakeholder problem) it is important to understand what the stakeholders want and what their position is. - Many people take a "just wait and see" attitude towards environmental problems, which is really bad. - Likely the investors had a large influence on the decision; originally the price of water proposed was too high for farmers, so they reduced the price. This meant there was not enough return for investors and they pulled out. Likely also that the councilors had a large influence too (majority were opposed to the dam).
o Technocratic view:
sustainable development can only be made 'operational' in policy terms if a single and precise meaning can be agreed upon. And there are too many definitions. What do all the vague terms means? (E.g. 'development', 'needs')
This framework provides...
system conditions in order to be sustainable. Essentially, we cannot take more than we replenish.
There has been a tension between
the environment and the economy (i.e. jobs) and the report tried to look at how you can bring these two aspects together. Essentially, the report was looking at how development projects could take into account more than just the economy
o Political concern that
the lack of clarity of the definitions allows anything to be claimed as 'sustainable' or as 'promoting sustainable development'.
• Sustainable development is evidently not
the path of development which has been followed by the global economy over the past 50 years.
A 'contestable concept' has...
two levels of meaning
Connectivity
world's problems are interconnected and interdependent (something happening in one part of the world will impact another part of the world). E.g. climate change; actions of developed countries (producing CO2) affects developing countries. Sustainability demands an understanding of the world's problems as systemically interconnected and interdependent. A nation cannot reach its economic goals without also achieving social and environmental goals.
Ray Anderson - Ted Talk: Business Logic of Sustainability: Tomorrow's Child
• "Tomorrow's Child" is most at risk. • We have one choice with regard to Planet Earth: to hurt it or to help it.
Ray Anderson - Ted Talk: Business Logic of Sustainability: who is the major culprit of causing the decline of the biosphere?
• Business and industry is the major culprit in causing the decline of the biosphere and the only culprit big enough and pervasive enough to lead human kind out of this mess.
Ray Anderson - Ted Talk: Business Logic of Sustainability: characteristics of the industry now
• New industrial revolution: o Replace extraction with renewable. o Linear by cyclical o Fossil fuel energy by renewable energy o Wasteful by waste-free o Abusive by benign o Labour productivity by resource productivity.
Ray Anderson - Ted Talk: Business Logic of Sustainability: What has happened since Interface implemented their plan?
• Since then: Net greenhouse gas emissions down 82%. Sales increased by 2/3 and profit doubled. 90% reduction in greenhouse gas intensity relative to sales. Diverted used carpet from landfills. Now sell climate-neutral carpet (no net contribution to global climate disruption). • Goal of zero impact, zero footprint. • Costs are down not up.
Ray Anderson - Ted Talk: Business Logic of Sustainability: sustainability for his business
• Sustainability: eventually operating our petroleum-intensive company in such a way as to take from the earth only what can be renewed by the earth, naturally and rapidly and to do no harm to the biosphere. Take nothing: do no harm.
ZQ Merino Video; What aspects of sustainability do you see operating in this case?
- About the people involved in the land (intergenerational); Guardianship. - Protection and enhancement of land (not just sustainability). - Manakitanga/Kaitiakitanga. - Know about the original and integrity of the product.
Defining sustainability in Aotearoa/New Zealand
- We live in the specific context of NZ/Aotearoa and therefore, this context and culture influences sustainability in NZ. - Pragmatically we are operating within NZ and therefore, the cultural concepts (such as Kaitiakitanga) are relevant.
Worldviews
. Worldviews refer to "the constellation of beliefs, values and concepts that give shape and meaning to the world a person experiences and acts within". They usually contain sets of background assumptions about how the world works and often they are not even recognised or appreciated by their holders. Worldviews are very resistant to change and paradigm shifts take a long time to gain full acceptance. - No one worldview is right or wrong. But we should try and identify which set of assumptions is most consistent with our prescriptions for inclusive-ness, connectivity, equity, prudence and security.
What are the *key components of sustainable development*?
1. Inclusiveness 2. Connectivity 3. Equity 4. Prudence 5. Security
'In sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically increasing...
1... concentrations of substances from the earth's crust (such as fossil CO2 and heavy metals) 2... concentrations of substances produced by society (such as antibiotics and endocrine disruptors) 3... degradation by physical means (such as deforestation and draining of groundwater tables). 4. And in that society there are no structural obstacles to people's health, influence, competence, impartiality and meaning. This is focusing on limits and adding science to the definitions.
Douglas Adams quote
: 'We don't have to save the world. The world is big enough to look after itself. What we have to be concerned about is whether or not the world we live in will be capable of sustaining us in it.'
Biomimicry
Biomimicry is an approach to innovation that seeks sustainable solutions to human challenges by emulating nature's time-tested patterns and strategies. The goal is to create products, processes, and policies— new ways of living—that are well-adapted to life on earth over the long haul. The core idea is that nature has already solved many of the problems we are grappling with. Animals, plants, and microbes are the consummate engineers. After billions of years of research and development, failures are fossils, and what surrounds us is the secret to survival.
What was the predominant article we looked at?
Defining sustainability in (business) practice - Gladwin et al.
Maori focus predominantly on
Kaitiakitanga (guardianship); that we are just the guardians of the Earth and are looking after it for future generations. - Guardianship: Traditionally, Māori believe there is a deep kinship between humans and the natural world. This connection is expressed through kaitiakitanga - a way of managing the environment. Today there is growing interest in kaitiakitanga as tribes restore their environment and their culture.
Resilience
Resilience is the capacity of a system to survive, adapt, and grow in the face of unforeseen changes, even catastrophic incidents. Resilience is a common feature of complex systems, such as companies, cities, or ecosystems. These systems perpetually evolve through cycles of growth, accumulation, crisis, and renewal, and often self-organize into unexpected new configurations.
Problem with this definition?
Uses quite abstract words. We need to make the definition more concrete so it makes sense when we use it.
Three objectives of the World Commission
a) To re-examine the critical environmental and development issues and to formulate realistic proposals for dealing with them; b) To propose new forms of international cooperation on these issues that will influence policies and events in the direction of needed changes; and c) To raise the levels of understanding and commitment to action of individuals, voluntary organisations, businesses, institutes, and governments.
At a minimum, sustainability mandates no net loss of
a) ecosystem and social system health (capacities of natural and social systems to resiliently provide essential life-support services to humanity), (b) critical natural capital (i.e. stocks of irreplaceable natural assets such as biological diversity, the ozone layer and biogeochemical cycles), (c) self-organisation (i.e. capacities of living systems to carry out self-renewal, self-maintenance and self-transformation, which provide the context for all human activity), (d) carrying capacity (i.e. long-run capacities of biophysical and social systems to support physical scales of human enterprise, and (e) human freedom (i.e. civil society, with democracy and full realization of human rights in day-to-day living dependent on participation, accountability, reciprocity and transparency).
Development is unsustainable when
an enlargement of human choice excludes, disconnects, promotes inequity, reflects imprudence or raises insecurity.
However, it is not clear what the role of
business is in meeting these goals (many businesses think they do not have a role to play in helping the environment or these other goals).
• There is widespread desire to
clarify more precisely the 'meaning' of the concept.
• Individually most of these core ideas have been
expressed and supported before, but they have not previously been put together into a single phrase or concept. Each represents a substantive value or objective.
Equity
fair distribution of resources and property rights. Intra generational - currently what we have (that different groups and different countries across the world demonstrate inequity). Inter generational - across generations; future generations will have less (be less equal) than the present generation because of the actions of the present generation. Fair distribution of resources and property rights, both within and between generations. Sustainability, as a minimum, means that human activities should not shift costs onto, or appropriate the property or resource rights of, other human interests, today or tomorrow, without proper compensation.
- The notion of sustainable development will remain
fuzzy, elusive, contestable and/or ideologically controversial for some time to come.
- Essential question
how do we wish to live? What is the human quality of humankind and the natural quality of nature that is to be preserved?
o 'Caring for the Earth' definition
improving the quality of life while living within the carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems.
• There are two definitions of sustainable development mostly in use:
o Brundtland definition o 'Caring for the Earth' definition
Six core ideas of SD:
o Environment-economy integration: ensuring that economic development and environmental protection are integrated in planning and implementation. o Futurity: an explicit concern about the impact of current activity on future generations. o Environmental protection: a commitment to reducing pollution and environmental degradation and to the more efficient use of resources. o Equity: a commitment to meeting at least the basic needs of the poor of the present generation (as well as equity between generations). o Quality of life: a recognition that human well being is constituted by more than just income growth. o Participation: the recognition that sustainable development requires the political involvement of all groups or 'stakeholders' in society.
Ray Anderson - Ted Talk: Business Logic of Sustainability: characteristics of the industry as it was
o Extractive: taking raw materials from the Earth. o Linear: take-make-waste. o Powered by fossil fuels. o Wasteful: abusive and focused on labour productivity. o More carpet per man hour.
First level of meaning of SD
o First level meaning: the core ideas are fixed and cannot be changed through rational argument. These are the two widely accepted definitions above.
Second level of meaning of SD
o Second level meaning: attention needs to be focused here. Here there is a battle for the meaning of sustainable development. Contestation at this stage constitutes the political struggle over the direction of social and economic development. Disagreements over the meaning of sustainable development are not semantic disputations but are the substantive political arguments with which the term is concerned.
What are the *principal components* of the ideas that are generally shared by a majority of recently published conceptions?
o Sustainable Development (SD) is a process of achieving human development (widening or enlarging the range of people's choices) in an inclusive, connected, equitable, prudent and secure manner. o Inclusiveness implies human development over time and space. o Connectivity entails an embrace of ecological, social and economic interdependence. o Equity suggests intergenerational, intragenerational and interspecies fairness. o Prudence connotes duties of care and preventions; technologically, scientifically, and politically. o Security demands safety from chronic threats and protection from harmful disruption.
First level
o The first level is unitary but vague: it can often be expressed in a short definition. Often there will be a number of such definitions available but neither this nor their vagueness makes such concepts meaningless or useless. They still have 'core ideas'. These ideas are generally, but substantive and non-redundant. We know what the subject is when we use these terms.
Second level
o The second level of meaning is where the contest occurs. Several questions can be asked as these questions reflect alternative conceptions of the concept: differing ways in which it can be understood.
Gladwin et al. use
paradigms to show how we come to see sustainability. The paradigms can be viewed along a continuum (from technocentric to eco-centric) and essentially sustainability is a middle ground. Situating sustainability in a continuum of paradigms regarding how the natural environment is perceived.
• Institutions are now being pushed to
reappraise their policies and policy-making processes.
Inclusiveness
recognising that the different systems operate together and that separating them won't work. There are both environmental and human systems (e.g. economy). Sustainability embraces both environmental and human systems, both near and far, in both the present and the future. Sustainability also includes social and economic steps.
Sustainable Development Goals
- In 2000, several development goals were produced, with the main goal being to reduce poverty. However, many of these goals were never met. - In 2015/2016, the UN produced several more sustainable goals. These goals help to put the notion of sustainable development into practice (and help to make the definition more concrete). NZ has signed up to these goals. See Diagram
Strong Sustainability
- In this framework, everything depends on the environment; without a healthy environment, society and the economy cannot function. - Essentially, society and the economy are a subset of the environment and function within the environment (hence why the environment is so important). - The environment can cause the other things to start rupturing. - This framework can be seen as an aim; we would like the world to be this way. See Diagram
Video: 'Maori Engagement and Collaboration in Living Water
- The people are there to just look after the land. - Everything is connected (even farming and the environment). - It is important for all parties to engage and learn from each other; the council/legislators need to learn about and understand tikanga Maori and the knowledge Maori have, and in return, the Maori also learn new things from science too. - The goal is to keep the water fresh to ensure sustainability and a continuing food source.
ZQ Merino Video: Do you see this case (from the limited information you have) as sustainable?
- They are using all the right words, but without seeing the actions behind the words we can't say they are actually sustainable. - Would want to see a system of verification/measures put in place to know where things come from. How do companies get to put ZQ on their product? Is there any educational component for farmers? - What are they doing on the land while raising the sheep? E.g. chemicals etc.
What was the other framework that we looked at?
Environmental Management System: The Natural Step This is another framework based on physical science.
Security
Limits. No net loss of ecosystem and social system health, critical natural capital, self-organisation, carrying capacity and human freedom. We exist on a finite planet and need to put limits in place. Our desire for economic growth eats into the other systems. Sustainable development is generically a human-centered construct, aimed at ensuring "a safe, healthy, high quality of life for current and future generations."
Other article read
Sustainable Development as a Contested Concept - Michael Jacobs
Three different worldviews in the article
Technocentric, Eco-centric, sustain-centric
Where was the term sustainable development (SD) popularised?
The term 'sustainable development' was popularised by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) in its 1987 report entitled Our Common Future. This book is also known as the Brundtland Report, after the Chair of the Commission and former Prime Minister of Norway, Gro Harlem Brundtland.
Weak sustainability
There is an overlap between the three areas (environment, economy and society) and only in the point in the middle (where all three circles overlap) can we have sustainability. This is essentially saying that we can only have sustainability in certain limited circumstances. See Diagram
Prudence
Use wisely. keeping ecosystems and socio-economic systems resilient. Social systems must also be able to bounce back. Precaution, reversible actions, safety margins. Keeping life-supporting ecosystems and interrelated socioeconomic systems resilient, avoiding irreversibilities and keeping the scale and impact of human activities within regenerative and carrying capacities.
o Brundtland definition
development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
• Governments have now felt obliged to
do something in support of their public commitments. Government commitments to sustainable development have provided environmental pressure groups and the media with a valuable weapon (usually point out inadequacies of policies despite governments having committed to sustainable development).
The aim of the World Commission was to
find practical ways of addressing the environmental and developmental problems of the world.
Ray Anderson - Ted Talk: Business Logic of Sustainability: what view dominates our society?
• Take-make-waste industrial system dominates our civilization. But there must be another alternative.
