History of SD

7/29/2019 History of SD

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Introduction to Sustainable

Development &

Corporate Sustainability

Tata L. Raghu Ram

[email protected]

Contact: 3196 / 9934360121


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Biography

Masters in Limnology

Wildlife Institute of India Dehra Dun

Ph.D. Biodiversity impact assessment of 2 large dams in NarmadaValley

43000 ha forest cleared / 180000 people displaced

BIA & social impact assessment

More questions than answers

National Project Coordinator: PA Network Cell IGIDR

Capacity building for introduction of environmental economics

into decision making

Capacity building in Environmental Economics Research

61 research studies / 33 Universities / 23 research institutionsand NGOs

IIMC: Taught business and environment

Fulbright Environmental Leadership Fellow, Harvard University

With XLRI since August 2006


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What is this course about?

Is there a limit for natural resources? Can society operate without natural

resources?

Is there an interrelationship between

resources? Is there an interrelationship between therich and the poor?

What is globalization?

What is sustainable development? How can we create a world with a

balance in economic activities, socialstability, and environmental quality?


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SD concerns create

Business risks as well as opportunities1. Managers should be able to take

advantage of the business

opportunities inherent in societysdemands for SD.

2. Should be able to turn risk into

opportunity


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Suggestions.

Plagiarism: ZERO tolerance Time: Be in the class, before I walk in

NO walking out walking into the class

Groups: 3 students/group

Seating arrangement: Group wise


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Sustainable Development- A

Context & Direction


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Sustainable Development

Development that meets the needsof the present generation without

compromising the ability of future

generations to meet their own needs


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Redesigning our business systems to be sustainable requires

that we first understand how nature works.

What are the root causes for industrial systems

to cause environmental degradation?

Where might these environmental trends create

a barrier or problem for our business in the

future?

Understanding these issues can contribute to creating a

strategy that avoids these problems and finds the growth

opportunity.


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An organisms survival depends on two critical functions from

its environment: provision of resources and absorption of

wastes.

Organism

Source Sink

Provide resources:

Water

Clean air

Nutrients

Absorb wastes

and by products

The same principle applies at larger scales, e.g., to a

company, industry, or economy.

Environment


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To maintain the integrity of these valuable services, we need to

understand how nature works.

No

Waste

Nature works in cycles

There is no waste - what is

unused by one species

becomes nutrients for the

next

The suns energy drives the

process:

Green celled plants using

photosynthesis create

net concentration and

structure


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In contrast, our industrial system functions primarily in a linear

fashion.

Take Make Waste

Only 6% of

material flow

ends up in

products

Source: Hawken, Lovins, Natural Capitalism

Take natural capital,

valuable material, and

process it into unusable

waste


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This industrial system, operating on an ever larger scale, is

embedded in and affecting natures cycle.


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The impact of our expanding industrial system on the

environment affects both sources and sinks.

Sources

Key resource bases are

being exploited at ratesfaster than their ability

to regenerate.

Sinks

The available land area

where nature can break

down and recycle

wastes is shrinking.

The quantity and types

of wastes created by

industrial societies

cannot be fully

absorbed and recycled

by nature.

Forests

Fisheries

Topsoil

Groundwater

Freshwater

CO2NOx

Synthetic

compounds

(CFCs, DDT)

Urban

developmentDeforestation

Desertification

Economy

Environment


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Where is a company potentially vulnerable when

considering these impacts?

SourcesSinks

Are we dependent on a

threatened or sensitivenatural resource?

What sinks are we dependent

on that may reach capacity, for

example: Global atmosphere?

Local air quality?

Human/wildlife capacity

to absorb toxic substances?

Economy

Environment


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The Means of

production

Raw material

Labour

Energy

Product

Money

Non-Product

Resource flushed through Industry


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The Means of

production

Raw material

Labour

Energy

Product

Money

Multi media waste

Air Land Water

Environmental Protection Act, 1986

Compliance costs, Laws & Regulations


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Closed loop: recycle, reuse, resource efficiency,

pollution prevention

Efficient

Means of

Production

Raw material

Labour

Energy

Product

Money

Marketable energy

Marketable feedstock

Valuable energy

Valuable feedstock

Pollution Prevention Paradigm


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Companies evolved in how they manage

environmental and social issues.

Environmental

Compliance

RiskManagement

Sustainable

Development

End-of-pipe

Limit impact of

current activities

Pollution prevention;

Management systems

Redesign to eliminate

impacts of activities

Strategic integration

Change activities and

design of industrial system


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The challenge of sustainable development arises from two major

converging trends.

Decline in resource availability andecosystem services

Impact = Population x Consumption xTechnology

Diminishing

margin for

action

Sustainability

Global Trends


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At the same time, millions of people worldwide are struggling to meettheir basic needs.

1.3 billion people live inabsolute poverty, with incomesless than $1/day (World Bank)

841 million people in developing

countries suffer from basicprotein-energy malnutrition (UNFood and AgricultureOrganization)

Nearly 1 billion people eithercannot work or are employed injobs where they cannot supporttheir family (International LaborOrganization)

11.7%

2.3%

1.9%

1.4%

RichestFifth

PoorestFifth

(UNDP, Human Development Report 1992)

82.7%

Distribution of Total World Income

Global Trends


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Why do we degrade Environment?

Environmental resources are CPRNo well defined property rights

Belongs to all while using, to no-onewhile paying

Leads to The tragedy of Commons

Results in Externalities

Impact on environment is external to

the profit & loss calculations of theeconomic agent - eg. Car users (-ve),plantations (+ve)


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Stakeholders

polluters, affected, controllers etc..

Sustainable Development

Environmental resources are to beshared across generations

Possible that future generations mayprefer natural capital over man madecapital


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1962 - Rachel Carson publishes "Silent Spring". This book brought together research on toxicology, ecology and epidemology to suggest

that agricultural pesticides were building to catastrophic levels.

This was linked to damage to animal species and to human health.

It shattered the assumption that the environment had an infinite capacity to absorbpollutants.

1968 - The Club of Rome, is established by 36 European economists and scientists. Its goal is topursue a holistic understanding of the 'world problematique'. It commissions a study on global

proportions to model and analyse the dynamic interactions between industrial production, population,

environmental damage, food consumption and natural resource usage.

1969 - Friends of the Earth forms as a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting the planet from

environmental degradation; preserving biological, cultural, and ethnic diversity; and empoweringcitizens to have an influential voice in decisions affecting the quality of their environment -- and their

lives.

1971 - Greenpeace starts up in Canada and launches an aggressive agenda to stop environmental

damage through civil protests and non-violent interference.

History of Sustainable Development


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1971 International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) is established inCanada with a mandate to seek ways to make economic progress without destroying the

environmental resource base.

1972 Club of Rome publishes "Limits to Growth" (Meadows et.al) report

Best seller in several languages.

It described the use of a computer modelWorld 3 - to study the implications ofcontinuing exponential growth in five interconnected trends of global concern:industrialisation, population growth, widespread malnutrition, depletion of non-

renewable resources and ecological damage. The report adopts a pessimistic view of development, warning of severe resourceshortages if development were to maintain its current momentum.

Extremely controversial - Northern countries criticising it for not including technologicalsolutions and Southern countries criticising it because it advocates abandonment ofeconomic development.

1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, Stockholm. Only oneEarth - led to the development of The United Nations Environment programme

(UNEP)



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1974 Rowland and Molina release seminal work on CFCs in Nature magazine. They calculated that if human use of CFC gases was to continue at an unaltered rate theozone layer would be depleted by many percent after some decades.

1983 World Commission on Environment and Development forms. The commission works for 3years to weave together a report on social, economic, cultural, and environmental issues.

1984 Worldwatch Institute publishes its first State of the World Report. The report monitors changes in the global resource base, focusing particularly on how

changes there affect the economy.

It concludes that "we are living beyond our means, largely by borrowing against the future."

1985 Antarctic ozone hole discovered by British and American scientists.

1987 World Commission on Environment and Development publish - Our CommonFuture (The Bruntland Report) in response to the request from the UN generalassembly to propose long-term environmental strategies for achieving sustainabledevelopment by the year 2000.



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1987 Montreal Protocol focused on the depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer andeliminating substances that cause this (HCFCs).

Has since been strengthened twice - London and Copenhagen.

Production of CFCs in North stopped by 1996, countries in the South (China and India)to end production by 2006.

1988 Inter-Governmental panel on Climate Change Resulted in the framework convention on climate change signed by 153 countries + thethen EU, dealing with the threat of global warming

Thought lacked firm agreements on targets, did aim to stabilise 1990 levels of CO2 andother greenhouse gases

1992 Meadows, D. B., Meadows, D. L. and Randers, J., Beyond the Limits, London:Earthscan. Using a computer model to map patterns of growth, the report concluded that

environmental collapse was inevitable.

'If the present growth trends on world population, industrialisation, pollution, foodproduction and resource depletion remain unchanged, the limits to growth on this planetwill be reached some time within the next 100 years'.



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1992United Nations Conference on Environment and Development(UNCED) held in Rio deJaneiro, Brazil The Earth Summit. 179 countries participated in this conference workingtowards reconciling the impact of human socio-economic activities on the environment.Outcomes:

Convention on biological diversity

Framework convention on climatic change

Principles of forest management Agenda 21

The Rio declaration on environment and development

1997Kyoto Protocol Worlds Governments met in Japan to negotiate a treaty to startdealing seriously with climate change to reduce emissions of serious greenhouse gases

CO2, CH4, NO, + 3 types of fluorinated gases.

1994Law of the Sea national sovereignty of off-shore waters and the nationalresponsibility for the ecosystems within these waters (re. dumping waste, & fish stocksetc.)



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1997 - Earth Summit+5 - A five year review of Earth Summit progress was made by theUnited Nations General Assembly.

The final document adopted by delegates from over 165 countries -- while takingsmall steps forward on a number of issues, including preventing climate change,forest loss and freshwater scarcity - disappointed many in that it contained few newconcrete commitments on action needed.

2001 Climate Summit, Bonn 178 countries developed a framework of how toimplement the 1997 Kyoto Protocol

2002 - Earth Summit 2002, Johannesburg, South Africa. Rio+10 - World Summit onSustainable Development-people, planet, prosperity,



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Savings is the Key to

Sustainability

d H KH

y

d M KM

y

d N KN

y+ +S

y > =

Depreciationof Human

Knowledge

Depreciationof Man-made

Capital

Depreciationof Natural

Capital

Savings aspercentage

of GNP+ +> =

Weak Sustainability requires the sum of all forms of capital tobe constant or increasing over time

Strong Sustainability requires each component to be

constant or increasing over time


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9 Ways to Achieve

Sustainability

1. Leave everything in its pristine state orreturn it to its pristine state.

2. Develop so as to not overwhelm thecarrying capacity of the system.

3. Sustainability will take care of itself as

economic growth proceeds.4. Polluter and victim can arrive at an

efficient solution by themselves.


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5. Let the markets take care of it.6. Internalize the externalities.

7. Let the national economic accounting

systems reflect defensive expenditures.8. Reinvest rents from non-renewable resources

(weak & strong sustainability).

9. Leave future generations the options or thecapacity to be as well off as we are.

Documents

History of SD