ODIRILWE SELOMANE AND GILLIAN HAMILTON: Business would be wise to heed planetary boundaries

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Untwisting the sustainability challenge with Koeksister Economics

Today’s companies are seeking solutions to improve their environmental, social & governance performance. However, the seeds of these solutions have been planted beyond company walls, in the communities in which they operate.

Even though the cartoon deftly captured how terribly bad humans are at dealing with multiple threats, we were struck by a dark irony: that climate change was not the only threat relegated to the sidelines by the pandemic. The other planetary boundaries that have been exceeded are environmental nitrogen loading, which outstrips levels recommended by the scientific literature by 78%; registered freshwater consumption, which exceeds the available supply by 37%; and greenhouse gas emissions , which exceeds Climate Action Tracker’s allocated “fair share” for the country by 11%.

What does all this talk of development goals and planetary boundaries have to do with business? It’s simple really: each and every business in SA is able to ply its trade only because it can obtain the necessary raw materials from the country’s natural resources ; because its employees are not routinely struck ill by polluted water and air; and because investors can be reasonably certain that their investments will not be destroyed by a category five hurricane or social unrest the next day.

 

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