Industrial Environmental Performance Metrics Challenges and Opportunities (1999) / Chapter Skim
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11 The Sustainable Enterprise Paradigm Shift
11 The Sustainable Enterprise Paradigm Shift
Pages 183-198
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From page 183... ...
It involves either "improving the productivity of energy and material inputs to reduce resource consumption and cut pollution per unit of output in essence, making more and better products from the same amount of raw materials with less waste and fewer adverse environmental impacts" (World Resources Institute, 1998) or using fewer raw materials or different, more environmentally benign materials.
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From page 184... ...
Presently, environmental decline is especially pronounced in the Asia-Pacific region, Latin America, the Caribbean, West Asia, and Africa (United Nations Environment Programme, 1997~. Environmental trend data suggest a continued deterioration in the health of natural systems of these regions, taking the form of declining renewable resources, largescale alterations of global biogeochemical cycles, and a threatened biological base (Brown et al., 1998; World Resources Institute, 1998~.
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From page 185... ...
; and social inequality and growing resource scarcity (i.e., fisheries, forests, arable land, fuel wood, fresh water) , which are increasingly combining to feed ethnic strife, political fragmentation, economic disruption, forced migration, and violent conflict (Homer-Dixon et al., 1993; Myers, 1993)
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From page 186... ...
Long-range analysis of trends in the efficient use of energy, materials, and land shows that it may be possible to decarbonize the global energy system and drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions; that the material intensity of the economy can be reduced by leaner manufacturing, better product design, and smarter use of materials; and that it may be possible to increase the area of protected lands by reducing agricultural needs through the use of advanced farming techniques (Ausubel and Langford, 1997~. In the short term there are opportunities to disseminate "best practices" in environmental management as well as environmentally friendly products and services.
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From page 187... ...
; to improve the quality of human life while living within the carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems (World Conservation Union, United Nations Environment Programme, and Worldwide Fund for Nature, 1991) ; that sustainability is a relationship between dynamic human economic systems and larger dynamic, but normally slowerchanging, ecological systems, in which (1)
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From page 188... ...
Metrics to assess social performance are embryonic and will require a great deal of development, improvement, and acceptance if they are to be truly integrated into business strategies and decision making. Currently, there are no sustainability performance evaluations that attempt to integrate economic, environmental, and social measures.
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From page 189... ...
This life support service model of sustainable development has been used to develop "working principles" for potential application at the level of the firm. For example, the ecologically sustainable enterprise, as envisioned by Gladwin and Krause (1996)
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From page 190... ...
190 INDUSTRIAL ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE METRICS Natural System Services Atmospheric composition Climate moderation Temperature regulation Fresh-water supply Flood control Soil generation Soil preservation Nutrient recycling Species maintenance Waste assimilation Pest control Disease control Crop pollination Food supply (sea and land) Material supply Genetic library Landscape scenery Recreational sites Protecting, Maintaining, and Enhancin _ the Integrity, Resilience, and Productivity of Life Support Services Social System Services Citizen education Safety protection Disease prevention Welfare provision Goods/services exchange Community goodwill Savings/credit supply Legal due process Social legitimation Rights observance Liberties protection Infrastructure supply Resource access Innovation incentives Investment incentives Opportunity equalization Liability limitation Reciprocity norms FIGURE 11-2 Sustainability as life support maintenance and enhancement.
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From page 191... ...
Toward Metrics of Sustainable Industrial Performance Moving beyond pollution prevention and ecoefficiency to the sustainable development paradigm would require a profound transformation in the measurements and analysis used to gauge industrial performance. The set of transformations charted in Figure 11-3 involve large uncertainty, extraordinary detail, and dynamic complexity (i.e., nonlinear interactions between system components; significant time and space lags; complex feedback loops; unknown thresholds and irreversibilities; and multiple scales, resolutions, and rates of change)
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From page 192... ...
To determine, for example, whether the emissions from a factory are ecologically sustainable, one would first need to know, or at least be able to make reasonable estimates of, the conditions and assimilative capacities of all the ecosystems receiving those emissions, the character of all other disturbances flowing into those systems, the synergistic interactions among all the resulting stresses and biotic processes, and so on. This implies that impact assessments of a given product, process, or facility would need to be done with greater consideration given to these complexities and at broader temporal and spatial scales than those traditionally conducted by an individual firm.
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From page 193... ...
Sustainability implies moving from metrics that measure environmental friendliness, consciousness, or greening to absolute benchmarks or "zones" of performance as determined by ecosystem and sociosystem health, the resilience and dynamic adaptability of life support systems, or social and ecological carrying capacities. The underlying calculus of ecoefficiency metrics is the efficient allocation of resources based on utility maximization according to market and price signals.
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From page 194... ...
The sustainability analyst would need to simultaneously consider the consequences of industrial actions for ecological capital (i.e., renewable, cyclical, biological resources, processes, functions and services) ; material capital (i.e., nonrenewable or geological resources such as mineral ores, fossil fuels, fossil groundwater)
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From page 195... ...
The sustainability analyst is thus forced into the "morally thick" realm of social justice, appraising whether industrial activities shift costs or risks onto other human interests, today or tomorrow, without proper compensation. The Intellectual Journey Ahead Moving from traditional notions of industrial environmental performance toward models and metrics of sustainable enterprise represents a long and difficult yet exciting and potentially rewarding journey.
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From page 196... ...
1998. Sustainability Rulers: Measuring Corporate Environmental and Social Performance.
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From page 197... ...
, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) , and Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF)
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