Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
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Past economic growth was responsible for substantial improvements in the qual-
ity of life for many of the world's citizens; however, this has been achieved at a
considerable cost to the natural environment.
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Solutions to the development problems identified would require action by all of
the peoples of the planet at every organizational and regional level, given the
interrelated and interdependent nature of many of the environmental, economic,
social and political challenges presented.
Without going into any great depth, what emerged from the conference, in the form
of a Declaration on Environment and Development and an Agenda for the 21st
century (popularly known as Agenda 21), was a commitment to continued economic
growth - to combat poverty and facilitate further increases in the quality of life -
and a recognition of the need to ameliorate any adverse consequences associated
with this growth. This
Green growth
strategy, therefore, calls for the decoupling of
economic growth from environmental resource utilization and degradation in order
to maintain the capacity for future development.
As key drivers behind this economic growth, the business community clearly
has a fundamental role to play in achieving a more sustainable pattern of develop-
ment. Some idea of the scale of the challenge facing the sector can be gained from a
brief examination of the key factors influencing environmental degradation. A sim-
ple formula often used by researchers to describe the drivers behind environmental
degradation is that presented in Figure 7.1 (Heaton et al, 1991; Hooper and Gibbs,
1995).
Figure 7.1
The main drivers of environmental degradation
Assuming that the world's population will at least double in size between 1980 and
2030-2040 (Meadows et al, 1992), in order to maintain environmental degradation
at its present unsustainable levels, while preserving per capita income levels, a two-
fold reduction in environmental damage per unit output will be required. Superim-
posing aspirations of 2.5-5 fold increases in world average per capita income, as
advocated in the Brundtland Report, generates a requirement for a 5-10 fold reduc-
tion in environmental damage per unit output over the next 50 to 60 years.
The feasibility of this challenge has been examined in more recent years in a
number of landmark texts. For example, Factor Four presents a series of case studies,
which demonstrate that at least fourfold increases in resource productivity can be
achieved, indicating that people could live twice as well, using half as much material
and energy (Von Weizsäcker et al, 1997). In
Natural Capitalism
, Hawken et al
(1999) address a wider agenda, but nevertheless regard 'radically increased resource
productivity' as the 'cornerstone' of attempts to move towards a more sustainable
future (Hawken et al, 1999, p10). Since the vast majority of the activity determin-
ing resource productivity is undertaken by business, it is hardly surprising that these
and other texts urge the private sector to move to the vanguard of environmental
