Population all around the world has increased immensely and has more than doubled in the last 50 years. While the number of people continues to increase rapidly, availability of the natural resources remain the same. This leads to a greater demand of the same resources by a larger number of individuals. The rate at which humans are continuing to use up resources and are adding waste is leading towards an unsustainable development. In this way the earth will not be able maintain a proper ecological balance and would snap under pressure leading to chaos and scarcity.
Defining Ecological Sustainability
The word sustainability is a perception which promotes the idea of equality between individuals of today and the generations of tomorrow. The main focus of ecological sustainability lies in ways that would create a proper balance between our environmental, social and economic requirements without over pressurising the earths capacity. The needs of today should be handled in such a way that the generations of tomorrow also get their share of resources and can lead a healthy and contented way of life.
The current rate of consumption of natural resource by the humans and the speed of waste production is ecologically unsustainable. A balance has to be struck to ensure that humans do not take resources in such large amounts from the earth which it cannot replenish.
There is a way of measuring how much pressure do individuals and countries put on the Earth. It is called the ecological footprint. Through an ecological footprint the impact of used resources and waste production of an individual, a business or a country can be calculated. Every individual living on the Earth has an ecological footprint. Population of urban areas usually have a greater ecological footprint as compared to people who live in rural areas. Similarly developed usually leave larger ecological footprints as compared to the developing nations. Businesses have often been blamed for a greater share of unsustainable development. To take correctional steps the corporate in todays world have designed many systems and practices through which they contribute towards sustainable growth.
Corporate sustainability
Corporate sustainability is often used as a term which is synonymous to or stands in relation with terms like corporate social responsibility and sustainable development. This concept is relatively new and has been integrated innately into the systems and practices of many businesses. Along with recognizing that growth of corporate and importance of profitability is vital for development, corporate sustainability pursues certain societal goals for the benefit of the larger population, particularly those relating to sustainable development like protection of the environment, working towards sustainable economic development and promoting social justice and equality.
Sustainability in business approaches to create values that have long lasting effects on the employees as well as the consumers by developing a “green” strategy which is aimed at maintaining the natural environment and considering each facet of business and its operations as to how it affects the cultural, social and the economic environment. Sustainability in business also aims at formulating strategies for the business which fosters prolonged existence through transparency and appropriate development through training among its employees.