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- Stead and al
et [1] points out that four scientific theories underpinning the need for
sustainability. Listed below is an extract of the authors’ book “Sustainable
Strategic Management”.
-
- 1)
The
earth is a living system
“Living systems are irreducible wholes; their survival is threatened when their component subsystems
break down. Further, living systems are synergistic, displaying certain
properties that could never be anticipated by analyzing their component
subsystems; they are different from the sum of their parts.”
“As a living system, the earth both encompasses and
transcends the matter, plants, animals, people, societies, and organizations
that compose it. From its environment it imports sunlight, which provides the
energy for resource development and life itself. The planet’s survival depends
on the delicate interaction among the atmosphere, oceans, land, species, and
other subsystems that compose it.”
“… all of these subsystems (of earth) —individuals,
organizations, the economy, society, and the ecosystem—are complex,
morphogenetic, and interdependent; all exchange information, energy, and matter
with their environments to survive; and all are interdependent with one
another. Each subsystem is both composed
of and qualitatively different from those below it, and the demise of any of
these subsystems would gravely threaten the survival of the others. Thus,
achieving sustainability in any of these
subsystems means achieving a sustainable balance among all of them.”
2)
The
Earth’s Subsystems Coevolve (Gaia Theory)
“The earth’s living organisms
have continuously interacted with their natural environment to change and
regulate chemical, atmospheric, and climatic processes in much the same way that
a plant or animal self-regulates its internal state. These symbiotic,
coevolutionary relationships are seldom simple, generally involving a complex
choreography of both cooperation and competition. Thus, Gaia theory has clearly
established that the relationship between the earth’s biological and physical
forces is one of mutual influence. Gaia
theory also points to the fact that humankind’s environmental sensitivity need
not be altruistic. Although environmental debates are often couched in terms of
“saving the planet,” research results from Gaia theorists make it clear that
the planet can take care of itself. What is threatened via ecological
and social degradation is not the planet but humankind and its way of
life. Thus, achieving sustainability will
require balanced, complex interactions involving both cooperation and
competition among all of the planet’s subsystems, or the human condition will
suffer as a result.”
3)
Economic
activity on earth is subject to the laws
of thermodynamics
“The first law of thermodynamics,
the conservation law, says that the amount of energy released by the big bang is a constant in the universe. Energy cannot be
created nor destroyed; it can only be transformed from one state to another.
The amount of energy generated during this
transformation depends on the temperature difference between the states (hence
the term “thermodynamics”). The second law of thermodynamics says that every
time energy is transformed from one state
to another, some of its available energy to do work is lost. This process is
called “entropy.” Entropy occurs when stored energy becomes cooler, less
concentrated, or less ordered when it is
applied to do work. When energy is no
longer available to do work, when it has degraded to the point of being
useless, it becomes waste.
Whereas entropy is a certainty for the earth, there is little certainty about the path or time it
will take. These will depend on how efficiently humankind uses its available
energy and how well it responds to the changes in its environment. The earth
and its living subsystems can survive and increase in orderliness while there is sufficient power from the sun as long as
people respond correctly to signals from the environment. Global warming, smog,
cancer, water shortages, genocide, and energy crises are just a few signals
that indicate the need for changes in how humans interact with the planet. The
more serious these problems get, the more difficult they will be to deal with.
However, if people respond appropriately to these signals, the species can
survive and develop for eons to come.
The path that entropy will take is directly related to economic activity on the
planet. To this point, humankind’s economic system has survived by using
processes that rapidly transform energy and natural resources from their
low-entropy natural state to create high-entropy products, services, and
wastes. In the economic system, money and energy flow in opposite directions.
For example, the farmers’ money goes to town in exchange for the fertilizer they
need to power their crops; the manufacturers’ money goes to the utility company
in exchange for the power they need to produce their products. However, while
money stays within the economic system, energy often exists outside the system.
Sunlight, nonrenewable resources, and other sources of energy that power the
economy do not enter the economic cycle until they are purchased or converted
to fuel. Further, the wastes that occur as a result of converting energy into
economic wealth are also considered external to the system. Thus, it seems
reasonable to assume that the entropy law should be at the heart of future
economic theory and practice. If it is
not, it is virtually impossible to
effectively account for the true value of natural resources, the intrinsic
value of life, and the actual cost of pollution and overpopulation in economic
activity. Essentially, assuming that economic activity is not subject to the entropy law leads directly to the
fallacious assumption that unlimited economic expansion is forever possible. ”
4)
Economic
activity on earth is metabolic in nature
“One of the most enlightening
frameworks for understanding the impact of a high-entropy economy is industrial metabolism.[5.]
Just as living organisms have metabolic processes for transforming the energy
they import from their environment into life-maintaining processes, economies
can also be viewed as metabolic because they extract large quantities of
energyrich matter from the environment and transform it into products for
consumption. Industrial metabolism involves all the processes used to convert
resources, energy, and labor into products, services, and wastes.
Whereas the metabolic processes
necessary to maintain life in the ecosystem are balanced and self-sustaining,
metabolism in the economic system is
grossly out of balance with its environment. Resources that literally take eons
to renew (such as oil) are being used at nonrenewable rates because only a
small percentage of the resources used in economic activity remains in the
system for any length of time (basically as durable goods). Most materials are
used to produce food, fuel, and throwaway products that pass through the
economic system from extraction to production to consumption to waste very
rapidly. These wastes are often toxic and harmful to the natural environment. The
damage is done not within the economic
system per se, but in the atmosphere, water, and gene pool that have no current
economic value.
Entropy occurs at all points in the
metabolic process, including extraction, production, and consumption. However,
most of the loss comes at the point of consumption. Most foods, fuels, paper,
lubricants, solvents, fertilizers, pesticides, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and
toxic heavy metals are discarded as wastes after a single use, as are thousands
of other products. Many of these are very difficult and expensive to recycle,
so people not only use too many of them but also are not likely to use them
again.
The basic message from the
industrial metabolism framework is that
the metabolic processes in the economy need to achieve the same type of balance
that is possible in the ecosystem when it
is absent of economic activity. Just as
the ecosystem can sustain itself indefinitely by importing sunlight and using
it to power a system that operates almost totally by recycling materials,
economic systems also need to incorporate sustainable energy transformation
processes. Achieving this balance will require total materials recycling. That is, the four segments of the materials flow
cycle—the natural environment, raw materials and commodities, productive
capital, and final products—must achieve a balance via processes such as
recycling, remanufacturing, reconditioning, and so forth.”
[1]
Stead, W.E., Stead, J., G., and Starik, M.,
2004, Sustainable Strategic Management, M. E. Sharpe, Inc. © 2004
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Sustainability ABC 
