Final Thoughts

This blog has thus far sought to outline the three breached planetary boundaries of CO2-induced climate change, biodiversity loss and disruption of the Nitrogen and Phosphorus cycles. In doing so, it has attempted to encourage an 'industro-centric' approach to tackling them, promoting corporate responsibility and seeking the potential economic gains of going green.

In 1998 Chichilnisky and Heal stressed the need to transform valuable environmental resources into income whilst also conserving them, however their suggestion was to privatise the environment's resources (an approach discussed previously that can be considered inherently flawed), also insisting that the cost of the implementing environmental financial structures would be met by the savings made in doing so. Whilst savings can certainly be made, this seems like a somewhat rudimentary stance, and for me, there needs to be a more universal acceptance that someone, somewhere down the line needs to accept a compromise or make a sacrifice in favour of the environment.

With that in mind, we must now consider the viability of commercial responsibility - would putting the onus on businesses to instigate environmental sustainability actually work? Companies are not built on making sacrifices for other causes, they are driven by profit margins and consumer demand. So how can traditional corporate motivations be used to drive environmental change?

One option is providing fiscal incentives to businesses adopting strategies geared to tackling any of the planetary boundaries. Anton et al investigate the relationship between incentive schemes and environmental performance, their main findings are summarised below:

• Firms are increasingly adopting EMSs (Environmental Management Schemes) voluntarily, instead of regulation-driven management approaches, as policy increasingly relies on market-based incentives.
• Consumer pressures are particularly effective in increasing the comprehensiveness of EMSs where firms might otherwise be less committed.
• The more comprehensive an EMS is, the more effective it is in lowering emissions per unit output (especially in previously high-polluting firms)
• Regulatory and market-based pressures do not directly impact on toxic releases, but indirectly encourage institutional changes in the management of environmental concerns.
• Most EMSs focus only on the means (proactive efforts) for pollution control rather than the ends (actual performance improvement), they do not necessarily guarantee an improvement.
• Ultimately, public policy can play a role in inducing the preservation of toxic pollution by creating regulatory and market-based pressures that induce adoption of EMSs

So an incentives-based approach is advocated with caution, it might not signify a directly effective nor absolute solution, but it should certainly form part of a coherent framework. It is clear that firms have established the marketing potential in EMS, but this must be reinforced by technical and financial assistance and through regulatory incentives. Whilst we must always question the motivations of firms involving themselves in environmental management (because merely superficial, image-boosting engagement must be avoided), it is important to consider the driving forces of corporate decision-making, i.e. public perception and opinion. Such is the influence of this on firms, that Anton et al site one of the most effective tools for reprimanding uncooperative businesses, is to provide environmental information about them to the public and threaten their corporate image.

This final post may appear to have gone off topic somewhat, so let's bring it all together. From the outset, the aims of this blog were twofold: 1) to investigate the contribution of industry to the breaching of three planetary boundaries, and 2) to evaluate the potential of the boundaries concept for creating a framework with which to tackle global environmental change. Indeed as Frondel et al state regarding the approaches discussed in this post - "neither EMS nor any other single policy instrument appear to be catalysts for innovation and abatement activities". Therefore, a more holistic approach is required, with a framework comprising of several key systems working in accordance to achieve predefined goals. Boundaries must be improved to be made more accurate and reliable, but the concept itself provides a means by which to identify areas which require attention. Firms can be deemed responsible based on their relative contribution to each boundary and financial and technical assistance can be provided accordingly. In addition to this, there is scope for firms to make direct savings from adopting environmental measures - such as increasing the efficiency of fertiliser usage, reducing the ecological impact and the overhead cost for the procedure. In combination, legislative action appears necessary to relieve some of the burden from national governments who would otherwise be charged with enforcing and financing schemes. Certain laws can place the responsibility on industries to provide innovation and address their own environmental performance deficiencies.

Industry must evolve if anthropogenic climate change is to be effectively abated. Governments cannot fund enough renewable energy schemes to serve entire nations, individual consumers can only turn off so many coal-powered lights and the Earth's environment can only withstand so much exploitation.