Climate Change

1
Climate Change

• Stern Review (2006)
• Scientific evidence is now overwhelming climate
  change present very serious global risks and it
  demands an urgent global reponse
• Scientific evidence points to increasing risks of
  serious, irreversible impacts from climate change
  associated with business-as-usual paths for
  emissions
• Climate change threatens the basic elements of
  life for people around the world access to
  water, food production, health, and use of land
  and the environment
• The damages from climate change will accelerate
  as the world get warmer
• The impacts of climate change are not evenly
  distributed the poorest countries and people
  will suffer earliest and most.
• Climate change may initially have small positive
  effects for a few developed countries, but the
  much higher temperature increases are likely to
  be very damaging
• (Blowfield and Murray 2008pp. 238)

Source http//www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/pa
ges/glaciers.html
2
The tragedy of the commons

• There was once a village on the shore of a great
  ocean. Its people made a good living from the
  rich fishing grounds that lay offshore, the
  bounty of which seemed inexhaustible. Some of the
  cleverest fishermen began to experiment with new
  ways to catch more fish, borrowing money to buy
  bigger and better equipped boats. Since it was
  hard to argue with success, other copied their
  new techniques. Soon fish began to be hard to
  find, and their average size began to decline.
  Eventually, the fishery collapsed, bringing
  economic calamity to the village. A wise elder
  commented, You seen, the fish were not free
  after all. It was our folly to act as if they
  were.
• (cited in Lawrence Weber 2008)

3
Sustainable Development

• Sustainable development is development that
  meets the needs of the present without
  compromising the ability of future generations to
  meet their own needs.
• (World Commission on Environment and Development
  Brundtland Commission 1987)
• Intra-generational justice/equity fair
  distributions across the present population of
  the world, in terms of quality of life, measured,
  perhaps, by comparative standards of living or
  benefits from sharing the resources of the planet
  (Blowfield Murray 2008pp. 235)
• Inter-generational justice/equity bring in
  views, preferences and interests of future
  generations (Fisher Lovell 2009 344)
• see Rawls veil of ignorance

4
Sustainability

• Sustainability refers to the long-term
  maintenance of systems according to
  environmental, economic and social
  considerations. (Crane Matten 200723)
• Business can only be sustainable if the wider
  social, economic and environmental systems in
  which they operate are sustainable
• supports systems thinking

5
Corporate Responsibility

• Hart (1997) Beyond Greening
• Pollution prevention
• environmental management systems such as ISO
  14000
• Product stewardship
• minimising environmental impact of product
• Clean technology
• Sustainability vision

6
Industrial Ecosystems - Kalundborg industrial
ecosystem
Fly ash limestone gunk
ASNAES POWER PLANT
GYPROC WALLBOARD
Low-grade cement
Fly ash
Used steam
CEMENT COMPANY
Surplus heat
High sulphur gas
NOVO NORDISK ENZYME PLANT
CITY OF KALUNDBORG
Chemicals
Waste as fertilizer
CHEMICAL PLANT
Steam for heat
Wastewater for cooling
Used steam
FARMS
STATOIL REFINERY
FISHERY
Heavy oil
Source Shrivastava 1995, cited in Crane Matten
2007pp. 395