Sustainability Is On Everybody 's Minds

The annual hunt of harp seals (Pagophilus groenlandicus) in Atlantic Canada is contested at the start of nearly every season, with celebrities, politicians, and the public actively weighing in on the matter. Within all of the dialogue and debate, there can be a lot of bias and misrepresentation of facts advocating for or against the seal hunt. Thus, the true sustainable aspects of the industry are drowned out and lost due to the sheer amount of controversy surrounding the issue. Sustainability entails meeting the needs of today without sacrificing the needs of the future (“Sustainable Development” 1). The concept of sustainable resource development involves support pillars that represent economics, society, and the environment. Seal

Sustainability has become a relevant word in the vocabulary of many organizations, governments and individuals. More than just a word, sustainability relates to the ability of institutions to continue executing their functions without forgetting the effects on the environment and taking into consideration the fair treatment of their employees and the human rights of society. Although sustainability is a widely used term by many individuals, the understanding of this term is not as clear as its popularity. When discussing the ideas of sustainability, most people automatically associate the term with the human impact on the environment. Others relate sustainability to the ability to cut costs and inefficiencies within the organization. A few individuals believe that sustainability is a matter of human rights. So what exactly is sustainability?

One of the distinct features of any common resource is that it is a “non-excludable good1”, meaning no one can be prevented from using what is available. As discussed, the consequence of this scenario is that it will produce a socially inefficient outcome. There are differing theories on how to achieve an economically feasible marginal cost and marginal social benefit equilibrium. The difficulty, of course, is to determine what the socially optimal supply level for Bluefin Tuna should be in relation to fish stock restoration and future sustainability as well as empowering the global community to act in unison. The discussion here

Sustainability from a strategic business perspective is the potential for the long-term well-being of the natural environment, including all biological entities, as mutually beneficial interactions among nature and individuals, organizations, and business strategies. (O.C Ferrell, Fraedrich, Ferrell, 2015). Business sustainably is often defined as managing the triple bottom line – a process by which companies manage their financial, social and environmental risks, obligations and opportunities. These three impacts are sometimes referred to as profits, people and planet. (Business sustainability definition from financial times lexicon, no date). This essay will discuss the idea of sustainability being an important element within a businesses and its core strategies and the importance of it within different businesses. Secondly, this study will look at how different stakeholders are affected and influenced by sustainability as this could be seen as a catalyst to improving the environment as a whole and. Then this study will look at how businesses not focusing

The environment is among some of the top issues to be looked upon by the human population in the world today. Sustainability is a word often times used when speaking of this subject. This is a concept represented in the articles “Sustainability” by Christian R. Weisser and “Attention Whole Foods Shoppers” by Robert Paarlberg. Each author addresses the issue in different ways; one giving examples of this issue and the other clearly defining it. Each author is writing to spread awareness of this issue. As overlapping topics, each article has similarities and differences to the other.

The film speaks about how the local livelihoods are connected with the sea and how they have made a revolutionary return to traditional hand line fishing to drive up the fish market price with the 20-year moratorium that had been placed on cod due to overfishing with industrial fishing practices for the previous 50 years. Based on research by people such as Leonard Milich, he too writes about the collapse of the Northwest Atlantic cod fishery as shown in the film (Milich 2010). This research also talks about the strategies that were put in place for the management of fisheries for the locals who depend on the healthy stocks as well as the market values of the fish (Milich

Given all we’ve discussed about the ecologic condition of the planet now and if current consumption patterns continue tell me your views on whether you think Americans as a whole are moving toward a sustainable society. If not what are your views on one or two changes to these patterns that could improve potential for achieving a sustainable society.

In the 1600s, due to the abundance of cod fish in the North Atlantic waters, commercial cod fisheries became one of the foundations of the New England economy (Seelye& Bidgood, 2013). However, as people increasingly relied on fisheries to make lucrative profits, the cod fish population plummeted and the whole business reached its first collapse in the mid 1990s according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA 2014). Since then, government regulations and international agreements have gradually emerged to preserve the Atlantic cod fish population. Even though the cod fish population did seem to rebound slightly, it could never catch up with people’s monstrous appetite for

According to a study done by Living Planet Report in 2015, 29% of the world’s fishing stocks are considered overfished and an additional 61% is fully exploited with no possibility to produce more fish. Our environment is currently afflicted by a number of different problems, one of which is overfishing. Overfishing is defined by FishOnline as, “Fishing with a sufficiently high intensity to reduce the breeding stock levels to such an extent that they will no longer support a sufficient quantity of fish for sport or commercial harvest.” The overfishing situation is being exacerbated by non-sustainable and destructive fishing practices and unfair fisheries partnership agreements; while there are currently attempts being made at fixing these problems and their effects on overfishing, nothing has been extremely effective.

Delgado, C. L., Wada, N., Rosegrant, M. W., Meijer, S., & Ahmed, M. (2003). Fish to 2020: supply and demand in changing global markets. Retrieved from http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/pubs/pubs/books/fish2020/oc44.pdf

In the book Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the World, Theodore C. Bestor explores the significance of fish market, Tsukiji, in making of Japanese society, economy, politics, and culture. In early chapters, he discusses the history of the market as well as its significance in Japanese society since its emergence and explains in details how the market is organized and how it works. In chapter four, he starts to discuss Japanese food culture that is closely associated with Tsukiji. He argues that food culture has been changing in Japan due to the advancement of technology; however, it has worked favorably to Japanese fishing industry and has enforced the food culture that put great emphasis on consumption of fish (Bestor, 150).

Many breeds of fish are being captured at a faster rate than they can reproduce. Some species such as orange roughy fishing became popular in New Zealand in the 1970’s. Over time, it spread to many countries around the world. In the last 20 years, there has been a decline in catch up to 75%. It is no longer common to see in grocery stores as well as restaurants. The amounts of fish that are captured and distributed around the world are alarming opposed to the rate the fish can multiply.

In order for there to be plenty of fish in the years ahead, fisheries will have to develop sustainable fisheries and some will have to close. Due to the constant increase in the human population, the oceans have been overfished with a resulting decline of fish crucial to the economy and communities of the world. The control of the world's fisheries is a controversial subject, as they cannot produce enough to satisfy the demand, especially when there aren't enough fish left to breed in healthy ecosystems. Scientists are often in the role of fisheries managers and must regulate the amount of fishing in the oceans, a position not popular with those who have to make a living fishing ever decreasing populations.

The average human being, multiplied by the Earth’s population, would need to have about four Earths just to supply enough resources (Footprint Calculator). Thinking of people around the world, the people of the United States seem to take a lot of their life for granted. Many people when they hear of the polar ice caps melting wave it off and either don’t believe in it or believe it is not their problem. Well it is their problem and if we don’t jump on the issue soon we will not be giving our future generations much of a life. This brings me to the idea of sustainability. A simple description of the word means that what we have today we will also have tomorrow, next week, next year, or even the next lifetime. Although that is the modest version sustainability is much, much more than just that. Sustainability is derived from three main parts of the human life: environmental, social, and economic. Each being just as important as the other. Environmental is the most well-known aspect of sustainability in human life, but both social and economic take their place in keeping this Earth sustainable.

There are three pillars that make up overall sustainability: social, economic, and environmental sustainability. Social sustainability focuses on all human needs being met and a society functioning properly indefinitely. Economic sustainability is achieving a certain level of economic success indefinitely. It also involves having an extremely low percent of people living below the poverty line, which relates to social sustainability. Environmental sustainability is described as, “the rates of renewable resource harvest, pollution creation, and non-renewable resource depletion that can be continued indefinitely.” ("Finding and Resolving the Root Causes of the Sustainability Problem", 2014) Achieving environmental sustainability will positively affect the social and economic aspects. These three categories are directly related to each other, and to truly reach complete sustainability each of the group’s needs must be met. There are many ways for individuals, groups, companies, and societies to help make a difference in reaching this goal. Environmental issues are currently very prominent in the US and other countries. There are countless activists and researchers doing everything they can to make a difference. Most businesses, like