Sustainability Revolution : Earth, The Plant We Call Home

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

Environmental sustainability is the ability to be able to continue a certain process or use a certain resource indefinitely (Mason). For example, if you’re using a certain resource and you know it’s going to run out one day, that resource is unsustainable. Sustainability is important because a lot of the practices that we do in modern society from agriculture, to energy source, and even development, are completely depleting our resources. This practices were also made to accommodate our fast pace lifestyle, everything is built and made to be fast and cheap, nothing is made to last anymore. Many people are realizing the importance of being sustainable and the world is slowly changing to sustainable practices like Renewable energy and sustainable agriculture, while also changing the fast and easy mind set to a more “reusable” one. Brevard College has boarded the sustainable train of the world by making several additions to the school like solar panels, alternative transportation options, a Fair trade and organic Coffee shop, and several environmental based clubs. Although they are heading in the right direction, many changes still need to be made in order to achieve a well-developed sustainable campus.

Sustainability is defined as the ability to endure.(1) Though the idea of sustainability can be applied to most anything from a sustainable ecosystem that has survived thousands of years to a sustainable workplace that uses green technologies. Paul Hawken captured today’s connotation of sustainability in saying “Sustainability is about stabilizing the currently disruptive relationship between earth’s two most complex systems—human culture and the living world.” (2) There are countless ways to live, work, and produce sustainably. Sustainability not only needs to be practiced by citizens, but businesses need to join the green movement as well. Without creating, following, and enforcing green policies, negative effects will be evident and innumerable

In this article “Enough For All Forever: A Handbook for Learning About Sustainability,” David Suzuki (2010) explains how the human beings see and understand the changing world, nature and sustainability.

The term sustainability is one that been conceptualized since the early civilizations of humans inhabited the earth. During those primative times, everything that allowed civilizations to thrive came from the earth. Humans during those times were more more in touch with their reliance on the environment. In today's society, the reliance on our natural environment seems much further away due to our insulation from modern conveniences. Nevertheless, this conception could not be further from the truth; we are more reliant now on the world's renewable resources than ever before.

To solve these problems and the detriment to the environment that stems from them, the authors call for a complete paradigm shift in our current way of living. To start off that shift they interpret the definition of sustainability as being too limiting. They instead introduce the term of sustainability-as-flourishing. This is basically a state in which an individual feels a sense of

The very importance of the ecosystem stands far above the millions of innovations mankind has helped introduce into our world. The ability to sustain important forms of life which are vital to our everyday activities which include the creation of the oxygen, the clean air we are able to breathe and food sources we extract from to feed the billions of humans on a yearly basis. In a strange way, ecosystems “provide” goods and services for human beings and with the proper care of these environments, we have access to a tremendous source which is vital to maintaining human life for generations to come. Unfortunately, while ecosystems have serviced humans for hundreds of years, human responsibility for maintaining care for these

Sustainability is a term utilized by environmentalists, historians, biologists, and everyone in between to describe the capacity to endure (Sustainability). Most commonly, the action of being sustainable is thought of in terms of interactions with the environment to satisfy anthropogenic desires. Humankind’s insatiable consumption habits have made sustainability a word incorporated into vocabularies across the globe. The conversation of what it means to be sustainable occurs at the dinner table in a small, agricultural village, down the platitudinous isles of rice and beans at the grocery store, during merger meetings among Fortune 500 companies, and even in assemblages between the United Nations.

The environmental aspect of sustainability is all about preservation and reconstruction. It’s being careful how much we take and when we take it. After the effects of the Industrial Revolution were fully realized humans seemed to grasp that we are, in fact, not the masters of the natural world. We noticed things like global warming, habitat

Environmental sustainability is ensuring that we maintain the quality of the world we inhabit. This includes the air that we breathe which is constantly getting polluted by several chemicals discharged into the environment. It also includes wildlife and vegetation which are at risk due to pollution as well as the still present frontier attitude. Talking about the future, popular environmental activist David Suzuki once said, “We’re in a giant car heading towards a brick wall and everyone’s arguing over where they’re going to sit.” The world for our future generations does not seem very promising, which is why environmental sustainability initiatives are all the more important.

This essay will review two significant environmental experiences I have encountered exploring the influences of these my life and how these have altered my view on what is environmental sustainability. An examination into these two experiences will follow into reviewing my perspectives on environmental sustainability and how these two experiences influenced this. To conclude a discussion on my role as a teacher and how this will impact myself when in the classroom.

Sustainability is not just something Xavier Universtiy is focuing on. Many other universities across the country as well as individuals are contributing to the sustainability movement. In the International Journal for Sustainabiliyt in Higher Education, contributer B. Chalkley stated that, “education for sustainability must seek outcomes that involve not only knowledge and skills but also the values that underpin sustainable behaviour by businesses, government and socieety,” (Shephard). This minset is on par with the required coursework emcompassed in Xavier’s Enviornmental Studies minor program.

It’s indescribable how fortunate humanity is to inhabit earth, and be given the opportunity to persist in an endless journey both rewarding and intricate. Humanity like most words has multiple definitions that describe what it truly means to be human distinctively. For the most part, humanity will be defined as a successful population, that will commit to primal instincts to not only persevere the hardships of life, but discover tools that will secure gratification over sustainability at no cost. Humans during their origin have had a primary goal that has formed a semi-neutral bond with the planet over the past centuries. This agreement has benefited humans not only as a species in the quest of survival, but the earths need to be depended on and be cared for to continue providing the essential environment for life. As humanity discovered the possibility to grow, and become something more than an obedient group of primitive animals restricted by large mass of vital materials. The decision to expand as a population both literally and innovatively change the world with severe consequences. Now with the ever-growing presence of industrialization stripping the world of a constrained reserve of raw materials, no one s left to remind humanity of its original agreement with earth. Currently, Human sustainability faces self-inflicted harms such as extreme growth in CO2 emissions, and the over consumption of limited environmental materials which can be substantially minimized by

Since the birth of human civilization, mankind has always been playing a competitive game with mother nature. The relentless pursuit of his progress, security, and comfort has resulted in an increase of stress on mother nature. It all began in the year of 1760. What we call the industrial revolution was a major turning point in Earth’s ecology and humans’ relationship with their environment. The revolution drastically changed every aspect of human life and lifestyles. Human development, health, and life longevity to social improvements and the impact on natural resources, the effects were becoming more evident every year. The industrial revolution wasn’t something that was made up overnight, some would say it was started the moment machinery was replacing manual labor. Fossil fuels were to replace the role of wind, water, and food for a more inexpensive, efficient strategy for performing the same tasks. What some didn’t know or even ignore about this substitution was that it could be extremely detrimental to both mother nature and human health. The full impact would not begin to be realized until about one hundred years later. Consequently, the life sustaining environment has been forced to transform more rapidly than it ever has before. The tendency humans have to exert a negative influence on ecology has resulted in a rapid increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, large deforestation, loss of biodiversity, severe land degradation, and environmental pollution.

Many people believe that the Sustainable Revolution began with concern for the environment. The way we portray our relation to the natural world has changed since the times of Thoreau and Emerson. The E for environment