Addressing business from a social-ecological perspective to understand and deal with risk and resilience

Abstract

Corporate sustainability, as currently practiced, is largely directed at reducing direct and immediate environmental impacts in terms of resource consumption and waste emissions. Despite two decades of engagement with corporate sustainability, global indicators show that the impacts of human enterprises continue to threaten global economic security and sound environmental management. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment found that ecosystems have declined more rapidly and extensively over the past fifty years than at any other comparable time in human history. The Ecological Footprint indicator suggests that humanity’s demand on nature exceeds the planets ability to supply natural resources by over a quarter. Since business is dependent on ecosystem services for the provision of clean water, air, productive soils and other natural resources it is imperative to understand the complex landscape in which the business operate and how global change can have a devastating economic consequences. The impacts of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which cost the US economy in the region of $150 Billion, were greatly exacerbated by the degradation of regulating ecosystems such as wetlands, river systems and natural flood plains. On the other hand, local impacts of the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004, which killed more than 70,000 people and cost the area an estimated more than $10 Billion, was greatly reduced in areas where healthy mangrove ecosystems had been maintained. The reality is that corporations today are facing unanticipated risks to business operations due to the deterioration of social-ecological systems upon which they depend. The immediate action for business is how to relate to today’s challenges such as pollution, rising temperatures, water shortage and crop failure to growing business activities in order to achieve economic sustainability. The complexity of the challenges facing the existence of businesses, especially in terms of fundamental uncertainty as a result of global change and unpredictability, requires a fundamental shift in the way business is conducted and how they understand and implement sustainability. Instead of reducing practices that are perceived to be unsustainable, businesses should rather be strengthening sustainability systemic underpinnings. While the concepts of resilience, shared risk, uncertainty, adaptation and ecosystem stewardship are traction, the practical application of these concepts remains poorly understood and practised. In this paper we examine the research the CSIR is doing that will develop novel approaches and tools (repackaging old tools and the development of new tools) enabling corporations to understand, quantitatively assess and strategically respond to the social-ecological risks and opportunities that underpin their business; thereby increasing their business resilience and adaptation abilities in an uncertain and changing environment.