E3G

Environment and Business in the 21st Century

By Tom Burke

But it does mean that I have been privileged to experience the hugely challenging issues of the environment from a variety of perspectives. It also means that I have drawn considerably on the knowledge and experience of a great many colleagues in developing my thinking on the challenges facing business and the environment as we move deeper into the twenty first century. They do not, however, bear any responsibility for the results.

My proposition this evening is that the 21st century will pose environmental challenges to the business community that are of a different order than those posed in the 20th century. This will create both new kinds of risk and new opportunities for business to respond to. If the challenges of the 20th Century required a tactical response from business, those of the 21st century will require a strategic response.

Contributing to the global transition to sustainable development will be an imperative for business, not an option. So will forming active partnerships with government to maintain the environmental conditions which make security and prosperity possible.

We live in extraordinary times. More people live longer, healthier lives, with more prosperity and greater security than ever before in history. We live in a world beyond our parents’ wildest dreams. There is no beach too remote, nor mountaintop too distant, for us to visit. We are connected to each other as never before: by trade, by internet, by satellite television and mobile phone.

It is also a world of accelerating change.

Globalisation has greatly expanded the realm of opportunity lifting many millions out of poverty. The creation of a single global information space has allowed us to create truly global markets for capital, goods and services. Falling prices of energy, commodities capital and information have underpinned prolonged growth of the global economy.

But globalisation of opportunity has not often been accompanied by globalisation of responsibility. Too many millions can see, but cannot reach, the opportunities. Not all the change is good.

When I was born there were just over 2 billion people on the planet. Today there are 6.5 billion. With luck, and the benefit of modern medicine, I might well live to see the 8 billionth person born.

When I was born there were about six million elephants on earth. Today there are about six hundred thousand. I may well also live to see the last elephant in the wild die.

The extraordinary economic growth we have witnessed in the past fifty years has not been bought without cost. Much of that cost has fallen on the environment. Not until the end of the sixties did the world begin to tackle this problem with any conviction.

Since then we have been dealing with the easy politics of the environment. It has a familiar agenda. Air and water quality. Noise and nuisances. Toxic chemicals, radioactivity, wastes and recycling. Business everywhere is now increasingly engaged in solving these problems.

They are the easy politics of the environment because the need to tackle these issues was clear. Rivers were catching fire or feet deep in foam. Children could be found playing on uncontrolled hazardous waste dumps.

When politicians did take action there were many more winners than losers. The policy tools and institutions required were easily available. The issues were readily comprehensible to the media since there were clear villains and victims. You were on the side of the victims – who were often found among the least advantaged – and against the villains – who quite often turned out to be businesses.

In much of the world we have done well on this environmental agenda. We have made significant progress in improving air and water quality; wastes are much more commonly recycled. Furthermore, the cost of dealing with them turned out to be much less than was often thought. Cutting pollution very often also cut costs.