Business Strategies that are drivers of environmental change || International Business Sample Paper

Discuss the following: 

Current Business Strategies that are Dominant Drivers of Environmental Change

Introduction

Aside from drivers, several policy measures since GEO-5 also are worth mentioning. Several global accords were established to address significant issues pertinent to this assessment, including a comprehensive agreement to combat climate change, an effective development strategy, such as the ratification of the Targets, and agreements on project financing and climate action. In addition, government laws on disaster management, sustainable sources, urbanization, transport, and hygiene, and sewage were adopted by several countries. There has been a massive increase in interest in innovations that can quicken environmental and social improvements in recent times while allowing individuals, organizations, and societies to meet their needs with fewer resources (Krause, 2015). The interconnections among some of the five different drivers are addressed, and how actions performed by one driver may impact the others.

Technology, creativity, and support are all crucial elements to consider. Technology can be both a valuable and damaging driver in environmental change. Technology advancement has been – and will probably keep being – a primary driver of global changes in the environment (Naidoo & Gasparatos, 2018). At the same time, technology has frequently resulted in unforeseen events beyond our most excellent scientific analysts' abilities to forecast, such as the impact of fossil fuel usage on the climate system and the impact of effects of fossil fuel consumption on the climate system. Established scientific research of improved technological commonly struggles to recognize significant adverse effects of the institutional influence of innovations and trivialize the issue of value addition, significantly about food production technical advancement (Wiedmann et al., 2020). Past scientific limits can be found in autos and electricity. They are two of the most significant technological advancements of the 20th century, but their severe environmental and resource effects are projected to last well into the twenty-first. More critically, a good number of these business strategies have incorporated practices that have sought to embrace and demonstrate greater awareness of our global society's environmental and social needs at large. This is because these strategies have highlighted how organizations are not only concerning themselves with revenue generation but are also striving to become increasingly socially engaged and environmentally concerned with their core activities.

Technological Innovation and Long-term Economic Expansion

From an economic perspective, technical innovation has long been recognized as one of the significant sources of economic advancement, but it increasingly takes center stage in modern growth models. As a consequence of investments in technology and information interchange, human capital technology is essential to boost productivity and derive more value from our commodities (Nosratabadi et al., 2019). This is crucial for resolving a range of environmental challenges. Many environmental challenges can be tackled most effectively through creativity in an environmentally responsible manner. For instance, around 2013 and 2016, assets in off-grid solar companies in Inter Africa and other countries increased exponentially to more than usd200 million (Danziger, 2020). Although this explosive development still represents a tiny fraction of the investments required to leave a mark on the regional energy market.

Scalable solar-powered off-grid electricity solutions are vital for sustainable development in so many developing regions, especially in the case of Sub-Saharan Africa, they comprise a critical component (United Nations Environment Programme. Energy availability is tied to a set of economic and environmental advantages in both developed nations, making it an important economic, social, and ecological issue in both (Diffenbaugh, & Burke, 2019).  Considering this, Sub-Saharan Africa uses just 145 gigawatt-hours of energy annually, equivalent to one lightbulb per person utilized 3 hours daily, ranking it the world's most electricity region (Diffenbaugh & Burke, 2019). As these breakthrough technologies are invented and deployed, and scientists learn how to link and service them economically, the costs per unit of resource-efficient and reduced technologies have such a lot of potential to drop. Technological advances have a far higher potential than challenging, increased incumbents. Cost reductions in renewables, for example, has allowed for new pairings of solar, wind, and power storage to challenge cost with coal and natural gas.

Not only does energy business gain from higher productivity in terms of the transition to reduced, but reduced innovations also have significant economic spillovers. Diffenbaugh & Burke (2019). argue that economic spillovers from reduced innovation are regularly 40 percent bigger than conventional technologies, whereas information systems (ICTs) can, in theory, significantly boost productivity and energy efficiency. Diffenbaugh & Burke (2019) suggest that sustained growth may be achieved by implementing transitory policy levers such as a carbon tax that can divert development on clean resources, while Dey et al. (2018) find that socioeconomic spillover (a mobile phone, for instance) (a mobile phone for example). While ICTs may usher in an era in which digitization plays a significant role in speeding up worldwide ecological governance, this is still uncertain if the materials and energy savings outweigh the sustainability management impact of an ICT merchandise lifespan from resource exploitation to waste disposal.

Diffusion of Market and Innovative Sustainability

Although there is a wide range of scientific recognition of the value of technological development as a component of economic sustainable development change, there will be less accord on two problems: first, green innovation dissemination in underdeveloped countries, especially in terms of both the adoptive parents and deployment of what can be termed self-sustaining techniques and foremost, how to restrict and regulate novel technologies in terms of international sustainability (Dey et al., 2018).  A fantastic place to start for technology diffusion regarding acceptability and accelerated levels is the market penetration of solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources in the poorest countries, specifically regarding cities and Industrialization.

Even though renewable sources accounted for 70 percent of the net rise in global electricity nameplate capacity owing to the increased economic competitiveness of wind and solar power, growing energy supply, developing world, led to population expansion, is likely to outpace the growth of financially feasible and expandable biofuel solutions in the absence of new energy sector technical advances (Clapp et al., 2018). It is vital to develop suitable innovation scale-up circumstances in both developing countries and introduce new formal and informal measures to more appropriately deal with incoherent policy initiatives, discrepancies in electricity markets, and bulky and risky risk parameters.

Variations in the Climate

Because global warming has gained steam independently of future human influence, it is included in a driver of climatic change in GEO-6; it is investigated as a cross-cutting issue. Clapp et al. (2018) display the increase in CO2 concentration during the industrial period, presented on the same level as data for Carbon dioxide transitions among interglacial eras for the previous 20,000 years. The United Nations Meteorological and Atmospheric Foundation's greenhouse gas index shows that some GHGs, like methane and carbon dioxide, have also been gradually increasing over the decades (2013). There can be no doubt that climate change is a fundamental driver of environmental changes, an irreversible force that can no longer ignore. As per the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report, the world has ushered in a new era of committed global warming. Changes that have already been implemented, regardless of future Greenhouse gas or changes in the atmosphere's concentrations, are referred to as "climate commitments" (Clapp et al., 2018). CO2 emissions have caused a significant component of climate change that is irreversible on a century-to-millennial time scale unless there is a considerable net absorption of atmospheric CO2.

CO2 emissions from prior decades are primarily responsible for today's global temperature because of climate and carbon cycle inertia. The climate is endangered with the current level of GHG emissions. Consequently, changing climate has emerged as a primary driver of environmental issues. ' Even if humans don't do anything to disrupt it, the hydrological cycle, which regulates the amount and timing of precipitation, rising sea levels, drought, and other climate-related changes, will undoubtedly have an impact on the globe (Clapp et al., 2018). Due to this, climate change is a threat to economic and social growth and progress.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Concentration

A few countries' emissions trends are shown. More than half of the total emissions since Industrialization have been emitted in the previous four decades. 910 gigatons of CO2 have been emitted between 1750 and 1970, compared to 1,090 gigatons emitted between 1970 and 2010. (Clapp et al., 2018). Although numerous multinational and national programs aim to mitigate this rise, they are all ineffective. The global financial crisis of 2007/2008, when compared to the pattern before 2000, reduced the percentage of GHG emissions growth only momentarily (Clapp et al., 2018). In both individual and country terms, Carbon emissions are unevenly distributed because of lifestyles consumption patterns and country emissions. Most GHG emissions are emitted by the wealthiest 10% of people, whereas the rest of the population produces only 10% (Clapp et al., 2018). The carbon price for limiting global warming to 2°C also creates a generational difference, with coming generations having less room to emit carbon dioxide. Gross National income (gni Contributions (NDCs) already in place might deplete the carbon pollution for keeping climate change below 2°C by 2030 if they are all fully implemented.

References

Clapp, J., Newell, P., & Brent, Z. W. (2018). The global political economy of climate change, agriculture, and food systems. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 45(1), 80-88.

Danziger, P. N. (2020). Ways Millennials and Gen-Z consumers are radically transforming the luxury market. Forbes, 10, 2020.

Dey, P. K., Petridis, N. E., Petridis, K., Malesios, C., Nixon, J. D., & Ghosh, S. K. (2018). Environmental management and corporate social responsibility practices of small and medium-sized enterprises. Journal of cleaner production, 195, 687-702.

Diffenbaugh, N. S., & Burke, M. (2019). Global warming has increased global economic inequality. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(20), 9808-9813.

Krause, J. (2015). The potential of an environmentally friendly business strategy — research from the Czech Republic. International Journal of Engineering Business Management, 7(1), 1-6. https://dx.doi.org/10.5772/60064

Naidoo, M., & Gasparatos, A. (2018). Corporate environmental sustainability in the retail sector: Drivers, strategies and performance measurement. Journal of Cleaner Production, 203, 125-142.

Nosratabadi, S., Mosavi, A., Shamshirband, S., Kazimieras Zavadskas, E., Rakotonirainy, A., & Chau, K. W. (2019). Sustainable business models: A review. Sustainability, 11(6), 1663. https://dx.doi.org/10.20944/preprints201810.0378.v1

Wiedmann, T., Lenzen, M., Keyßer, L. T., & Steinberger, J. K. (2020). Scientists’ warning on affluence. Nature communications, 11(1), 1-10.