Environmental violence and enterprise: The outsized role of business for environmental peacebuilding

Richard Marcantonio

Business Horizons, 2024, vol. 67, issue 6, 685-698

Abstract: Environmental violence (EV) is the complex of direct and indirect impacts of human-produced pollution on human health and wellbeing. Today, EV is the single largest cause of human mortality and morbidity, resulting in around 8 to 9 million deaths annually and about 275 million years of poor health every year. By comparison, about 89,000 people die from warfare and terrorism each year combined—more than 100 times fewer. EV also drives mass human migration, which displaces about 24 million people annually and is cited as a growing contributory—or even causal—factor for violent conflict. To realize the promise of business for peace, the implications of EV and the systemic suffering it produces must be addressed. This article examines the role of business in producing and mitigating EV and the possibility of reversing it via regenerative practices. It then maps and measures the primary links between business and EV and outlines paths to environmental peacebuilding. Although business is shown to be a chief contributor to EV, this article ultimately argues that it is also one of the most potent tools for countering it and equitably restoring affected communities and ecosystems.

Keywords: Environmental violence (EV); Regeneration; Peace studies; Environmental peacebuilding (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681324000909
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:bushor:v:67:y:2024:i:6:p:685-698

DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2024.07.003

Access Statistics for this article

Business Horizons is currently edited by C. M. Dalton

More articles in Business Horizons from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().