Science and Challenges of Sustainability

R. Daniel Bressler

Chapter 2 in Sustainability:Business and Investment Implications, 2023, pp 9-38 from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.

Abstract: This chapter sets the scene for the rest of the volume by providing the scientific basis for the business and investment implications of sustainability. The chapter describes how over the past few hundred years, and especially over the past few decades, the world has witnessed significant economic development and made great progress in meeting human needs. Unfortunately, this economic development has come with significant consequences in terms of climate change, access to water, population growth, depletion of resources, pollution, loss of biodiversity, poverty, inequity, and diseases. Continuation of current trends has been deemed by many as unsustainable. The chapter defines “sustainable development” as the study of how to eliminate and mitigate these challenges so that the progress enjoyed by many parts of the world can be extended to all parts of the world and sustained far into the future. Finally, it presents the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which have been widely adopted by the international community and the public sector. More recently, many private businesses and investors have also started to embrace “sustainability” in their underlying business models. The chapter concludes that without significant change, the ecological, environmental, and climatic resilience that have supported economic development in the past may not hold up into the future.

Keywords: Sustainability; Sustainability Risks and Opportunities; Sustainability: Business and Investment Implications; Sustainable Finance; Sustainable Investing; Impact Investing; Sustainable Entrepreneurship; ESG; Business Case for Sustainability; Investment Case for Sustainability; Introduction to Sustainability; Introduction Sustainable Finance; Introduction to Sustainable Investing; Introduction to ESG; Introduction to Impact Investing; Sustainability Handbook; Sustainability Textbook; Sustainable Business Textbook; Sustainable Business Handbook; Sustainable Finance Textbook; Sustainable Finance Handbook; Impact Investing Textbook; Risk Management & Sustainability; The Corporate Sustainability Spectrum; Business and Financial Implications of Climate Change; The Financial Case for Embedding Sustainability Core to Business Strategy; Corporate Sustainability & Financial Performance; Shareholder Engagement; The Pressing Needs For A Sustainable World; Scale-up; Impact Entrepreneur; Impact Entrepreneurship; Sustainability Science and Challenges; Internalizing the Externalities; The Role of Government; Fiscal Impact; Macro-economic Performance; Realism; Mission Creep; Single Issue Capture; GreenWashing; Whitewashing; Hidden Agendas; Transparency; and Competitiveness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L21 L26 M1 Q01 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/9789811240928_0002 (application/pdf)
https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/9789811240928_0002 (text/html)
Ebook Access is available upon purchase.

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:wsi:wschap:9789811240928_0002

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in World Scientific Book Chapters from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tai Tone Lim ().