Saving the planet: a tale of two strategies (ensuring environmentally-friendly business strategies)

Article type: Abstracts From: Strategic Direction, Volume 28, Issue 9

Martin R., Kemper A.Harvard Business Review, April 2012, Vol. 90 Issue: 4, Start page: 49, No. of pages: 8

Explains that business may be the engine of the developed economies, but it devours a disproportionate share of the world’s non-renewable resources,and produces a disproportionate share of its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Argues that business is both a cause of and a solution to environmental degradation, and there is a pressing need to find a way for business to contribute to ensuring environmentally-friendly business strategies. Explores two schools of thought in which one argues that consumers and companies should do more with the resources they consume, become more effective in recycling and processing their waste, and dampen their appetite for consumption in general, a world-view set out in the works of the nineteenth century economist Thomas Malthus; while the alternative philosophy, which flows from the work of the twentieth century economist and Nobel Prize winner Robert Solow, which argues that environmental and other problems can always be resolved through the exercise of human ingenuity. Concludes that, although these two philosophies do not sit well together, the Malthusian view encouraging a tendency toward regulation and restraint, while the Solovian view underlies much of the advocacy for deregulation and the promotion of growth, but real progress in solving the world’s environmental problems will need the application of both philosophies. Article type: Viewpoint ISSN: 0017-8012 Reference: 41AJ192

Keywords: Business performance, Energy conservation,Environmental management, Environmental regulations, Managerial strategy,Organizations, Sustainable design, Sustainable development