Corporate Responsibility
Business in South Africa is alerted in the local and international press every day to issues about sustainable development.
The concept is broad, but two major issues within it have acquired a special urgency: Energy security and climate change are both mission critical to our future. The challenge, how to achieve the first and avoid the latter, is a dominant theme in economic debates. It demands of us that we balance our strategic economic imperatives with the need for environmental preservation. Evidence demonstrating the effect of global warming, now indisputably linked to emissions produced by human activity is incontrovertible, and reinforced by the recent reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
We cannot deny the devastating consequences of floods and rising sea levels, droughts and water scarcity, agricultural collapse, reduced biodiversity, higher incidences of malaria and other tropical diseases, all of which are potential threats to our region. They provoke migration and social dislocation, and they exacerbate political instability and economic turbulence. Since we know that the risk of these catastrophes occurring is real, the big question becomes ‘What are we going to do about it?’
We are at the tipping point. We will be judged by future generations on what we do now to guarantee the wellbeing of our planet. GIBS has a unique opportunity to make a vital contribution to the achievement of sustainable development in South Africa. It will ensure that business leaders of today, and those being groomed for the future, are made appropriately aware of the scientific and legal issues pertinent to this matter. But it is in the domain of the economic and political imperatives that it can cultivate the in-depth, cutting-edge expertise and corporate citizenship that is crucial to meeting the challenges of climate change and energy security.
Business, government, civil society and academe must collaborate to marry economic advancement with environmentalism. Sustainable development requires the integration of social, economic and environmental factors in the planning, implementation and evaluation of government policies and business decisions. The challenge is to grow the economy in ways that safeguard the environment for future generations.
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