Business Nature vs Mother Nature

You cannot beat Mother Nature, she is extraordinary, however humanity is proving to be a worthy adversary and has her on the ropes in this contest; winning in this arena will not be a glorious achievement.

From the spectacular natural formations of Mount Everest, The Amazonian rainforest and Antarctica, to the mesmerising shows of beauty by the Aurora Borealis, Mother Nature is playing host to an immense wide range of life and manages to do this whilst trying her best to clean up after the activities of humanity. Homo-sapiens have called planet earth home now for around 200,000 years and for much of that time have lived in harmony within the limits of the earths ability to maintain stable climate conditions.

The 1900’s gave birth to the fossil fuel era; the supply was plentiful and used to fuel the Great Acceleration which saw the global north click into overdrive and make huge strides in societal development. For humanity, the discovery of abundant fossil fuel could have been considered a once in a lifetime lottery win. Sound financial advice after hitting the jackpot would be to bank the prize money and live off the interest, but in the case of fossil fuel this is exactly what humanity has not done. Fossil fuel provided the global north with everything from on-demand heating and cooling of the built environment, mobility, products and services never experienced before which created a thriving economy. As society developed the population grew which resulted in more products and services being required to satisfy society. This increase in demand resulted in the creation of a reinforcing feedback loop which called for more hydrocarbons to be extracted from the Earth to satisfy humanities desires. Fossil fuel spread affluence throughout the global north and as a result large enterprises were established which allowed investors to grow their affluence even more. Year after year, investors demanded these enterprises to grow, this increased the requirement for fossil fuel supply. In the modern era this is still the case. Moreover, can continual growth be achieved when its foundations are built on finite natural resources?

The nature of business today is to deliver constant growth, and this dynamic subsequently creates a win-lose scenario where the actual cost of business operations is not paid in full. Using fossil fuels to create products and services enables enterprises to create value and turn a profit that keeps them in business, the investors happy and the societies that consume these products and services satisfied – this is the win part but is only one side of the coin. The products and services that are produced and consumed come with a financial price tag that is easily seen and understood within the economy that exists, but the actual cost also needs to incorporate the impact that these goods and services have on the planet. Subsidies on fossil fuels and the absence of a globally agreed carbon emissions cost skew the true price paid for these goods and services which is more than financial.

In 2023, six of the nine planetary boundaries had been crossed, meaning that the behaviour of humans (which is influenced by the business models of the economy pursuing continuous growth) is driving the Earth’s natural systems to crisis point. Carbon emitted into the atmosphere from the burning of hydrocarbons far outweighs the Earths’ ability to absorb the carbon in the atmosphere. Humanity continues to take vast amounts of hydrocarbons from deep underground that has been locked away for millions of years and puts it into the atmosphere. In addition to this massive emission of greenhouse gases, deforestation on a vast scale is apparent, along with the acidification of the ocean which further reduces the capabilities of Earth to absorb the carbon in the atmosphere and maintain stable climate conditions. The carbon dioxide in the atmosphere acts as a huge blanket that traps heat from the sun and warms the climate experienced on Earth.

How does humanity de-couple the nature of modern business with its lust for fossil fuels?

Kate Raworth offers up a potential solution to counteract the well-established growth on growth mindset of business in the global north; she calls this Doughnut Economics. The shift away from a constant growth mindset interconnects the global population, ecology, and economy to enable humanity to thrive alongside Mother Nature. The pure indicator of financial growth is important but, it is just one of many that needs to be driven to achieve this fundamental change. The economies of the future need to be regenerative and distributive by design so that the global population can realise a social foundation where a life of dignity and equality is available to all. Within the current economical framework, Earths natural resources are extracted and made to create products and services, then they are minimally used and often thrown away. This open loop economy is rapidly using up the Earth's natural resources and pushing humanity further into the unsafe operating zones of the planetary boundaries. A new economy needs to work with and within the cycles of the natural world and close the economical loop to create a circular economy that produces win-win scenarios, where me solving my problem helps you to solve yours.

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Author: Student of MBA Sustainability Management Class 1 (2023-2025)