{"id":1370,"date":"2015-12-02T13:00:47","date_gmt":"2015-12-02T12:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/?p=1370"},"modified":"2016-10-27T14:32:41","modified_gmt":"2016-10-27T13:32:41","slug":"environmental-economic-and-social-sustainability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/12\/02\/environmental-economic-and-social-sustainability\/","title":{"rendered":"Environmental, Economic, and Social Sustainability"},"content":{"rendered":"

A colleague from Kenya once told me, \u201cIn Europe you have lost touch with nature,<\/strong>\u00a0we are more integrated with it, we see ourselves as part of it \u2013 this must make a difference in the way we approach management\u201d. Pope Francis’s recent trip\u00a0to Africa reminded me of this sentiment.<\/p>\n

Caring for the Earth \u2013 \u201cour common home,\u201d<\/strong> as Francis calls it in his letter \u201cLaudato Si<\/a>\u2019\u201d \u2013 was an important point in his address to the United Nations <\/a>(UN) in Nairobi. Both the address and the letter contain messages that are very relevant to environmental sustainability and\u00a0can be synthesized in just one word: interconnectedness.<\/p>\n

\"All<\/a>
When nature is viewed sole\u00adly as a source of profit and gain, this has serious consequences for society<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Environmental, social, and economic sustainability can\u2019t be decoupled <\/span><\/a>:<\/strong> there is an \u201cintimate relationship between the poor and the fragility of the planet.\u201d \u201cWe ourselves are dust of the earth; our very bodies are made up of her elements, we breathe her air and we receive life and refreshment from her waters.\u201d*<\/p>\nWhen we forget the obvious link between the environment and society, we easily abuse the earth, and engage in strategies that are unsustainable <\/span><\/a>: \u201cWhen nature is viewed solely as a source of profit and gain, this has serious consequences for society<\/strong>.\u201d \u201cThe human environment and the natural environment deteriorate together; we cannot ad\u00adequately combat environmental degradation un\u00adless we attend to causes related to human and social degradation. In fact, the deterioration of the environment and of society affects the most vulnerable people on the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Needless to say, a significant proportion of the African population are among the most vulnerable. You may want to take a look at a related post on what the middle class looks like in Kenya<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The solution? Francis doesn\u2019t offer a technical solution \u2013 it’s not his role,<\/strong> and for sure there are multiple solutions. But he provides guidance: solutions will emerge if we \u2013 both business leaders and policy-makers \u2013 place human beings at the core of decision-making.<\/p>\n

Indeed, engagement with nature does make a difference to how we approach management \u2013 wouldn\u2019t you agree?<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* Quotes taken from Francis\u2019 letter \u201cLaudato Si\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A colleague from Kenya once told me, \u201cIn Europe you have lost touch with nature,\u00a0we are more integrated with it, we see ourselves as part of it \u2013 this must make a difference in the way we approach management\u201d. Pope Francis’s recent trip\u00a0to Africa reminded me of this sentiment. Caring for the Earth \u2013 \u201cour […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1654,"featured_media":1372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[603,951,1007,5461,100342,1267,132,1420],"class_list":["post-1370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-strategy","tag-environment","tag-kenya","tag-management","tag-middle-class","tag-nature","tag-social-development","tag-sustainability","tag-united-nations","megacategoria-mc-africa"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1654"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1370"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1377,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1370\/revisions\/1377"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}