Environmental ethics for business sustainability

The paper derives operational principles from environmental ethics for business organizations in order to achieve sustainability. Business affects the natural environment at different levels. Individual biological creatures are affected by business via hunting, fishing, agriculture, animal testing, etc. Natural ecosystems are affected by business via mining, regulating rivers, building, polluting the air, water and land, etc. The Earth as a whole is affected by business via exterminating species, contributing to climate change, etc. Business has a natural, non-reciprocal responsibility toward natural beings affected by its functioning. At the level of individual biological creatures, awareness-based ethics is adequate for business. It implies that business should assure natural life conditions and painless existence for animals and other sentient beings. From this point of view a business activity system can be considered acceptable only if its aggregate impact on animal welfare is non-negative. At the level of natural ecosystems, ecosystem ethics is relevant for business. It implies that business should use natural ecosystems in a proper way, that is, not damaging the health of the ecosystem during use. From this point of view a business activity system can be considered acceptable only if its aggregate impact on ecosystem health is non-negative. At the level of the Earth as a whole, Gaian ethics applies to business. Its implication is that business should not contribute to the violation of the systemic patterns and global mechanisms of the Earth. From this point of view a business activity system can be considered acceptable only if its aggregate impact on the living planet is non-negative. Satisfying the above principles can assure business sustainability in an ethically meaningful way. In this case business performs its duty: not to harm nature or allow others to come to harm.

Current and future friends of the earth: assessing cross-national theories of environmental attitudes

Empirical studies of public opinion on environmental protection have typically been grounded in Inglehart’s post-materialism thesis, proposing that societal affluence encourages materially-sated publics to look beyond their interests and value the environment. These studies are generally conducted within, or at best across, Western, democratic, industrialized countries. Absence of truly cross-cultural research means the theory’s limitations have gone undetected. This article draws on an exceptionally broad dataset—pooling cross-sectional survey data from 80 countries, each sampled at up to three different points over 15 years—to investigate environmental attitudes. We find that post-materialism provides little account of pro-environment attitudes across diverse cultures, and a far from adequate explanation even in the affluent West. We suggest that unique domestic interests, more than broad value systems, are driving emerging global trends in environmental attitudes. The environment’s future champions may be the far from ‘post-material’ citizens of those developing nations most at risk of real material harm from climate change and environmental degradation.

In Situ Observation of the Thermal Decomposition of Weddelite by Heating Stage Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy

The morphological and chemical changes occurring during the thermal decomposition of weddelite, CaC2O4·2H2O, have been followed in real time in a heating stage attached to an Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope operating at a pressure of 2 Torr, with a heating rate of 10 °C/min and an equilibration time of approximately 10 min. The dehydration step around 120 °C and the loss of CO around 425 °C do not involve changes in morphology, but changes in the composition were observed. The final reaction of CaCO3 to CaO while evolving CO2 around 600 °C involved the formation of chains of very small oxide particles pseudomorphic to the original oxalate crystals. The change in chemical composition could only be observed after cooling the sample to 350 °C because of the effects of thermal radiation.