Sustainability is all around us in many forms. We have bus passes (used or not), the SUB burger joint uses recycled paper products to serve up their fried goodness, and of course we all like to see what the water bottle count is up to on the water filling stations (did you know Sauder has one on the second floor?).
UBC prides itself on being a catalyst and driver of sustainable change. Yet the core business modules never mentioned monetizing the ecosystem. I don’t remember any mention of carbon taxes or offsets even. The former is up and coming, a possible new driver in the triple bottom line equation. The later has been around for some time, yet was not mentioned in any form. Should a country make carbon offsets mandatory, or drop out of their Kyoto obligations (something Canada just did; what are the repercussions?), the companies that do business in that country, with that country or near that country will be affected. One thing that the Net Impact Conference did was raise my awareness of how much and how soon the triple bottom line will hit us. When I say us, I mean everybody. Whether you believe in global warming, Freeman, corporate social responsibility or not, the economic pressures in the capitalist structure will force every business to accommodate the ecosystem in their future decisions. California instituted a green house gas (GHG) cap-and-trade law that will allow individuals and businesses in Washington State, for instance, to trade GHG emissions with California based businesses. If you think it is isolated to those “California hippies,” think again. Quebec just passed a law and British Columbia and Manitoba are both in talks with California to initiate similar systems. These issues are here to stay.
Carbon and GHG are common topics, so it’s not much surprise that business is having to deal with new restrictions. Hazardous waste in general has been monitored and regulated for years in one form or another, but the more we understand the effects humans have on the environment the more refined our laws become. Water has had some standards on it for decades. Now, however, we are understanding (and measuring) how delicately balanced the ocean is, and how the entire planet relies on a healthy ocean. We understand now that we cannot simply continue to dump our waste in what, at one point, seemed to be an endless sea. This thread of thought continues into developing a better understanding of what pollution actually is. We have noise pollution, light pollution, and, something that I learned in conversation with a Net Impact attendee is gaining more and more attention in water management, temperature pollution. But there are creative ways to go about mitigating our impact on the environment. Instead of spending millions to cool the waste water from a factory another few degrees, the factory can plant trees to shade the water downstream, which has the same effect and costs dramatically less. These are the solutions regulators, business people, socially conscientious people, grandparents, new generations and environmentalists must tackle together.
These are the issues we will face as we enter the workforce, and we need to have pondered, discussed and prepared ourselves for them.
