All of the Wave Riders are polluting and depleting the world’s natural resources base to some extent. Many of the companies were highlight as leaders come from industries with serious environmental impacts, but the Wave Riders are “best in class” or have practices which others can learn. Not every environmental investment the Wave Riders have made has paid off. In fact, all of these companies have failed at times. But, over all, their environmental focus has helped then competitively.
Although many companies strive for the best to attain the requirements asked to them, there is no perfect corporation to finally put an end to the problem of having sustainable development for the society. As the authors have said, “Some are strong on one aspect of environmental performance but weak on others. But all of them are making strides. They are demonstrating a new way of doing business. ”(Esty and Winston, 2006). Another point which was highlighted in the end part of the chapter is great to good.
It is said by the authors that, “Sometimes, people need a crisis to focus the mind” (Esty and Winston, 2006). An example given was the devastation of the Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott during the attack of Hurricane Katrina. Though he was able to help many people during the hurricane, he questioned himself ways in order to make the area of the United States a better place with the use of their resources. The great and good highlighted that there is a need for companies to have an Eco-Advantage. With this strategy, these corporations are more likely to be chosen by the consumers.
The production system of the workers will be more than every therefore; making a good company in order to have a great company. Chapter 2: Natural Drivers of the Green Wave In the second chapter, the first highlighted issue was the confronted problem of Unilever regarding the scarcity of the one of their products in the country. Being aware of the scarcity of some products that Unilever made a way in order to put a stop to the abuse in the environment caused by different aspects in which made the resources less. Unilever made a way in order to finally put an end to the scarcity of resources.
The company started to coordinate with the World Wildlife Fund in which they team up in order to create the Marine Stewardship Council which will focus on the issues of creating sustainable fisheries around the world. This council is formed to protect and certifies the total number of fishes that are caught everyday. The numbers of fishes are limited in order to a certain number to prevent the lessening of the resources which had happened before. The measures done by this council is closely watched by the executives of Unilever.
As a matter of fact, Anthony Burgmans stated that “As one of world’s largest purchasers o fish, it is Unilever’s commercial interest to protect the aquatic environment from fishing methods that will ultimately destroy stocks” (Esty and Winston, 2006). With such example, the corporate world must truly learn how to answer the problem of environment because mainly, they will be the one to be affected by the tremendous changes in the environment. As said by the statements in the book, a manager said that, “We are not environmentalists. We are not scientists.
But if we do not do anything, we will be out of business” (Esty and Winston, 2006). As shown with these lines, corporations must learn how to fully fix the problems of the environment most especially those that matters to them because if not, the company will erode which will cause more damage to them and their workers. The United Nations acted upon this issue and released the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment which is “a comprehensive study of twenty-four natural support systems” (Esty and Winston, 2006). All aspects regarding ecosystems are mostly in decline due to the degradation happening to most of the resources of the environment.
One of the major caused of this decline is the issue of climate change in which our world is currently facing. Due to all the matters concerning the environment, these issues need an urgent call for action in order to answer all the problems attached to it. In an issue of the Fortune magazine quoted in the book, it stated that, “Around the world, humanity has reduced nature’s capacity to dampen extremes to an astonishing degree… half the world’s fresh water now co-opted for human use, half the world’s wetlands drained or ruined…the list goes on and on…”(Esty and Winston, 2006).
In addition, the fact that the problem is now very evident in to our attention, the issue of problems regarding the air and water continuously add up to other problems. This issue is truly hard to give clearance because most of the causes come from the individuals who act wrongly about the environment. Some problems also arises in the different harmful elements from different machineries such that of cars. Most people do not have control over such things. Because of the need to travel from one place to another, people need cars to be able to gain more to suffice their financial needs.
Additionally, the cars are only provided certain types of gasoline which in the past, is given less attention. Such problems are out of the hands of the corporation and non-governmental agencies, it is the perception of the people who uses and acts whether he or she is doing harm for the environment. With the different issues at hand, the authors presented ten major environmental problems to face in order to create a much more feasible working area for the corporations and the people.