It can be challenging for an individual to meaningfully comprehend the vastness of the Earth’s natural environment. Humanity, as a species of nearly 8 billion individuals, only accounts for 0.01% of the total biomass of life on the planet, where biomass is a measure of how much carbon is held within each living organism (Ritchie, 2019). Approximately 17% of all biomass produced in 2013 was consumed by humans. Comparatively, in 1900, humans consumed approximately 4% of biomass produced in that year (Gates, 2013).
Each person and corporation impacts and depends on the environment to a greater or lesser extent.
Corporations are responsible for producing and supplying the majority of humanity’s food, transport, energy, and commercial products. These activities draw more from the natural world in ways that scientists have determined to be fundamentally unsustainable (United Nations Environment Programme [UNEP], 2019:4).
At some point in the not-too-distant future, the natural world will be unable to continue to supply the resources necessary for corporate activity as it functions today. When this happens, because of corporate dependence on these resources, corporations will struggle to continue to operate and the natural world will struggle to replenish itself independently. It is therefore in the best interests of corporations to reassess and adjust how they engage with the natural world.
How should corporations view their impact and dependence on the natural world by examining the activities in their value chains. To assist corporations in understanding the materiality of these issues for themselves and their responsibility regarding the use of natural resources, then, what should a corporation do with this knowledge?
Two main strategies present themselves:
Mitigate impact on natural resources.
Adapt to become less dependent on natural resource