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PARTING THOUGHTS
211
“Expand your vision until it includes the whole earth as your home, and recognise
and respect life in all its forms.”
Stephan C. Paul, psychologist
According to a new index from Dow Jones and Sustainable Asset Management,
companies with an eye on their ‘triple bottom line’ - economic, environment and
social sustainability - are outperforming their less fastidious peers on the stock
market. The world’s top 200 sustainable firms listed in the index outperformed the
rest, particularly those in technology and energy.
A great many tourism and hospitality businesses are responding to the environment
challenge with the same bottom line, that environment management is critical to
maintaining business success. Many businesses find that after an initial period of
success, it can be difficult to maintain enthusiasm and continue the effort. At such
times, systematic performance monitoring becomes even more important, for it
provides the data and encouragement to work towards increasingly higher levels
of environment-related achievement. For if one business does not, its competitors
will.
Action by a handful of companies, however, is not sufficient. All tourism and
hospitality businesses and institutions have to accept responsibility and take
action towards improving the environment. It is not just good business and
good citizenship; it will also ensure that our children and grandchildren have
spectacular and inspiring destinations to visit in the years to come.
Drivers that will continue to forward the environment and business agenda
include:
1. The expanding body of environment legislation that is not only
becoming more stringent but is also being increasingly enforced. The
challenge is to be a step ahead of legislation, rather than merely
complying with it.
“It is always better to act before we are told - especially by regulators
– that we have to do it.”
Gilbert Snook, Head of Estates,
Plymouth College of Higher Education, UK
2. Both governments and industries are realising that technology and
trade are a double-edged knife. While technology has enabled us to
maximise output from each resource unit, be it a hectare of land, a
litre of fuel oil, a cubic metre of water or a kilo of wood, this same
technology has degraded lands, contaminated water, poisoned wildlife
and people, and polluted the surrounding air. Similarly, trade practices
that farm products in one part of the world, then process them for final
consumption in another, are extremely profitable in our market system.
This is because we fail to recognise and account for the environment
costs incurred in the process – wasteful resource use and pollution at
all processing points, transport-related emissions, health risks, etc.
Many environment sceptics see no reason to worry. They argue that the
invisible hand of the market will take care of environment problems
when the time arises. As forests, clean water and agricultural land
become scarce, their prices will rise and that will provide the necessary
incentives for using resources more carefully and managing pollution.
What such sceptics fail to realise is that once a forest is turned into
an industrial estate, or a mangrove has been reclaimed for resort