I need some on reliable to follow all the steps bellow - Term paper info sheet attached -Use the readings attached as reference -proper apa format -make sure to include the social, financila, and ec

Reading #2:

Sustainability issues facing humankind1

Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility (LEAD 3030)

This reading introduces some of the major sustainability issues facing humankind generally. Provide a thoughtful written response to two or more of the questions provided below, and submit this preparedness response in UMLearn at least one hour prior to class, Tues. Sept 21.

Living beyond the carrying capacity of the planet. In 1961 humankind’s ecological footprint was about 66% of global capacity, today it is at 150%.2 In other words, humankind is taking more resources from the planet (e.g., via fossil fuels, overfishing, mining, etc.) than the planet can sustain. In Canada the average person uses over 80 hectares acres of the world’s natural resources, whereas there are about 15 hectares of resources available per person worldwide.3 In Canada this use of resources is associated with an average GDP per capita of about $60,000 per year, an average life expectancy of 80 years, and an average life satisfaction score of 7.6. Compare these figures to Costa Rica, where the average ecological footprint is only 14 hectares, GDP per capita is about $16,000, life expectancy is 78.2, and average happiness is 7.5.

Question #1. What would happen to the planet’s resources if everyone in the world enjoyed the same lifestyle as we do in countries like Canada? Why is it possible for people in Costa Rica to be about just as happy and live just as long as Canadians, but with one-quarter Canadians’ GDP and 17% of our ecological footprint per capita?

Question #2. The causes and problems associated with climate change are well known. Why hasn't this prompted greater change? What needs to happen before change occurs? What would prompt you to substantially reduce the GHG associated with your lifestyle?

Economic inequality. For the past fifty years, coinciding with the modern era of shareholder-wealth-maximizing capitalism, there has been a growing gap between rich and poor between countries, within countries, and within organizations. The higher the level of income inequality within a society (e.g., within a country, or within a province): 1) the higher are its levels of obesity, anxiety, differences in how genders are treated, homicides and crime, and 2) the lower are its levels of mental health, life expectancy, social mobility and social trust. In short, the greater the income inequality, the lower the overall quality of life (notably, widening inequality gaps also worsens the quality of life for the rich).10 In Canada the top 100 CEOs earn on average about 200 times more than average workers, and amount that may have increased during the pandemic (in the USA the figure went from 50 times in 1960, to 350 times today).11 The world’s three richest people possess more financial assets than the poorest 50 countries, and the increase in the net worth from 2011-12 of the world’s 100 richest people would be enough to eliminate global malnutrition.12 About 95% of the total economic benefits associated with globalization have been gained by the richest 5% of people in the world.13

Externalities. The term “externalities” refers to positive and negative effects that businesses have on other stakeholders but which are not reflected on the firm’s financial statements. For example, a firm can create a positive externality if it hires ex-convicts and thereby reduces the likelihood (and social costs) of repeat offenders. Unfortunately, in 2018 the negative ecological externalities of the world’s 1200 largest businesses were estimated to be about $5 trillion (a 50% increase from five years earlier),14 an amount that is greater than the total profits of these firms.15 Even if all these firms were to meet their greenhouse gas emission goals, this would represent merely 25% of the amount required from them to meet the 2°C goal of the Paris Agreement.16 In other words, these firms on average cause over $600 of negative externalities per each of the almost 8 billion people on the planet. That is a lot of damage, especially considering that one-third of the world earns less than $2 per day.17 While the costs of these externalities are often borne by those who can least afford it, the profits from these firms’ activities benefit the relatively rich who can afford to purchase shares, thus further widening the gap between rich and poor.

Question #4: Do you think it is problematic that the profits of the world’s largest corporations do not take into account the trillions of dollars of negative externalities these firms are creating? Why is this allowed to happen? How might it be addressed?

Food systems.18 There are 500 million small-scale farms on the planet, making it by far the most frequent type of organization on the planet. About 70% of the world’s 1 billion chronically-malnourished people are small-scale farmers, making this the neediest type of organization on the planet. Fortunately, we have the technology to double productivity on small-scale farms using eco-friendly methods like Conservation Agriculture (where food is grown in ways that enrich the soil without use of pesticides and costly fertilizers). Unfortunately, many high-income countries rely on modern “industrial agriculture” that is based on inputs like fertilizers, pesticides, pumped irrigation, and so on. Although it seems like industrial agriculture is efficient (e.g., only 3% of Americans are involved in farming), it is actually energy-inefficient and unsustainable (e.g., fertilizers need to be mined, transported, and applied with machinery). One study showed that, prior to the Industrial Revolution, farming yielded 40 times more energy outcomes than energy inputs, but this ratio was reduced to 2.1 units by 1971.19 Today it can take 7 to 10 calories of energy to produce 1 calorie of food energy.20 Moreover, hundreds of studies show that industrial agriculture widens the gap between rich and poor, and that it lowers the quality of soils and water. Even so, this highly unsustainable approach to agriculture is promoted because it “efficiently” produces cheap food (e.g., direct fuel subsidies to agriculture in the USA amounts to $2.4 billion). So cheap that on average 25% of food is wasted after being purchased from grocery stores.21

Question #5: Do you think we are facing a food systems crisis? Explain.

1 This reading has been prepared by Bruno Dyck for students in LEAD 3030 at the University of Manitoba.

2 Moore, Jennie, and Rees, W.E. (2013). “Getting to one-planet living.” In Worldwatch Institute, State of the world 2013: Is sustainability still possible? (39-50). Island Press: Washington. GDP/capita based on 2018 World Bank data.

3 For a lengthier discussion of this, see Dyck, B. and M. Neubert, (2010). Management: Current Practices and New Directions. Boston MA: Cengage/Houghton Mifflin.

4 Much of the information in this section is from National Aeronautics and Space Administration website, “Global Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet” http://climate.nasa.gov/key_indicators. See also IPCC, 2021: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Masson-Delmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S.L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M.I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J.B.R. Matthews, T.K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O. Yelekçi, R. Yu, and B. Zhou (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press. In Press.

5 Latest daily CO2 (2021, Sept 16) found at https://www.co2.earth/daily-co2. Buis, A (2019; October 6). The atmosphere: Getting a hander on carbon dioxide. NASA: Global climate change. https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2915/the-atmosphere-getting-a-handle-on-carbon-dioxide/

6 Transportation and climate change. USEPA. https://www.epa.gov/transportation-air-pollution-and-climate-change/carbon-pollution-transportation “Overview of Greenhouse gases.”

7 Food and climate change. David Suzuki Foundation. https://davidsuzuki.org/queen-of-green/food-climate-change/

8 https://report.ipcc.ch/sr15/pdf/sr15_spm_final.pdf

9 Elperin, J., Dennis, B., & Mooney, C. (2018, Sept 28). Trump administration sees a 7-degree [Fahrenheit] rise in global temperatures by 2100. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/trump-administration-sees-a-7-degree-rise-in-global-temperatures-by-2100/2018/09/27/b9c6fada-bb45-11e8-bdc0-90f81cc58c5d_story.html?noredirect=on

12 “Economic Inequality.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_inequality

13 Stiglitz, J. (2002). Globalization and its discontents. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

14 Note that figure in this paragraph are US dollars. Makower, J., et al. (2020). 2020 state of green business. Oakland, CA: GreenBiz Group.

15 The largest 500 companies in the world generated about $2.15 trillion in profits in 2018. “Global 500” Fortune. https://fortune.com/global500/2019/

16 Makower et al. (2020).

17 In all, 2.4 billion people lived on less than US $2 a day in 2010. Poverty overview, The World Bank, http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview

18 This paragraph draws heavily from Dyck, B. & Silvestre, B. (in-press). A novel approach to sustainable innovation in an international development context: Lessons from small-scale farms in Nicaragua. Organization Studies.

19 Bayliss-Smith, T.P. (1982). The ecology of agricultural systems. Cambridge University Press. See also Dyck, B. (1994). “Build in sustainable development, and they will come: A vegetable field of dreams.” Journal of Organizational Change Management, 7(4): 47-63.

20 Page 164 in Princen, T., Manno, J.P., and Martin, P. (2013). Keep them in the ground: Ending the fossil fuel era. State of the world 2013: Is sustainability still possible?, Worldwatch Institute. Ch. 14:161-71.

21 Gunders, D. (2012, August). Wasted: How America is losing up to 40 percent of its food from farm to fork to

landfill. NRDC Issue Paper 12-06-B. New York, NY: Natural Resources Defense Council.