For a long time, businesses were considered one of the main contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Indeed, the world’s 500 largest companies account for 46% of emissions. Such a high level of emissions has had a negative effect on the quality of life of people on Earth and on the ecological system as a whole. However, it has now become clear that businesses are also a driving force for the solution.
In a speech that was revolutionary in many respects at the United Nations COP21 climate summit in Paris, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, speaking about the need for the ecological transition, called on companies, for the first time with great clarity at a world assembly, as the main force behind this transition. He asked companies to be ambitious and to do their part by truly building the Green Economy.
The ecological transition is a global challenge that requires a new way of thinking and acting. In the world of business and management there are still too many practices and behaviours, most of them, that are not sustainable and do not contribute to solutions. The fact is that, in order to achieve a sustainable model, it is not enough to change only the practices and behaviours of companies; the entire economic model must change.
An ecological transition is a change in the economic model, in which new values of economic ethics replace purely market values.
