Читать книгу ESG Investing For Dummies - Brendan Bradley - Страница 78

The term environmental stewardship has been used to describe activities such as reducing harmful activities or pollution, purchasing more sustainable products, and replanting trees and limiting harvests. Stewardship itself embodies the responsible planning and management of resources and can be applied to the environment and nature, economics, or property. Such actions can also be differentiated, from local to global efforts, or in rural and urban contexts. Many environmental issues are seen on a global scale, which suggests that local actions can’t meet those challenges; however, engaging in local stewardship actions and initiatives can be the catalyst to ensure involvement in promoting broader sustainability issues. Business initiatives that improve environmental impact are increasing in number, but there is a growing consensus that transformations need to take larger steps than those that are currently underway.

Many businesses don’t fully understand the driving forces that promote environmental sustainability in the context of their own operations. Without understanding these forces, they are likely to sub-optimize their transformation initiatives and fail to realize the expected value. More work is required to establish clear definitions as well as a framework in different contexts to effectively support material activities.

Environmental stewardship is considered a growth area, with business leaders taking action to apply environmental sustainability principles. They need to create insights that allow them to better understand the driving forces behind their actions and better align initiatives to achieve business value. The actions in the following sections can help.