ABSTRACT
As Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.” This chapter can be considered the most important in any textbook regarding the discussion of firms and the long-term survival of the planet. The natural environment impacts every living organism every day around the world. The focus of this chapter is for the reader to get a better understanding of some of the daunting issues the managers of firms must acknowledge and address in the decision-making process. While there are a number of environmental challenges facing firms and their stakeholders, this chapter identifies new technologies and new mind-sets to help resolve these complex issues. Some of the concepts discussed in this chapter include: the natural environment as a stakeholder; the role of NGOs in the natural environment; how the circular economy can improve environmental conditions; environmental management systems; greenwashing; environmental justice; environmental sustainability; environmental audits; impacts of climate change; and carbon footprints. The chapter begins with a discussion on how a social enterprise in the Philippines recycles the previously unrecyclable plastic sachets and concludes with a discussion of the new discovery by IBM to produce a battery from seawater.
