CSR Week 2

Question 1

What are the causes of climate change?

Answer 1

• Temperature rise
• Sea level rise
• Glaciers are melting
• Snow melts earlier
• Sea-based and land-based ice on the poles is melting
  (Ice & snow reflects the sun and the heat away, now it’s absorbed by the Earth’s surface, which increases temperature rise)
• More CO2 + other pollutants -> greenhouse effect. Cause by a.o.
• Industry emissions
• Transportation
• Food production/farming (bioindustry, pesticides, fertilizers)
• Deforestation
• Overfishing
• Powering buildings
• Overconsumption/waste
• Oil drilling, oil & gas
• Power plants

Question 2

WATER

Answer 2

Water resources (groundwater / aquifers, rivers, lakes, glaciers, snow caps) dry up due to
- Rising temperatures
- High use of water (farming, industry, population)
“Farming uses 70% of all available fresh water on the planet” (Vice)
- Flooding
- Droughts
- Contamination due to pollution by industry and farming
- Conflicts, societal collapse
- If people don’t have access to water they have to leave -> climate change refugees, loss of
cultures and societies
- Biodiversity diminishes, and plants and animals die
- Desertification -> increases temperature rise

Question 3

What is meant by unequal access for water?

Answer 3

If water is seen as a resource or commodity, as property, then it can be bought and sold, and become inaccessible to those who do not have enough money. Unequal access.

Question 4

What is meant by water justice?

Answer 4

If water is seen as a living entity instead of as a commodity, then it will have its own rights. Then laws and jurisdictions can be created around it that can manage the use of water, and allocate it to multiple parties instead of the most powerful ones, who now claim it or take it

Question 5

What are the rights of nature?

Answer 5

According to the “Rights of Nature” doctrine, an ecosystem is entitled to legal personhood status and as such, has the right to defend itself in a court of law against harms, including environmental degradation caused by a specific development project or even by climate change.

Question 6

How would this law be relevant to the business world?

Answer 6

“When no one takes responsibility for the health of the water or the ecosystem it becomes easy to pollute” (Vice). There is no accountability.

“If our depletion, pollution, and misuse of fresh water continues unchecked, it could affect our entire food system but also push ecosystems and societies to a point of no return.” (Vice)

Question 7

ENVIRONMENT

Answer 7

• Loss of biodiversity
• Certain species disappear due to
• Increasing temperatures
• Changes in weather patterns
• Pollution
• Wildfires
• Pests increase
• Oceans
• Coral reefs + species disappear due to rising temperatures, and acidity
• Overfishing
• Seawater level rises, causes
• Erosion/loss of coastal areas
• Storm surges

Question 8

HUMAN HEALTH

Answer 8

• Heat-related stress (wet bulb temperatures, heat stroke)
• Affects people’s ability to work and study
• People with lower incomes are affected harder -> socioeconomic inequity increases
• Superstorms
• Flooding
• Wildfires
• Pollution of land and water (farming, industry, sewage)
• Biodiversity & ecosystem health decrease
• Pests & diseases increase
• Less access to food (crops fail due to increased droughts, flooding, diseases and pests)
• Less access to water (climate change refugees)
• More competition for fewer resources (water/land / food / etc.)
• Urbanization, living in cramped, unhygienic conditions can increase diseases and negatively affect health in other ways

Question 9

SDGs - How can businesses help?

Answer 9

The SDGs present 17 areas (the goals) that need
to be addressed by 2030 in order to create a better
more sustainable future in order to combat global
challenges.

The question, however, is whether business can
address sustainability issues based on these 17
high level goals and become a corporate citizen

Question 10

SDGS

Answer 10

SDGs are developed to cover all aspects of sustainable development. SDGs can be broken down on how to reach the goals into more specific targets that businesses can work with.

For example:
Goal 1: No Poverty
1.1 By 2030, eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere,
currently measured as people living on less than $1.25 a day

Question 11

Planet SDGS

Answer 11

6. Clean water and sanitation
7. Climate action
8. Life Below water
9. Life on land

Question 12

Hierarchy of SDGS

Answer 12

Economy:
8. Decent work and economic growth
9. Industry innovation and infrastructure
10. Reduced inequalities
12. Responsible consumption and production

Society:
1. No poverty
11. Sustainable cities and communities
16. Peace, Justice and strong institutions
7. Affordable and clean energy
3. Good health and well-being
4. Quality education
5. Gender equality
2. Zero hunger

Biosphere:
15. Life on land
14. Life on water
6. Clean water and sanitation
13. Climate action

Common goal:
17. Partnership for the goals

Question 13

How companies from strategy and execute? What are the 3 levels of response?

Answer 13

Level 1. Sustainability of complete company often contradicting and
sustainability as an add-on
Level 2. Integrating sustainability into corporate strategy does not change already existing strategies
Level 3. As determinant of change and central to vision of company