Ultimately what has been failing business is the traditional disconnect of the social (i.e. socio-economic aspect of business) and ecological (i.e. natural resources upon which the business depends).
Underscored by an unprecedented pace of change, stakeholders from across business, government and civil society face a new imperative in understanding and managing emerging risks” - Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman World Economic Forum
Business is typically about the use of resources to make a profit. The challenge for business has always been to deal with unexpected changes impacting on their bottom line. Risk management action or responses are then selected based on the likelihood and possible magnitude of occurrence of the event causing loss. The consequences of change to the natural environment has, however, not really been addressed in the domain as business. For the most part, typical business operations have neglected interdependencies between their activities and their natural environment which includes the natural resource base and societal influences. Business needs to move out of the mould of addressing ‘business as usual’ and foresee the abovementioned global challenges as an opportunity to expand into a new realm of business opportunities. The need is to understand that humans/business and nature are not simply interdependent they are in fact one and the same. As such business need to understand the impact of their operations in relation to where they are in the systems in order to understand the points of resilience at which to intervene in order to have an influence on adaptation for the sustainability of their business.
The challenge of characterising a social ecological system and understanding how to improve its resilience is still in its infancy, and although there is a growing demand, the availability of tools and appropriate knowledge is a limiting factor.
Social ecological system implies a coherent system of biophysical and social factors that interact in a regularly, adaptive manner.
Our research goes beyond reducing or discarding unsustainable practices, but puts forward a new paradigm where business should not see themselves separate to or in competition with the social ecological system within which they operate, but rather to ‘better understand both their dependence on the systems for resources and the wastes it absorbs, as well as the surety of supply of these’, thereby allowing business to implement actions to improve the resilience of the system and themselves to the pressures of global change.
Resilience is a measure of the ability of a business and the system (social, economic and environment) on which it depends to absorb and adapt to disturbances before losing its current structure and functions. It implies that business needs to understand its impacts, dependencies, and the dynamics within the system, in order to understand how to influence and respond appropriately to change.
