Slick Rick

Case 5 Decoupling Case: Natural resource use & environmental impacts from economic growth

As businesses push to become more competitive and aspire to continual growth the question of whether the world will be able to sustain such economic pursuits indefinitely is at the forefront of economic debate. Limitations of growth do not arise from nature’s finite wealth of raw materials alone but extend to its capacity to act as a sink for human wastes (Brock & Taylor 2005). Recent decades have seen a push for more sustainable practices amongst businesses which address this issue. Decoupling our rate of resource consumption and reducing our environmental impact is imperative because as we are beings of the present generation, we hold the earth in trust for generations to come.

Decoupling in the economic sense is used to discourage the interdependence of economic productivity and environmental degradation. If a country is able to achieve continual growth in GDP whilst eliminating environmental desecration, decoupling has been attained. The case report defines the process of decoupling as: “reducing the amount of resources such as water or fossil fuels used to produce economic growth and delinking economic development from environmental deterioration.” (Fischer-Kowalski, & Swilling 2011). The twentieth century saw the population of the world multiply by a factor of four, exceeding 6 billion. Over that time industrial output swelled by a multiple of 40, sulphur dioxide and carbon emissions increase by a factor of 10, and energy consumption boosted by a factor of 16 (Arrow & Walker 2004). The destructive nature of man, increasing metabolic rates and our dependence on the Earth’s precious resources is an implausible plan for strategic survival. Our behaviour over the past century proves why decoupling is an urgent concern. What is further concerning is that now, as opposed to centuries ago, we not only have the capacity to ruin the environment on a small...