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Ecologically Conscious Organizations New Business Practices Based On Ecological Commitment Andras Ocsai Full Chapter
Ecologically Conscious Organizations New Business Practices Based On Ecological Commitment Andras Ocsai Full Chapter
Ecologically Conscious
Organizations
New Business Practices
Based on Ecological
Commitment
András Ócsai
Palgrave Studies in Sustainable Business In
Association with Future Earth
Series Editors
Paul Shrivastava
Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA, USA
László Zsolnai
Corvinus University of Budapest
Budapest, Hungary
Sustainability in Business is increasingly becoming the forefront issue for
researchers, practitioners and companies the world over. Engaging with
this immense challenge, Future Earth is a major international research
platform from a range of disciplines, with a common goal to support
and achieve global sustainability. This series will define a clear space for
the work of Future Earth Finance and Economics Knowledge-Action
Network. Publishing key research with a holistic and trans-disciplinary
approach, it intends to help reinvent business and economic models
for the Anthropocene, geared towards engendering sustainability and
creating ecologically conscious organizations.
Ecologically
Conscious
Organizations
New Business Practices Based on
Ecological Commitment
András Ócsai
Business Ethics Center
Corvinus University of Budapest
Budapest, Hungary
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2021
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Preface
v
vi Preface
1 Chargaff,
E. (1986, November 6): Az egyre erősödő bizonytalanság légköre [An Atmosphere
of Growing Insecurity]. Interview by Tibor Szántó. Akadémiai Értesítő / Magyar Tudomány
[Academic Bulletin / Hungarian Science], Vol. 94, No. 11, pp. 877–883. http://real-j.mtak.hu/
143/1/MATUD_1987.pdf. Accessed 20 July 2020 [in Hungarian].
Preface vii
I would hereby like to thank Paul Shrivastava and László Zsolnai, series
editors of Palgrave Studies in Sustainable Business In Association with
Future Earth, and the editorial and production team at Palgrave, particu-
larly Jessica Harrison, Srishti Gupta, and Geetha Chockalingam, for their
support and professional assistance.
I am grateful to Corvinus University of Budapest for institutional and
financial support during the years it took to research and publish this
book. I acknowledge the help of my colleagues at the Business Ethics
Center at Corvinus University of Budapest, and that of scholars and
friends from the Hungarian and international academic world, including
leaders and members of the Transatlantic Doctoral Academy (TADA) on
Business, Economics and Ethics, with whom I have engaged in fruitful
interaction and collaboration.
I sincerely thank the interviewees involved in the empirical research
for sharing details about their values, thoughts, and practices related to
ecological consciousness in business. I also wish to express my thanks
to my language editor, Simon Milton, for his great work improving the
English of the text.
ix
x Acknowledgments
András Ócsai
Praise for Ecologically Conscious
Organizations
“As we step into the beginning of the third decade of the twenty first
century the paradigm of business and management is undergoing a
radical transformation that addresses such vital questions as meaning of
work and purpose of life. After passing through formidable challenges
and turmoils including ethical collapses that have compelled modern
business organizations to engage in soul searching, conscientious busi-
ness leaders worldwide have come to realize that reverence for nature
and respect for all life forms is of cardinal importance in shaping the
course and culture of business in future that accords primacy to ethics
and human values, sustainability and spirituality. In the background of
these pathfinding developments both in theory and practice for a more
humane and sustainable future for the self, organization, community,
society and planet this book on Ecologically Conscious Organizations by
András Ócsai is a timely and valuable contribution to the existing body
of literature, in this multi-disciplinary and multi-dimensional field of
research. A committed academic and thinker of Business Ethics Center,
Corvinus University of Budapest and also of the European SPES Forum,
Professor Ócsai has not only covered the multiple strands of thought
xi
xii Praise for Ecologically Conscious Organizations
and action in the field of Business and Ecology but also elevated it to
a higher level of consciousness beyond intellectual exercise by anchoring
the movement on the terra firma of spiritual wisdom and experience.
Coming from India, I can see and sense a palpable resonance of his
work with the pioneering work of the Nobel Laureate poet and philoso-
pher Rabindranath Tagore towards Nature-inspired education and the
signal contribution of Prof. S K Chakraborty, Founder-Convener of
Management Centre for Human Values, Indian Institute of Management
Calcutta, in the field of Human Values and Indian Ethos in Manage-
ment. I am sure the book will receive wide acceptance through creation of
space for dialogue among those who would be committed to the mission
of creating a humanistic, value-based and sustainable business scenario
in future.”
—Sanjoy Mukherjee, Professor of business ethics and corporate social
responsibility, Indian Institute of Management, Shillong, India
Part I Introduction
xv
xvi Contents
Part IV Conclusions
Index 275
List of Figures
xvii
List of Tables
xix
Part I
Introduction
and what is the relationship between them? What kind of value orien-
tations do ecologically conscious business organizations have? What are
the business models on which they build their operations? What are the
fundamental goals and raison d’être of ecologically conscious businesses?
How do they define success?
1
Ecology and Business
1 Earth sciences have not yet officially recognized the Anthropocene epoch, and there is no
general agreement about its beginning (some have proposed that the Neolithic Agricultural
Revolution more than 12,000 years ago could be considered a fitting start date, while others
have traced it back to the Industrial Revolution, and others to the nuclear tests at the end
of World War II). It is generally accepted, however, that the Anthropocene is dramatically
different from the previous eras, and great attention should be paid to this pheonomenon
because increasingly accelerating deteriorative ecological, social, and economic processes have
been occurring since the 1950s (the so-called “great acceleration” [Steffen et al. 2015a]) that is
transgressing planetary boundaries Steffen et al. (2015b).
1 Ecology and Business 5
The 2018 edition of the Living Planet Report restates the scien-
tific evidence that unsustainable human activity is pushing the natural
systems that support life on Earth to the edge. Economic activity
depends on natural services and is estimated to be worth approximately
125 trillion USD a year. Modern human societies are ultimately built on
what nature provides us with, thus are of invaluable worth in terms of our
health, wealth, food, and security. Research demonstrates that human
consumption is the driving force behind these unprecedented planetary
changes. The still increasing demand for energy, land, and water means
that the current rate of species extinction is now 100–1000 times higher
than the rate it was for many millennia of Earth’s history. The mainte-
nance of biodiversity, a prerequisite for human life on the planet and
the life of all species, is seriously endangered. To move beyond “busi-
ness as usual,” governments, business, finance, research, civil society,
and individuals have to join forces and make a new global deal for
nature and people. Strong leadership and the right political, financial,
and consumption-related choices at every level are pivotal to sustaining
humanity and nature in harmony (WWF 2018).
As our activities are driven by consumption and economic growth, we
are causing significant change to our planet. Nevertheless, at this high
cost, have we achieved a level of material and spiritual well-being and
happiness that all humans can enjoy? A study by Colin Ash, a British
economist, concludes that while economically more developed countries
have become much richer over the last fifty years, the average level of
happiness of people has not changed (the Easterlin Paradox), because
income growth increases happiness only until a certain level of income
is reached (around 20,000 USD per year in 2005 prices). Above this
level, the quality and richness of interpersonal relationships contributes
more to the happiness of people than rising income and consumption
(Ash 2007). Angus Deaton and Daniel Kahneman, both Nobel laure-
ates in economics from Princeton University, also raised the question
whether money buys happiness. They analyzed the Gallup-Healthways
Well-Being Index, a daily survey of 1000 US residents conducted by
the Gallup Organization. The authors distinguished between emotional
well-being (the emotional quality of an individual’s everyday experi-
ence) and their life evaluation (thoughts that people have about their
12 A. Ócsai
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