Roger L. Martin

Alison Kemper

<article-ideainbrief class="article-ideainbrief">
 <h4 class="ideainbrief-title">Idea in Brief</h4>
 <div class="ideainbrief-contents">
  <p>Businesses are at the center of sustainability debates—as both causes of and deliverers from environmental degradation. Clearly they have a major role to play in saving the planet. But how are they to contribute?</p>
  <p>The answer comes in two lines of reasoning. One is derived from the works of Thomas Malthus and argues that rescuing the environment is about restraint and responsibility. The other flows from the work of the economist and Nobel Prize winner Robert Solow and proposes that environmental and other problems can always be solved by human ingenuity.</p>
  <p>These two philosophies make uneasy bedfellows. But if we are to achieve real progress, we must apply both. That requires understanding when to favor one over the other and how to make each succeed.</p>
 </div>
</article-ideainbrief><p>Businesses clearly have a major role to play in any strategy for saving the planet. They are the engines of the developed economies that devour a disproportionate share of the world’s nonrenewable resources and produce a disproportionate share of its emissions. They also generate innovations that reduce resource use and lessen pollution. As both a cause of and a solution to environmental degradation, they are inevitably at the center of sustainability debates.</p>

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<p><span class="reprint">Reprint: R1204B</span> </p>
<p>Business is the engine of the developed economies that devour a disproportionate share of the world&#8217;s nonrenewable resources and produce a disproportionate share of its emissions. We see it, therefore, as both a cause of and a solution to environmental degradation. But how, exactly, can business contribute? </p>
<p>To answer this question, the authors explore two schools of thought. According to one, consumers and companies should do more with the resources they consume, become savvier about recycling and processing their waste, and dampen their appetite for consumption in general. This worldview achieved perhaps its clearest expression in the works of the 19th-century economist Thomas Malthus. </p>
<p>Although the Malthusian view exercises a powerful influence, it is by no means uncontested. An alternative philosophy, which flows from the work of the 20th-century economist and Nobel Prize winner Robert Solow, appeals to our natural optimism by arguing that environmental and other problems can always be resolved through the exercise of human ingenuity. </p>
<p>It&#8217;s not hard to see that these two philosophies make uneasy bedfellows. The Malthusian view encourages a tendency toward regulation and restraint, while the Solovian view underlies much of the advocacy for deregulation and the promotion of growth. But if we are to make real progress in solving the world&#8217;s environmental problems, the authors write, we will have to apply both philosophies.</p>

Saving the Planet: A Tale of Two Strategies

Reprint: R1204B Business is the engine of the developed economies that devour a disproportionate share of the world’s nonrenewable resources and produce a disproportionate share of its emissions. We see it, therefore, as both a cause of and a solution to environmental degradation. But how, exactly, can business contribute? To answer this question, the authors explore two schools of thought. According to one, consumers and companies should do more with the resources they consume, become savvier about recycling and processing their waste, and dampen their appetite for consumption in general. This worldview achieved perhaps its clearest expression in the works of the 19th-century economist Thomas Malthus. Although the Malthusian view exercises a powerful influence, it is by no means uncontested. An alternative philosophy, which flows from the work of the 20th-century economist and Nobel Prize winner Robert Solow, appeals to our natural optimism by arguing that environmental and other problems can always be resolved through the exercise of human ingenuity. It’s not hard to see that these two philosophies make uneasy bedfellows. The Malthusian view encourages a tendency toward regulation and restraint, while the Solovian view underlies much of the advocacy for deregulation and the promotion of growth. But if we are to make real progress in solving the world’s environmental problems, the authors write, we will have to apply both philosophies.

Saving the Planet: A Tale of Two Strategies

Summary.

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