The acceleration of climate change we are seeing is triggering one of the deepest and most threatening global crises to ensure a fair and livable planet for the more than 8 billion inhabitants and for the biosphere. The climate crisis is so significant and severe that climate emergency is already being discussed. We are in a global context in which the trespassing of planetary boundaries, particularly those related to climate emergency, has clear effects on our daily lives, especially in an uneven and unfair manner. Organizations, across their diversity, cannot circumvent the necessary debate on how they must adapt to the new climate emergency context and how they can contribute effectively to mitigation and adaptation, without falling into greenwashing. New metrics, beyond current green certifications, that can capture and incentivize the decarbonization and ecological transition of organizations will need to be found. Obviously, this requires a profound change in the continuous economic growth logic that transcends the individual wills of organizations and requires profound social, cultural and political-economic change in the priorities we have as a society.
For a sustainable post-Covid-19 recovery strategy, humanity faces two major challenges: 1. Just prosperity: The creation of a resilient and fair economy that delivers prosperity for all; 2. Public and planetary health: protect human health, together with the reduction of environmental impacts below thresholds of planetary boundaries including greenhouse gas emissions. The Covid-19 crisis could represent an opportunity for responses that integrate different goals, or a drawback if some are prioritized without considering their impacts on the others. New kinds of informed solutions are needed to ensure long-term sustainability in social, economic, and environmental terms. This article addresses the research question: How could developed countries manage a sustainable recovery that provides a good life for all within public and planetary health? First, it argues that economic growth is not compatible with environmental sustainability. Green Keynesianism is based on the hypothesis that economic growth can be decoupled from environmental impacts, but this has not happened and it is unlikely to happen. Second, it introduces degrowth as an alternative to green growth. Degrowth challenges the hegemony of economic growth and calls for a democratically led redistributive downscaling of production and consumption in industrialised countries as a means to achieve environmental sustainability, social justice, and well-being. Third, it traces the recent evolution of the term degrowth from an activist slogan to an academic concept. Last, it calls for an alliance of alternatives that could foster a deeply radical socio-ecological transformation.
Circular economy is an alternative to the linear “extract-use-dispose” economic model, based on the ideas of recycling, repair and reuse. The circular economy promises to turn the trade-offs of unsustainable economic growth in a limited planet into synergies that make sustainability a growth strategy. The knowledge base of the circular economy, however, is highly divided and characterised by controversy over the very possibility of circularity itself. This paper asks why such a controversial idea has gained so much traction in public policies, at the EU level and at lower scales, such as the urban level. Although the focus on win-win solutions was understandable in the context in which the first circular economy policies were formulated in the EU, in the current context this policy framing may obfuscate more than it enlightens by rendering debates about complex sustainability issues technical and apolitical.
This article analyses the concept of industrial revolution, from its origins at the end of the 19th century up to the current excitement surrounding a supposed Fourth Industrial Revolution. Despite being an idea that is firmly embedded in the Western cultural imagination and in the field of academics, numerous historiographic, economic and sociological studies carried out in recent decades have deeply questioned it. In this article we will explore, on the one hand, its most widely-known deficiencies – which for many make it a spurious concept, loaded with erroneous suppositions and an obsolete vision of technological development - and, on the other, some of the ideological and political effects of its use.
This contribution seeks to provide an overview of current research into sustainable tourism from two angles. It describes firstly the key arguments in the theoretical discussion on the idea of sustainability in the tourism sector, and secondly the areas of academic research that are of interest for research into tourism and sustainability. This study will enable a global evaluation of not only the factors that influence the discussion on the sustainability of tourism, but also the central thematic areas in which this matter is addressed.
This article is a synthesis of my final degree project in Administration and Management, specifically in the area of Accounting and Financial Management, where I have analyzed a company in the leather tanning industry with the aim of determining the key factors towards meeting its target. For this purpose, I have done a quantitative (economic and financial) and qualitative analysis of the company, the industry it operates in and the macroeconomic variables of its environment.
The company studied in my FDP is Adobinve, S.L. It is a tanning company with a national and EU-wide scope, specializing in beamhouse operations with sheep and goat leather for the clothing industry.
For this article, I have deemed more appropriate to take the methodology used in the comprehensive study of the company in order to single out the key factors to meet its "Being Europe’s skin beamhouse" target. I am sure this can be helpful for future FDPs within Accounting and Financial Management.