Insight and foresight in environmental management
Environmental management and sustainability are strongly linked as demonstrated in sustainability reporting of many companies and in evaluations based on ESG-standards. Environment is one of three main pillars in sustainability evaluations – environmental, economic, and social pillars.
Environment and sustainability relate to biodiversity, circular economy and sustainable finance as key areas for finding solutions to safeguard the planet's natural resources presently greatly under jeopardy by anthropogenic activities, i.e. as lost at breathtaking speeds.
To ensure our quality of life, it is important to build up natural resources in the form of natural capital. Instead of exploiting these through a one-directional economy, it is important to set market-based incentives to conserve natural resources (circular economy) and to rebuild them (ultimately quantifying the internalization of external costs/losses into the economic system). Natural resources must be available to later generations - for sustainable use. This requires legal frameworks and market-based instruments to reward environmental/ecosystem services as part of the economic system.