Sustainability and Businesses - An Ecological Conundrum
TerraGreen|March 2022 WSDS Special Issue: Towards A Resilient Planet (Ensuring A Sustainable And Equitable Future)
In this article, Arghadeep Das highlights the potential of the private sector in enterprising green growth and their crucial role in helping address pressing environmental challenges.
Arghadeep Das
Sustainability and Businesses - An Ecological Conundrum

The private sector is widely connoted with unsustainable business practices accounting for a significant share of environmental challenges, including pollution, ecological degradation, and biodiversity loss. However, in recent decades, the role and contribution of private enterprises towards sustainability have become more pronounced with the apprehension of the climate crisis and linked adversities and potential economic gains in seeking sustainable solutions to address the global complexities.

According to the Boston Consulting Group, “focusing on sustainability in business models and corporate governance enables businesses to gain a lasting competitive advantage”.1 Given the hefty contribution of the private sector to the global economy and unique market positioning, businesses play a crucial role in steering green investments, expanding the green private industry and facilitating development and transfer of technologies to harness climate-friendly solutions. Recognizing the private sector’s opportune global disposition, public bodies are progressively engaging with private players and industries. The goal is to foster partnerships towards building climate-resilient and sustainable economies to help countries track their economic progress and meet their commitments to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The private sector and businesses are particularly consequential for developing countries deficient in technical and financial mechanisms to chart a path towards climate-friendly circular economies. Pursuing sustainable and transparent business models could enable companies to tap economic opportunities worth at least $12 trillion a year by 2030 and create up to 380 million jobs, especially in developing countries.2

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