A low-carbon, resource-efficient and socially inclusive green economy provided direction for sustainable development, said Centre for Industrial Research (CSIR) senior researcher Dr Lauren Haywood at the Sustainability in the Resource Industry Summit, hosted by consulting agency Blank Canvas in Johannesburg, Gauteng, last month.

She added that a green economy resulted in improved human well- being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities.

Developing such an economy required reflection on the form of policy, legislation and incentives in the public and private sectors, and it should not be regarded as an add-on to the emerging sector, but a framework for all economic activity, Haywood explained.

“A green economy gives effect to the concept of sustainable development and enhances the reconceptualisation of basic business, risks and technologies and approaches used by many enterprises.”

She added that sustainability currently was comparable to any other business megatrend and that sustainability drivers included pressure from stakeholders, legislation, building a reputation, having a competitive advantage and reducing risks.

Currently, 95% of the world’s 250 largest corporations reported on their sustainability performance, Haywood noted.

“Far from scaling back on resource use, we are consuming more resources than ever, even as sustainability mainstreams,” she cautioned.

Haywood noted that the notion of resilience in business strategy enabled organisations to contextualise sustainability, adding that business was not a self-contained system, but rather a contributing member of a greater social ecologi- cal system upon which its existence depended.

She concluded that resilience also enabled organisations to contextualise risk, enabling them to adapt to and anticipate risk. “All risks are systematic in nature, resulting from interconnected vulnerabilities between relationships. and feedback of social and ecological variables of the system.”