Abstract
Eco literacy involves cultivating social, ecological and emotional intelligence. In their wake, activists and educators display some of the practices of emotionally and socially engaged eco literates. Some of these practices include; embracing sustainability, doing the invisible, understanding nature’s sustainability of life and developing empathy for life. The aim is to enlighten the world with the skills and knowledge an eco-literate need to possess. A proposed framework for the advancement of ecology, environmental education, and humanities has been presented. The dimensions of sustainability explain how to manage risks facing the economy, the environment and the society as well as opportunities and obligations. The focus of sustainable development is to contribute to a healthy ecosystem, create economic value and to contribute to stable communities
It is necessary that eco-literate persons understand how the society structure is and what contributions they could make to make society more sustainable. Ecology involves the interaction of organisms with other organisms and with the natural environments. For sustainability, our focus is on human interaction with other humans, other organisms and with the physical environment. Emphasis on the need for forethought and skill is necessary for the business industry to facilitate appropriate management capability and social capability on any problems that may arise. Sustainability literacy is used to refer to the knowledge and skills necessary to attain a good society. The goal of sustainability literacy is to impart knowledge and skill on minimization of waste and recycling in the business world. Sustainability is a core subject to the societal evolution towards a prosperous world where cultural achievements and the natural environment are preserved for generations. Economic growth, social equity and sustainability of carrying capacity of natural systems are the current challenges facing humanity.
Sustainability literacy involves both ecological literacy as well as environmental literacy. The concerns are about how the environment can provide basic needs for generations both current and future. This literature seeks to enlighten and change the human’s attitude and approach to the environment to be respective. A human understanding and prediction of ecological risks are necessary. Eco-literate persons need to possess communication skills and action competence to be able to change homes and agents about the environment. To cover health hazards and challenges, eco-literate needs actual knowledge of the environmental threats (Labuschagne et al., 2005).
The Economic Sustainability for a firm guarantees sufficient cash flow to ensure liquidity while producing a continuous above average return to the stakeholders at any time. A manager can access an approximation of a firm’s economic capital through management and financial accounting. Economic sustainability requires a firm to manage; financial capital, tangible capital and intangible capital. Some initiatives are set out to improve financial contributions and hence sustainability. Economic training of workers, for instance, will encourage employees to assist in improving their employer's performance and sustain the environment. To create, maintain and protect jobs stable institutions would offer capital at affordable rates to smaller, struggling companies (Labuschagne et al., 2005). This project will help in the development of the systems targeted and aid in wealth building.
Some of the approaches to reconciling environmental and economic performance include; differentiation of products, reduction of internal costs, redefining markets, managing business risks that affect the environment and maintaining rules by setting tighter regulations. Eco-efficiency can be increased through functional extension, closing production loops and de-materialization (Bird, 2006). The effect would be a higher value and less environmental effect. Natural capital takes the form of the ecosystem services. Natural capital consists of soil remediation, plant and animal reproduction, water purification and stabilization of climate. The notion of industrial metabolism was introduced to try to understand the link between industry and eco-system. To produce output the industry consumes material and energy. The output produced can be either desired or undesired. An industrial system is unsustainable if the emissions are more than can be absorbed by natural sinks. Companies that are ecologically sustainable consume natural resources at a rate below that of natural development. Sustainable companies do not engage in activities that degrade ecosystem services.
Social Component deals with a business's or organization's impact on society in which it operates. The mission of this dimension is to ensure a corporate culture remains relevant. Moreover, it seeks to integrate optimally business activities by promoting a cohesive approach in an enterprise's primary sector. On the social dimension, sustainability was proposed to counter depreciation of renewable and nonrenewable natural capital. In social dimension, there are human and social resources. Social dimension covers issues like community employee relations. Some social demands and theories by social activists are beyond the grasp of the corporate firms hence difficult to capture. Social sustainability initiatives include drafting human rights values and labor resources that are high level in requirement. Also, for social sustainability, performing audits on labor profile, working conditions and quality of communication in a company before any investments are made is necessary. The aim is to ensure compliance with safety and health standards and environmental respect (Salzmann, 2005). Additionally, developing guidelines on practices related to social responsibility on management of mining projects
Away from the focus on environmental pollution, sustainability has more concern for environmental and ecological literacy. Environmental literacy implies a clear understanding of the correlation between the society and the people and how they relate to natural systems sustainably. Environmental literacy involves an understanding of concepts such as thermodynamics, carrying capacity, tropic levels and magnitudes, population growth trends, and species extinction. Ecological literacy requires a clear grasp of matters concerning the modern world (Dyllick and Hockerts, 2012). A change in how individuals or firms do things in sustainable ways is necessary to achieve sustainability.
References
Bird, A. (2006). Training for environmental improvement. In Greening people: Human resources and environmental management (Vol. 226, No. 246, pp. 226-246). Greenleaf Publishing in association with GSE Research.
Dyllick, T., & Hockerts, K. (2012). Beyond the business case for corporate sustainability. Business strategy and the environment, 11(2), 130-141.
Labuschagne, C., Brent, A. C., & Van Erck, R. P. (2005). Assessing the sustainability performances of industries. Journal of cleaner production,13(4), 373-385.
Salzmann, O., Ionescu-Somers, A., & Steger, U. (2005). The business case for corporate sustainability: literature review and research options. European Management Journal, 23(1), 27-36.
