Reversing Natural Environmental Agency Costs: The Biggest Challenge and Greatest Opportunity for Business and Society Today

The PRME Working Group on Climate Change and Environment invites you to attend the webinar "Reversing Natural Environmental Agency Costs: The Biggest Challenge and Greatest Opportunity for Business and Society Today."

Currently humans are using up Earth’s resources at almost twice the rate of its capacity to renew itself. This means Earth’s resources are fast depleting and unless we urgently reverse this trend, humanity’s very survival on Earth may be at stake!

Of course, both business and society have a critical role to play in this trend reversal. But what are these roles and responsibilities? What specifically can businesses do to reverse environmental degradation and depletion? What role should society play in accelerating this process?

In this webinar, Dr. Shaukat will present her co-authored paper which develops the natural environment agency theory (NEAT) to answer these very questions. Articulating an environmental agency relation between business and society, NEAT proposes that environmental pollution, depletion, and degradation resulting from business operations are natural environmental agency costs (NEACs). NEAT argues and provides supporting evidence to show that businesses must reduce NEACs if they are to be financially as well as ‘truly’ environmentally sustainable. NEAT provides a conceptual tool to stimulate innovative ideas and classroom discussions among management students on how businesses and their societal stakeholders can work together to create environmental value.

Dr. Amama Shaukat is an Associate Professor (Reader) in Accounting and Finance at Brunel Business School, Brunel University London.