Accountability Philosophy And The Natural Environment

Using a philosophical and interdisciplinary approach, this book looks at how accountability can provide solutions to our current environmental and global political problems. When a social system has external elements imposed upon it, or presented to it, political problems are likely to emerge. This book demonstrates that what is needed are connecting social elements with a natural affinity to bring people together despite their differences. This book is different from others in the field. It provides new insights by critiquing the extant understandings of accountability and expands the possibilities by building on Charles Taylor’s philosophies. Central to the argument of the book are perspectives on authenticity and expressivism which are found to provide a radical reworking of our understanding of being in the world, and a starting point for rethinking the way individuals and communities ought to be dealing politically with accountability and ecological crises. The argument builds to an accountability perspective that utilises work from interpretivism, liberalism, and postmodern theory. The book will be of interest to researchers in environmental philosophy, critical perspectives on accounting, corporate governance, corporate social reporting, and environmental accounting.

This book is a rigorous, yet accessible introduction into the current philosophical discourses underpinning practices of environmental education. It provides a comprehensive theoretical framework, relating philosophical key issues and educational concerns in an intrinsic manner, against the background of current practices and policies. While the issues discussed are complex and abstract, the book is readable for a general audience.

The book is about accountability processes and how they contribute solutions to our current environmental and global political problems. This book is different to other literature in this field. This is so because the dominant accountability discourse is shaped by what is defined as a neoliberal business case for social and environmental reform. This book assumes a nirvana stance within globalisation where all citizens operate within the parameters of the free market and will recover from adverse economic and political damage. Further this book uses neoliberalism and free-market reforms aims as examples to implement efficient management technologies and create more competitive pressures. Central to the argument of the book are perspectives on authenticity, expressivism and interpretivism which are found to provide a radical reworking of our understanding of being in the world. These frameworks offer a starting point for rethinking the way individuals, businesses and communities ought to be dealing politically with accountability and ecological crises. The argument builds to an accountability perspective that utilises work from expressivism, interpretivism, classical liberalism and postmodern theory. The theoretical quest undertaken in this book is to develop connections between accountability, democratic, ethical and ecological perspectives.

This book explains how the traditional paradigm of private and public organizations is changing as a result of the multiple factors that are affecting the way in which goods and services are produced, and for whom they are produced. In view of these disruptive trends, the theory of the firm needs to be updated and to some extent rethought. Moreover, diverse challenges and opportunities such as climate change, aging populations, and new public accountability requirements are necessitating novel frameworks to ensure the long-term survival of public and private organizations. Against this backdrop, the authors contribute to the debate over the firm’s primary interest by proposing a new way of viewing the nature of the firm and its relationship with stakeholders. In addition, they carefully analyze the challenges and opportunities mentioned above, evaluating their significance for various important aspects of organizations through different lenses. Global in scope, the book also takes the United Nations Sustainability Development Goals into account. Accordingly, it will be of interest to all readers seeking a better understanding of the evolving nature of firms and organizations in our changing world.

A provocative argument that environmental thinking would be better off if it dropped the concept of “nature” altogether and spoke instead of the built environment. Environmentalism, in theory and practice, is concerned with protecting nature. But if we have now reached “the end of nature,” as Bill McKibben and other environmental thinkers have declared, what is there left to protect? In Thinking like a Mall, Steven Vogel argues that environmental thinking would be better off if it dropped the concept of “nature” altogether and spoke instead of the “environment”—that is, the world that actually surrounds us, which is always a built world, the only one that we inhabit. We need to think not so much like a mountain (as Aldo Leopold urged) as like a mall. Shopping malls, too, are part of the environment and deserve as much serious consideration from environmental thinkers as do mountains. Vogel argues provocatively that environmental philosophy, in its ethics, should no longer draw a distinction between the natural and the artificial and, in its politics, should abandon the idea that something beyond human practices (such as “nature”) can serve as a standard determining what those practices ought to be. The appeal to nature distinct from the built environment, he contends, may be not merely unhelpful to environmental thinking but in itself harmful to that thinking. The question for environmental philosophy is not “how can we save nature?” but rather “what environment should we inhabit, and what practices should we engage in to help build it?”

It is increasingly being recognised across society that the preservation of our natural environment should shape political, economic and social policies. This book delves into the partnership of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), Environmental NGOs (ENGOs), their communities, and their governmental counterparts in responding to this need.

Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject Philosophy - Miscellaneous, grade: 1,7, University of Bayreuth (Insititut für Philosophie), course: Advanced Arguments in Business Ethics, language: English, abstract: The tendency to show environmental commitment in economic sciences has been growing during the last decades. Terms like green, ecological or environmental economics have been promoted, most famously in the first green wave, when the book “The Limits to Growth” in 1972 and the Brundtland Report “Our Common Future” in 1987, and more recently, when the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change in 2006 and the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2013, were published. But how come the business world started to care about the environment in the past, without any comprehensive standard forcing them to do so legally on a national or global level? It has been felt that the financial accounting framework was not adequate to provide the information required by various internal and external stakeholders on environmental costs and liabilities, and steps taken by companies to mitigate global warming (Idowu et al. 2013, p. 1035). The endeavour was that the complete costs incurred by an enterprise including external, environmental costs like consumption of non-renewable resources, damages to the environment and degradation of nature, ought to be considered. These external costs, which are also called externalities or societal costs, are caused by the impact of organizational activities, products and services on natural environmental resources and society, but for which the organization doesn’t bear any financial liability. In other words, “external costs result from corporate activities but are not internalized through regulations and prices. The boundaries of these costs are not static.” (ibid. p. 1035).

At a time when the effects of climate change are becoming all too real for ordinary citizens around the world, this essential textbook offers insight into how managers can shape and influence the development of sustainability practices as a means of tackling some of the most pressing social, economic, and environmental challenges. Featuring a distinctly international array of case studies and examples, as well as learning outcomes, definitions, questions, tasks and further reading, Introduction to Global Sustainable Management provides readers with a valuable understanding of how sustainable management practices can be implemented in different industry sectors across the globe. Suitable for upper-level undergraduate and postgraduate students of sustainable management-related courses. A Tutor’s Guide, PowerPoint slides and selected SAGE Business Cases are available to instructors via the companion website. Colin Combe is a senior lecturer in strategic management at Glasgow Caledonian University, UK.