ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY AWARENESS
Environmental awareness refers to people’s sensitivity and awareness of the environmental and natural resources. Each of us has a responsibility to protect the environment, because among the biggest problem of today are environmental pollution and destruction of the ecological system. The most obvious result of this situation is global warming. Rapidly increasing world population, industrialization, urbanization and changing consumption habits; It makes our air unbreathable, our water undrinkable and our soil uncultivable and at the same time, it causes our natural resources to be rapidly depleted.
However, the natural resources of our world are not unlimited. We have to use these resources rationally and pass them on to future generations. Today, many people have realized that in order to maintain our existing systems (economic, social and ecological), we must change the way we think and the way we do business and build new structures that will make sustainable living possible. This has made us talk about the concept of sustainability more than ever before and started a transition towards a global sustainability process.
Sustainability is defined as the capacity of a system to survive and continue to develop. Sustainable life, on the other hand, is that intertwined systems (economic, social and ecological) are not independent of each other, on the contrary, these systems can exist without destroying each other and feeding each other. The economic system is located within the social system. Likewise, the social system is part of the ecosystem. Just as we cannot think of human beings independently of their natural environment, we cannot think of the economy independently of human beings.
It is not possible for an economy dependent on natural resources to continue to develop in a healthy way by ignoring the limits of nature. The economy, and therefore companies, can only survive and grow as long as they do not destroy the social system and ecosystems in which they exist. Companies should reduce their carbon footprints by using renewable resources in their production. At the same time, by focusing on environmental issues, they should create an awareness of environmental sustainability among all their stakeholders through training, events and projects.
Therefore, we must change our way of thinking (individually and institutionally) and turn to new structures that will enable a sustainable life. Otherwise, it is inevitable that the ecosystem will be damaged and threaten humanity. We should all developed our awareness of sustainable living and look at the world from a different perspective. We must reduce, reuse and recycle our consumption. AS Björn Stigson, President of the World Council for Sustainable Business, said: “We can no longer do our business as we use to. Because if we do, we won’t have a job!
