ABOUT
Our Purpose
Greenland Enterprises' core purpose is to help organizations increase their effectiveness and profitability through sustainable business practices.
Our Values
We 'walk the talk' of social and ecological sustainability with integrity. We are honest, transparent and accountable. We participate in our local and global community, through dialogue and capacity-building. We continually monitor our business and purchasing practices to eliminate our contribution to unsustainability. We respect our team, our clients, our business partners, people and the planet. We aim to change the world, so we can live and work in a healthy, just, and sustainable society.
Sustainability
The concept of sustainability has emerged as an aspiration for the
direction of society that evolved from the conclusions of
the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED)
in its 1987 landmark report entitled "Our Common Future" (commonly referred
to as the Brundtland Report). Achieving sustainability is about finding a
better way for humans to live within our support system - the biosphere.
Natural systems provide the essentials for our survival - clear air and water,
healthy soil, a stable climate - through a massively complex and interconnected
web that has evolved over billions of years, making a habitable environment
for humans.
Sustainability can be scientifically defined as a dynamic state in which
global ecological and social systems are not systematically undermined.
The Brundtland Report defined sustainable development as that which meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Ensuring
that activities do not systematically undermine ecological and social systems
is to ensure that the ability of future generations to meet their needs is not
compromised.
There are four basic ways ecological and social systems can be undermined
(as originally articulated by The Natural Step):
When natural systems are
subject to systematic increases in
1) ...concentrations of substances from the earth's crust (e.g. fossil fuels,
heavy metals)
2) ...concentrations of substances produced by society (e.g. CFCs, DDT)
3) ...degradation by physical means (e.g. deforestation, overfishing)
and when social systems are subject to
4) ...conditions that systematically undermine people's ability to meet their
needs (e.g. oppressive conditions, non-living wages)
Thus sustainability is a shared vision of success in which these four principles
are not violated, and strategic sustainable development (SSD) is the process
of moving towards this vision in systematic and strategic ways on the individual,
organizational, community, national and global scales. To
do this, we need an unprecedented shift in the way we think and act. These
four principles represent the basic constraints we have been dealt as a global
society. While at first this may seem negative, or limiting, it actually
provides the basic structure - the rules of the game - within which we have
unlimited potential for innovation and creativity. Having an understanding
of these principles is like having an understanding of pitch and rhythm in
order to make music instead of a jumble of sounds, or understanding the rules
of football in order to play a fun and competitive game as opposed to merely
chasing a ball.
Sustainability is often evaluated using the 'triple bottom line' for ecological,
social, and economic health because economic considerations are such a large and
central aspect of social systems, and vital to the continued operation of
individual organizations.
Too often, we view health, social, economic, security, environmental, and
other major societal issues as separate, competing, and hierarchical, when
they are really systemic and interdependent. We do not have environmental
problems per se, we have negative environmental consequences of the way we
have designed our business, social, economic, and political systems. The
challenge of addressing these flaws in societal design is unprecedented,
daunting, and exciting. It is one that will require the best in all of us.
We gratefully acknowledge the wisdom and knowledge of Dr. Karl-Henrik Robert, Founder of The Natural Step, and Dr. Anthony D. Cortese, President of Second Nature, in the development of our definition of sustainability