Concerns about human impacts on the environment, and what those impacts mean for human wellbeing, are not new. Communities and governments have long known and acted to try to ensure the links between environmental integrity and social/economic outcomes are managed holistically. This was the case for the management of common resources (such as fishing activities) by local communities as well as, for example, the maintenance of forests to ensure supply of timbers for shipbuilding among European colonising powers in centuries past. What has changed in our time, is the scale of such impacts. During the last century, there was an uptick of human use of planetary resources and associated pollution effects, with all measures of human impacts on the planet increasing in the 1950s (this time period is sometimes called the ‘great acceleration’). Activity has always had local effects, but what scientists found is that these effects were also generated at a planetary (earth system) scale. Earth system science focuses on how the planet as a whole functions, and how the interactions between various aspects of the earth systemmanifest (for example: water cycles, the flow of materials, greenhouse gas concentrations and biological diversity). While there are many ways in which these perspectives can be laid out, for the purposes of this article I will highlight three significant aspects, namely: climate change; biodiversity loss and materials flows. Climate change has been universally recognised by governments as constituting an existential threat to human wellbeing, with many countries passing legislation and supporting policy approached to reduce emissions rapidly and move to a ‘net zero’ position as soon as possible. Living in the North West of England, it was impossible to miss that the UK Government cohosted the most recent international ‘conference of parties’ (COP26) in Glasgow, with the next COP taking place in Egypt in 2022. These meetings are part of the ongoing process of decarbonising the global economy in order to try to stabilise global average temperatures and to limit climate-related harm (such as fires, floods and storm damage) across the globe. At the same time, business and other organisations have sought to ensure they reduce emissions from their activities and are in line with global ambitions. Climate change is not the only issue to be addressed, but it is one that intersects with other issues of concern: for example, extinction rates increase as the climate warms. Biodiversity loss is the subject of intergovernmental coordination through the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and EcosystemServices (IPBES). Biodiversity relates to the living parts of the planet, and ‘ecosystem services’ describes how we derive services such as food, materials for making clothing and nutrients essential for good health from the living world. The concerns around biodiversity include species extinction, as well as how changes in how the ‘web of life’ operates will affect societies’ ability to sustain food sources. This is the connection that exercises people concerned with the health of bees and other pollinators, as well as the hidden life in soils that ensure they are full of nutrients that support food production. Concerns around the distribution of living systems are also behind worries around deforestation, as well as the simplification of natural systems such as they are more susceptible to shocks. Concern around material flows has less formal inter-governmental architecture to date, but is increasingly being focused upon. This includes a diversity of issues including the generation of plastics (alongside where they end up after use and how they might affect our health) – as highlighted by the Plastic Packaging in People’s Lives project elsewhere in this issue; the effect of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution (as a side effect of fertilizers which are themselves used to support food production); and the extraction of minerals that underpin much of our technology (such as mobile phones and renewable energy technologies such as batteries). There is no current formal intergovernmental process on these issues but it is likely that one will emerge in the near future. The final observation I should add relates to where people rest within these issues. The short answer is we are everywhere; humankind is not separate from the biosphere, but an integral part of it. This is a new appreciation of what was perhaps known in the distant past, that human societies have to live in harmony with the planet as we depend on nature directly or indirectly, regardless of whether we realise it. While this insight has deep philosophical roots, it also has some practical implications for organisations everywhere and to scholars (such as those showcased from both aspects in this issue) in many relevant disciplines. FIFTY FOUR DEGREES | 29 Professor Jan Bebbington is the Rubin Chair for Sustainability in Business, and Director of the Pentland Centre for Sustainability in Business. j.bebbington1@lancaster.ac.uk
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