The World Economic Forum released the The Global Competitiveness Report 2019, which indicates emergency environmental factors in two predominant human activities: energy use and food production. Environmental factors include climate change – caused mainly by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the scarcity of natural resources, such as water.
Furthermore, population growth – the population is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050 – requires efforts to ensure sustainable development. Based on estimates from the Footprint Network, a population of 9 billion people with today’s average standard of living would have an ecological footprint that would require about 3.4 planets, clearly exceeding environmental limits.
Emergency Environmental Factors
1. Climate Change
Rising temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns caused by climate change will reduce productivity, leading to lower production agricultural. According to the report, damage to infrastructure caused by extreme climate change could also reduce productivity. These effects of climate change are likely to exacerbate poverty.
A 2018 FAO report concludes that “in low-latitude regions, where most developing and least developed countries are located, agriculture is already being adversely affected by climate change, specifically by a higher frequency of droughts and floods.” According to this study, crop yields in West Africa and India could fall by 2.6 to 2.9% by 2050. Combined with significant population growth in these areas, this reduction is likely to reduce massive food deficits.
- How to adapt to climate change?
The Report Business Climate Resilience: Thriving Through the Transformation, that can be downloaded here, brings together important cases and the latest reflections on climate adaptation and resilience, focusing on climate resilience in the private sector. The publication highlights the need for companies to prepare for the risks associated with climate change.
“Long-term transformative scenarios need to be part of business strategies, or companies will soon become irrelevant. Companies that already have a long-term vision will be tomorrow’s champions.” Joyashree Roy, author of the IPCC.
The WBCSD has been working with the business community on climate resilience. Companies should prepare for the physical risks associated with climate change, as well as transition risks. CEBDS has published Climate Risks: how is the business sector adapting?, which shows organizations' responses to the effects of climate change on their businesses.
Among the risks associated with climate change, we can mention physical risks, which are related to extreme changes, such as hurricanes, cyclones and floods. With reputational risk, the brand loses value before its stakeholders, both due to the lack of climate risk management and the contribution of its activity to greenhouse gas emissions.
Due to the threats they are exposed to, companies need to integrate climate change into their risk management processes. The ISO 31000 standard, adopted by the Brazilian Association of Technical Standards (ABNT), was created to describe in detail the systematic and logical processes of risk management, with the aim of helping organizations to carry out risk management effectively.
2. Water shortage
Water scarcity has been shown to have an extremely negative effect on productivity in agriculture, as well as in smelting, chemical and mining activities. As one of the most important natural resources, water is essential for society and production processes. Whether as a biochemical component of living beings, a means of survival for various plant and animal species, a representative element of social and cultural values and a production factor for various final and intermediate consumer goods.
Supply crises are leading society to understand that water management has become a global priority. Issues related to water risk, loss management, water reuse and new mitigation technologies are increasingly common topics among companies seeking greater efficiency in their processes.
- Water reuse
Although it has gained more attention in recent years, the concept of reuse is old. The definition refers to the very existence of the natural water cycle, which normally considers collection, use and disposal.
However, water has a natural circulation mechanism that makes it reusable several times and for different purposes. Based on this concept, we can define water reuse as the use of treated effluents for beneficial purposes, such as irrigation, industrial use and non-potable urban purposes. Before disposing of water, make the most of it, using efficient treatment techniques, so that the same water can be reused several times.
Brazil moves up one position among the most competitive
According to the document, inflation under control and an improvement in the efficiency of the labor market caused Brazil to rise one position in the global competitiveness ranking this year. The country came in 71st place, with a score of 60.9 points (scale of 0 to 100) – the average of 141 economies was 61 points. In first place was Singapore, with 84.8 points.
Despite the improvement, Brazil still needs to make more significant progress in economic stability (in which it ranked 115th), trade openness (125th), security (123rd) and government stability (130th), according to the forum's report. The organization analyzed 103 indicators grouped into 12 pillars.
The report shows that in the long term, Brazilian governments will have to establish more socially inclusive and environmentally responsible policies for the country to be able to compete in a world where the main economies have been making efforts on these fronts.
Check out The Global Competitiveness Report 2019, complete in English here.
Photo credits: Dharshie Wissah / 2019 Ciwem Environmental Photographer of the Year
