Introduction 介绍
Businesses as well as economies across the globe are constantly reviewing their policies and strategies in order to promote their competitiveness and growth. In line with this, one of the greatest agendas that both the management of businesses as well as governments continues to focus on is achieving efficiency and promoting consistent growth and development patterns. Whereas this is the case, there are concerns that the pursuit of profits among businesses and growth and development among economies could have irreversible effects on the environment. According to Hopwood, Mellor and O'Brien (2005), there are rising concerns among different public and private sector stakeholders that whereas most of the strategies and approaches that both businesses and governments have adopted provide an avenue to achieve rapid growth and development, they have a lasting impact on the natural environment. This implies that apart from affecting the ecosystem, such approaches and strategies also put the entire human race at risk. On the other hand, there are arguments that it is almost impossible to achieve growth and development in the context of sustainable development. This paper therefore explores the extent to which sustainability initiatives are an impediment to the imperatives driving economic growth and corporate expansion. The paper will first examine the concept of sustainability before examining the relationship between economic growth and development. The paper will then consider the impact of sustainable development initiatives, in particular, climate action, on Wal-Mart and China as a business and a country respectively.
全球各地的企业和经济体都在不断审查其政策和战略，以促进其竞争力和增长。与此相一致，企业管理层和政府继续关注的更大议程之一是实现效率和促进一致的增长和发展模式。尽管情况确实如此，但人们担心，企业追求利润以及经济体之间的增长和发展可能会对环境产生不可逆转的影响。根据Hopwood、Mellor和O'Brien（2005年）的说法，不同的公共和私营部门利益相关者越来越担心，尽管企业和政府采取的大多数战略和方法提供了实现快速增长和发展的途径，但它们对自然环境有着持久的影响。这意味着，除了影响生态系统外，这些方法和战略还将整个人类置于危险之中。另一方面，有人认为，在可持续发展的背景下实现增长和发展几乎是不可能的。因此，本文探讨了可持续性举措在多大程度上阻碍了推动经济增长和企业扩张的必要性。本文将首先研究可持续性的概念，然后再研究经济增长与发展之间的关系。然后，本文将考虑可持续发展倡议，特别是气候行动的影响，沃尔玛和中国分别作为一个企业和一个。
Sustainability concept: Background 可持续性概念：背景
To begin with, one of the issues that first emerges when looking at sustainable development regards what sustainability entails. In reference to Kuhlman and Farrington (2010), sustainability is perceived as a policy concept that was first pointed out in the 1987 Brundtland Report, and it promotes the argument that there is a need to balance between the enhancement of human wellbeing and the preservation of the natural environment. In this regard, the concept of sustainability emerged from the concerns that in a bid to meet their needs and enhance their wellbeing, human beings were impacting the natural environment in a negative way. Therefore, the sustainability concept promotes the notion that whereas achieving human wellbeing is necessary in the modern world, this should not be done at the expense of the natural resources considering the fact that they are limited. Speaking from this point of view, sustainability as envisioned in the Brundtland Report of 1987, was to be founded on the fact that there was a need to formulate and implement development policies that ensures that the current human needs are addressed without undermining the ability of the future generations to address their own needs. With this in mind, the report argued that this could be achieved by establishing development patterns that did not consume as much resources as what the natural environment was incapable of replacing (Keeble, 1988). For example, whereas it timber is an important requirement in meeting the human needs, sustainability concepts promotes the fact that human beings should not harvest timber at a rate that is higher than the rate of replacing the cut trees in the forests in terms of new growth.
首先，在看待可持续发展时首先出现的一个问题是，可持续性意味着什么。参考Kuhlman和Farrington（2010），可持续性被视为1987年布伦特兰报告中提出的一个政策概念，它促进了需要在增进人类福祉和保护自然环境之间取得平衡的论点。在这方面，可持续性的概念产生于人们的担忧，即为了满足他们的需求并增进他们的福祉，人类正在以消极的方式影响自然环境。因此，可持续性概念促进了这样一种理念，即尽管在现代世界实现人类福祉是必要的，但考虑到自然资源有限，这不应以牺牲自然资源为代价。从这一角度讲，1987年布伦特兰报告中设想的可持续性将建立在这样一个事实上，即需要制定和执行发展政策，确保在不损害后代满足自身需要的能力的情况下满足当前的人类需要。考虑到这一点，报告认为，可以通过建立不消耗自然环境无法替代的资源的发展模式来实现这一目标（Keeble，1988）。例如，尽管木材是满足人类需求的一项重要要求，但可持续性概念促进了这样一个事实，即人类采伐木材的速度不应高于森林中砍伐树木的更新速度。