How do businesses affect the environment?

Any entity existing on the face of the Earth leaves its own mark behind. Just like human beings, businesses also leave a lasting impression on the environment they operate in. This has been a topic of hot debate through the last century & yet no conclusion has yet been reached. Read this blog to find out in just how many ways businesses effect & affect the natural habitat.

Industrialisation is the cornerstone of prosperity. Without trade & commerce, the world would still be living in an agrarian economy with minimal scope of existence. Industrialisation was a period of rapid socio-economic alterations that transformed our society, us from farmers to manufacturers & industrialists. It involved the complete overhaul of existing economies to the purpose of mass production. This change started in modern-day United Kingdom (Great Britain) in a phase known as the Industrial Revolution (the late 1800s to 1900s) & was the prototype for modern industrial development in Europe & United States of America (USA).

It goes without saying that such a significant paradigm shift left its mark on the environment. No doubt the early mass production machines (the Ford production lines) were a spectacle at that day & age, but they were also extremely energy-inefficient. Their raw material was coal – one of the most polluting natural resource & whale oils. The speed of rapid industrialisation almost wiped out the entire population of the Earth’s sperm whales. It was due to the extensive efforts of environmentalists that we avoided a man-made extinction-level event.

Even to this day, businesses create havoc on the environment. Sure, there are eco-friendly and carbon-negative businesses that leave the environment a better place. Still, the economic benefits of industrialisation far outweigh the short-term discomfort caused by environmental pollution. We, humans, are too short-sighted to see the long-lasting damage.

Let us take a deep-dive into the various ways’ businesses affect the environment:

1. Accelerated Natural Resource Consumption

Many industries use coal, wood or oil to generate electricity or other forms of energy. This leads them to cut down vast swathes of rainforests or even burn them to clear land for agriculture or build industrial complexes. Cutting down trees or deforestation is exceptionally harmful to the environment just because not only are the world’s carbon sink lost but a cut-down tree releases the absorbed carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. So, this makes deforestation two times more harmful.

The other resource is metal ore, coal found in the Earth’s crust. Due to the high demand for cheap, mass-produced items, the need for raw materials increases, leading to overexploitation of the natural resources in the area. Moreover, due to open cast mining practices – contractors often force the indigenous tribes from their land – land which have been in their family for centuries. This causes social damage on top of the environmental damage. Land left after mining operations often turn barren due to the pollution caused by the mining process.

2. Noise Pollution

With industrialisation come big machines. With big machines comes the noise. Excavators, chainsaws are the most common tools of any greenfield project. These machines are noisy & the noise is often very harmful to the fauna of the region. It scares away the animals who called that natural habitat their home. Scientific studies have shown that animals exposed to noise pollution showed much higher levels of stress hormones which are dangerous to their health. Even the meat of such animals become unfit for human consumption due to the presence of these hormones.

3. Commercial Waste

Commercial waste is waste generated from business processes, e.g., trade, domestic, industrial, or agricultural waste. So, any waste that businesses like recreation centres, educational institutions, or companies produce on its premises can be classified as commercial waste. Disposing commercial waste carelessly has a lot of harmful ramifications for the environment. It pollutes the air, water & land, causing detrimental effects to the local flora & fauna as it decays. Food Waste – by far, the most avoidable has eighteen million tonnes ending up dumped in landfills. Though there have been many laws to mandate proper disposal of commercial waste – the lack of environmental awareness means such pollution continues unabated in industrial areas.

4. Air Pollution

Manufacturing Industries – especially the ones using age-old equipment & coal as raw material are significant sources of airborne pollutants like respirable particles, synthetic & organic solvents, Sulphur dioxide (SO2) & nitrogen oxides (NOX). Ideally, the plume of smoke coming out of the chimney in a factory should only be water vapour, but due to lax implementation of laws, all such pollutants can be found in that plume. Air pollution is a severe menace to human society as it causes a host of respiratory diseases like asthma, bronchitis & in extreme scenarios – the black lung disease caused by inhaling of airborne coal dust, found among coal mine workers.

5. Water Pollution

There are so many laws prohibiting the discharge of factory effluents into local water bodies like rivers, lakes, ponds. However, still, there are many recent examples of the local community getting poisoned due to harmful chemicals added to the local water supply. While it is significantly cost-effective for the factory to simply dump their by-products into the water supply, the cost is being paid by the local community. Presence of harmful chemicals like heavy metals, arsenic in the contaminated water supply leech into the local flora & fauna – vegetation, fishes and other aquatic life. Biomagnification occurs as these harmful chemicals move down the food chain. Often the fish and other marine creatures die as a result of poisoning. The locals then consume this and fall ill.

This kind of pollution may become even life-threatening. Leakage of radioactive waste is one such fatal situation. A gory example is the Sterlite Copper Plant in Tuticorin, which was dumping harmful waste into the local water supply, causing severe diseases in the local villages which were dependent on these rivers & lakes for sustenance.

6. Aesthetic Damage

Nature is beautiful. Concrete jungles emitting black smoke is not. There are many examples of forests being spoiled for industrialisation. The forest fires in the Amazonian Rainforest – the lungs of the Earth are still vivid in our memory. These forest fires were allegedly caused when the contractor set fire to the forest tract to clear the area quickly. The resulting destruction wiped off half of the most pristine natural forest from the face of the Earth. Another industry which is deeply affected is tourism. People love to visit forests for the fresh air & change of scenery – away from the din & bustle of their busy city lives. The loss of these forests decimates the local guides who also depend upon tourists visiting the place for their meagre income.

These are just direct impacts of the business. There are multifaceted impacts, for instance, social impact – people’s lives being torn apart due to businesses. But at the same time, the economic benefits of industrialisation are also undeniable. The way forward would thus be sustainable business practices which provide economical services to the world while safeguarding the lives, livelihoods & nature of the place they operate from. This is easier said than done. But with enough people vociferously voicing their concern – it will be possible to root out profit-seeking behaviour from business owners and instils a sense of care for the ecosystem they operate in.

Also read:

1) How to become Environment Friendly?
2) Green Business Ideas for Startup Entrepreneurs
3) How to Make Online Business More Eco-Friendly?
4) Eco-Friendly Business Ideas for Small Business Owners