Escaping the Loop of Unsustainability: Why and How Business Ethics Matters for Earth System Justice
探讨商业伦理研究如何帮助理解企业在推动社会回归地球系统安全公正空间中的作用，基于代谢断裂理论分析资本主义动态导致环境破坏的机制，并提出企业层面和系统层面实现地球系统正义的条件。
Abstract Contemporary society operates beyond safe boundaries of the Earth system. Returning to a safe operating space for humanity within Earth system boundaries is a question of justice. The relevance of the economy—and thus of business—for bringing society back to a safe and just operating space highlights the importance of business ethics research for understanding the role of business in Earth system justice. In this commentary, we explore the relevance of business ethics research for understanding the crucial role of business in the dynamics of the Earth system. We do so by integrating the perspectives of business ethics and system-oriented sustainability science on the basis of the theory of metabolic rift, which explains how the dynamics of capitalism result in the destruction of the natural environment. On this basis, we argue that a mutually reinforcing relationship between perpetual economic growth and profit seeking behaviour of business, which we call the loop of unsustainability , continually deepens the metabolic rift and keeps business from effectively contributing to Earth system justice. This perspective allows us to formulate firm-level and system-level preconditions for attaining Earth system justice, and to sketch a research agenda that links business ethics scholarship with questions of Earth system justice.