A strategy followed by some corporations for reducing their corporate carbon dioxide emissions has been to sell the divisions that emitted most CO₂ per unit of product and buy the raw materials previously produced by these divisions from other manufacturers. Discuss whether such strategies constitute genuine steps toward sustainability. Assess this approach by using the requirements for claiming sustainability from Section 3.4.

Section 3.4:

 

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3.4 Requirements for Sustainability Modern science and engineering have developed by dividing disciplines into spe- cializations and by focusing on them to gain insight that often results in new technologies and solutions. As we will learn in more detail in Chapter 6, such a reductionist approach often misses the interaction between specializations and dis- ciplines, and increases the chance of unexpected surprises when the results of such science are implemented, particularly on a large scale. This shifting of problems across scales is described by the examples in Section 3.2 and illustrated in Figure 3.5. In addition, despite the critical role of ecosystems, most disciplines, including engineering and economics, tend to ignore or undervalue their role. This amounts to assuming nature to be unlimited and free, implying that no matter how much we use a resource, it does not degrade or deplete. The fallacy of this assumption is clear from the examples of ecological degradation we saw in Chapter 2. We also learned in Chapter 1 and Figure 1.7 about the essential role of ecosystems in sustaining societal and economic systems.