Important sustainability issue of global significance
Discuss about the Evaluation of the external forces affecting the sustainability.
It needs to be discerned that the world is facing several challenges in multiple dimensions of sustainable development including economic, social and environmental sustainability. According to the “World Economic and Social Survey” report published in 2015, in various countries there are more than 1 billion people who are living in extreme poverty and income inequality (Alvaredo and Gasparini 2015a). In addition to this, the rising problems of sustainability have raised several questions on economic and social cost along with endangering the life on planet. Some of the main discourse of the report includes discussion of poverty in terms of the important sustainability issue of global significance. It has described the main environmental elements for the chosen global sustainability issue. In addition to this the various sections of report have also described the critical global sustainability through associated to the social elements. In addition to this, the study has also described the key economic elements of global sustainability issue thereby identifying to ethical problems which are strongly connected with the issue of poverty. Lastly, the two ethical problems have shown a relevant discussion with ethical theory (Aaberge and Brandolini 2015).
The important nature of the global sustainability issue in the report has been depicted with poverty.
The results of the survey conducted by world economic and social survey shows that the wall raised poverty target five years ahead of 2015 deadline. It is seen that in developing regions the proportion of people living on less than $1.25 a day came down from 47% in 1990 to 22% in 2010. In addition to this, 700 million lesser people lived in conditions of extreme poverty in 2010 when compared 1990. Despite of glimpse of improvement, the results still fall short of the international expectations and the global targets which are set after 2015. The continuation of the current development strategies has proved to be insufficient in achieving sustainable development in solving problems of hunger and malnourishment. In addition to this inequality in income among various countries have a rising threat towards the problem of increasing poverty. This is evident with fast growth in large emerging economies which have resulted in partial convergence in living standards to exist side-by-side thereby abjection of poverty and persistence of inequalities. Inequality is considered as the determining prospectors for providing equal access to social production and broader sustainable development by negatively accepting the aggregate demand (Acemoglu et al. 2015).
Main environmental elements of the chosen global sustainability issue
It needs to be understood that both poverty alleviation and environmental degradation raise to urgent global issues associated to global sustainability. The issues related to environment, politics and economics are interrelated in the way humans interact with surroundings and each other. The biological diversity has allowed for forming an alliance to maintain and preserve the environment without the inclusion of costly human intervention. The human beings are able to benefit due to environment sustainability with varieties of resources produced. However, in the mainstream belief that in order to prosper the economically backward countries, environmental concerns need to be sacrificed (Zakari, Ying and Song 2014).
Recent evidence shows that there have been several instances of income inequality which is associated to greater loss of biodiversity. The studies relating to these have highlighted that based on regression analysis performed on cross-country data across the states of USA there have been number of factors which are associated to affect the environment with the declining income inequality. In particular, the Gini ratio of household income from the variations pertaining to GDP and human population size. Take account of the stock effects, there have been number of total factors which have increased the ratio by 2%. Some of the major factors associated to biodiversity loss is depicted with population density, environmental governance, GDP per capita and inequality (Paudel Khatiwada et al. 2017).
And other significant example of negative correlation among income inequality and environmental outcome is observed with consumption behaviour pattern. For instance, several researchers have examined that the relationship of personal consumption and income inequality have an affluent behaviour in terms of this generation. Moreover, the findings show that rich countries with higher tendency of inequality consumes more resources thereby generating more waste per person which affects biodiversity and raises environmental issues (Mallschützke 2015).
Based on the various influential explanations, poverty is depicted as lack of economic resources having negative social consequences. In fact, it is dominated with several theories which shows that even when people have shelter, clothes and food lead to deterioration of social participation and social relationships. The effects of poverty on the society are further depicted to have a serious implication. Children growing up in poverty are likely to suffer more persistent and frequent problem associated to health than the children who grew up under a better financial situation (Reynolds et al. 2015). Several infants born into poverty have problems associated with low birth weight which are related to several preventable physical and mental disabilities. Due to such physical conditions they are more likely to die before their first birthday. In addition to this, the children raised in poverty are more prone to miss school education because of illness or lack of affordance. These children are depicted with a much higher rate of accidents than those with stable financial backgrounds. In addition to this, due to lack of education they are more prone to become either anti-social or committing suicide (Pare and Felson 2014).
Identification of critical social elements of global sustainability issue
The level of stress in the family have shown direct correlation with economic circumstances. There are several studies which suggest that economic decisions indicate that job loss and subsequent poverty are related with elder abuse, child abuse and violence among families. In several instances, poor families experience much more instance of stress than middle-class families. In addition to this, the financial uncertainty is more likely to expose the families to negative events such as illness, depression, addiction, criminal victimisation and family death (Sutherland et al. 2016).
The main economical implication of poverty can be clearly depicted with the Association of poverty and inequality in income. The various instance of global sustainability issue with poverty can be considered with civil regional conflicts which have affected to costing lives and ruined economies. Among the important drivers of economic elements with global poverty, GDP per capita can be considered as a primary aspect which is related to slow economic growth and risk of higher civil conflict. A country which is adding a GDP per capita of less than dollar to $ 250 is at a risk average with more than 15% risk. In addition to this, the GDP per capita of $ 5000 will experience less than 1% of civil conflict (Luebker 2014).
Several research conducted by OECD have highlighted on the long-term impact of income inequality. Based on the statements of OECD it has been discerned that the long-term increase in the income inequality not only increases the scope of political and social concerns but also economic concerns. The economic concerns of inequality generated as a result of poverty drags down the GDP growth and leads to a rising distance a particular country from rest of the society. The lower the income of the people higher is the occurrence of economic downturns (Alvaredo and Gasparini 2015).
The two ethical problems which are associated with the issue of poverty are stated below as follows:
- Violation of Fundamental Human Values
- Inequality of poverty is morally wrong (Hess and Mai 2014)
The consideration of ethical principles to discuss the identified ethical problems have been considered with concepts such as principal of beneficence, least time, respect for autonomy and justice.
- Violation of Fundamental Human Values
The violation of fundamental human values is depicted with devastating human lives among various individuals in different parts of the world among the developing countries. However, the main fundamental ethical question that arises why should we care? This brings principle of beneficence into play. According to this ethical principle the decision maker (which in this case is the society and the government) needs to support what is good and right (Alvaredo and Gasparini 2015).
- Inequality of poverty is morally wrong
Describing the key economic elements for the global sustainability issue
Defining the poverty concept has helped in understanding the conditions which causes the victims to live in state which cannot be fully participated with ethical norms to maintain physical health (Ahmad et al. 2017). These are excluded from participation as human members of society. In various cases the government does not consider them as a part of civilised society and leads them dying due to deteriorating conditions. The ethical principle related to this can be clearly depicted with the least harm as the decision-makers should choose to do least harm possible and harm minimum people in the process (Klasen et al. 2016).
The major threats and opportunities to the business due to the global issue is listed as follows:
- Increasing gap between rich and poor especially in the extremes of wealth and poverty creating problem in market segmentation
- Poor performance sales growth during inflation in developing countries with high rate of poverty
- Growing recognition of community development thereby assisting large corporates to make a significant progress
- Sustainable development is in the interest of business when the poverty rate is high (Eizenberg and Jabareen 2017)
The first sustainable development goal is aimed at ending poverty of all forms. The various action plans which needs to be incorporated to eradicate the problem of poverty is depicted to be targeted among all proportion of men and women and children living in poverty. The poverty alleviation programme needs to be set up with a multi-year program which is sustainable as per the overriding issues in the coming years (Jäntti et al. 2014). The poverty eradication action plans need to include some of the major factors such as improvement of access of sustainable livelihoods thereby creating entrepreneurial opportunities and productive resources (Ahmad et al. 2017). Several types of international bodies need to provide universal access to basic social services which will account for progressive development along with social protection system. There should be a sense of empowering the people in terms of individuals living in poverty. In 1997, the General assembly held the poverty eradication as a program for sustainable development for the coming years. Henceforth, in the present times it is important that the fundamental goals for improving the measures initiatives are taken by the entire United Nations system (Merz and Rathjen 2014).
Some of the main factors needs to be considered with agenda 21 which emphasises on poverty as a multi-dimensional problem originating from national and international governments. Therefore, in no uniform answer can be found for the global application. However, if the property alleviation programme is implemented with a country specific approach then it will be able to address several types of unsustainability, financial and technological improvements (Morelli, Smeeding and Thompson 2015).
Conclusion
The important discourse of the study as per main environmental elements of poverty needs to be understood with the issues related to environment, politics and economics are interrelated in the way humans interact with surroundings and each other. The biological diversity has allowed for forming an alliance to maintain and preserve the environment without the inclusion of costly human intervention. The human beings are able to benefit due to environment sustainability with varieties of resources produced. In addition to this the identification of social elements have shown that the Children growing up in poverty are likely to suffer more persistent and frequent problem associated to health than the children who grew up under a better financial situation. Several infants born into poverty have problems associated with low birth weight which are related to several preventable physical and mental disabilities. In addition to this, poor families experience much more instance of stress than middle-class families. In addition to this, the financial uncertainty is more likely to expose the families to negative events such as illness, depression, addiction, criminal victimisation and family death. Moreover, the key economic elements for poverty is identified with civil regional conflicts which have affected to costing lives and ruined economies. Among the important drivers of economic elements with global poverty, GDP per capita can be considered as a primary aspect which is related to slow economic growth and risk of higher civil conflict.
References
Aaberge, R. and Brandolini, A. (2015) ‘Chapter 3 – Multidimensional Poverty and Inequality’, in Handbook of Income Distribution, pp. 141–216. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-444-59428-0.00004-7.
Acemoglu, D., Naidu, S., Restrepo, P. and Robinson, J. A. (2015) ‘Democracy, redistribution, and inequality’, Handbook of Income Distribution, 2, pp. 1885–1966. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-444-59429-7.00022-4.
Ahmad, W.N.K.W., Rezaei, J., Sadaghiani, S. and Tavasszy, L.A., 2017. Evaluation of the external forces affecting the sustainability of oil and gas supply chain using Best Worst Method. Journal of Cleaner Production, 153, pp.242-252.
Ahmad, W.N.K.W., Rezaei, J., Sadaghiani, S. and Tavasszy, L.A., 2017. Evaluation of the external forces affecting the sustainability of oil and gas supply chain using Best Worst Method. Journal of Cleaner Production, 153, pp.242-252.
Alvaredo, F. and Gasparini, L. (2015a) ‘Chapter 9 – Recent Trends in Inequality and Poverty in Developing Countries’, in Handbook of Income Distribution, pp. 697–805. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-444-59428-0.00010-2.
Eizenberg, E. and Jabareen, Y., 2017. Social sustainability: A new conceptual framework. Sustainability, 9(1), p.68.
Hess, D.J. and Mai, Q.D., 2014. Renewable electricity policy in Asia: A qualitative comparative analysis of factors affecting sustainability transitions. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 12, pp.31-46.
Jäntti, M., Kanbur, R., Nyyssölä, M. and Pirttilä, J. (2014) ‘Poverty and Welfare measurement on the basis of prospect theory’, Review of Income and Wealth, 60(1), pp. 182–205. doi: 10.1111/roiw.12095.
Klasen, S., Krivobokova, T., Greb, F., Lahoti, R., Pasaribu, S. H. and Wiesenfarth, M. (2016) ‘International income poverty measurement: which way now?’, Journal of Economic Inequality, 14(2), pp. 199–225. doi: 10.1007/s10888-016-9324-8.
Luebker, M. (2014) ‘Income inequality, redistribution, and poverty: Contrasting rational choice and behavioral perspectives’, Review of Income and Wealth, 60(1), pp. 133–154. doi: 10.1111/roiw.12100.
Mallschützke, C. S. (2015) Income inequality and poverty reduction, World Development.
Merz, J. and Rathjen, T. (2014) ‘Multidimensional time and income poverty: well-being gap and minimum 2DGAP poverty intensity – German evidence’, Journal of Economic Inequality, 12(4), pp. 555–580. doi: 10.1007/s10888-013-9271-6.
Morelli, S., Smeeding, T. and Thompson, J. (2015) ‘Post-1970 trends in within-country inequality and poverty: Rich and middle-income countries’, Handbook of Income Distribution, 2, pp. 593–696. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-444-59428-0.00009-6.
Pare, P. P. and Felson, R. (2014) ‘Income inequality, poverty and crime across nations’, British Journal of Sociology, 65(3), pp. 434–458. doi: 10.1111/1468-4446.12083.
Paudel Khatiwada, S., Deng, W., Paudel, B., Khatiwada, J., Zhang, J. and Su, Y. (2017) ‘Household Livelihood Strategies and Implication for Poverty Reduction in Rural Areas of Central Nepal’, Sustainability, 9(4), p. 612. doi: 10.3390/su9040612.
Reynolds, L.P., Wulster-Radcliffe, M.C., Aaron, D.K. and Davis, T.A., 2015. Importance of Animals in Agricultural Sustainability and Food Security, 2. The Journal of nutrition, 145(7), pp.1377-1379.
Sutherland, J.W., Richter, J.S., Hutchins, M.J., Dornfeld, D., Dzombak, R., Mangold, J., Robinson, S., Hauschild, M.Z., Bonou, A., Schönsleben, P. and Friemann, F., 2016. The role of manufacturing in affecting the social dimension of sustainability. CIRP Annals, 65(2), pp.689-712.
Zakari, S., Ying, L. and Song, B. (2014) ‘Factors Influencing Household Food Security in West Africa: The Case of Southern Niger’, Sustainability, 6(3), pp. 1191–1202. doi: 10.3390/su6031191.
Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:
Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
