Environmental Literacy for Business
what
this page is entitled "environmental literacy for business," but it could simply be shortened to "environmental literacy." I served in the US Army on active duty as an environmental science officer after receiving my chemistry B.S. and officer commissioning well over 30 years ago. I spent the 17+ succeeding years of my career focused on the entire "ecosystem" of environment, health, and safety concerns. As an academic in business, and more specifically in entrepreneurship and strategic management, I thought I'd somehow put that part of my professional life behind me. Now it's become glaringly obvious that we need leadership in academia and in practice to communicate what I'm calling "environmental literacy" among college students and business practitioners to help them understand the role of the 21st-century business in our current environmental contexts.
The first step will be to create content in terms of environmental topics I believe business owners and policy makers need to know in order to make smart decisions about their own businesses and the decisions our policy makers choose. More to come soon. <last update April 23, 2019/>
<May 5, 2019 update/>
Life Cycle Assessment and Chemical Fate and Transport
Two topics I think business students today should know well are product life cycle assessment (LCA) and chemical fate and transport (more so on the first and not sure about the second). I learned the underlying principles of LCA in the 1990s first through graduate study on chemical fate and transport at the Colorado School of Mines and later the specifics of LCA in professional training. An LCA perspective allows you to approach product design from a life cycle thinking perspective that takes a product at the end of its service life and recycles what can be recycled and extracts any remaining resources as inputs for future production. [avnir], the Life Cycle Assessment Platform, has a nice overview of the process in their brochure showing what they can do for businesses.
More Topics
Carbon Footprint
Climate Change
resources
Education
North American Association for Environmental Education Environmental Literacy Framework page
Guidelines for Excellence Environmental Education Materials (report in PDF) (Site host page with link to guidelines) and Environmental Education Materials: Guidelines for Excellence—The Workbook, which leads educators, step by step, through the process of using the Environmental Education Materials: Guidelines for Excellence.
Small Business
EPA Safer Choice (for household cleaners, etc.)
Small Business at EPA Bulletin Monthly newsletters for small business on topics environmental