The Preamble
Climate changes are a reality that we have to deal with. However, “halting the escalation” is no longer enough. We need to reverse the trend, with all of us contributing to protecting our planet that is in danger.
The sooner we realise, the better it will be: taking care of the world around us and the natural resources that support us means taking care of ourselves.
To date, however, this cultural and philosophical approach has unfortunately been of no interest to most individuals, starting from the economic powers that require rapid success: the thermometer of every action worldwide is found in the word “profit”.
In this predominant culture, extended to the immediate goal that has no common project, it is easy to see that faced with the exhaustion of some resources, a scenario is being created that favours new wars, poverty and desolation.
A new economic and social philosophy is not a revolution: a different approach that continues to base itself on foundations such as the right to freedom of enterprise or market, but with the awareness that this cannot stand above social rights or above respect for the environment.
Enterprise activity must be aimed at the awareness of these new scenarios, and entrepreneurial and managerial culture must be a vocation that looks to produce economic and social wealth and to improve the world that we all live in.
A new business model
A regenerative or circular economy is the new frontier of action for an enterprise.
The old, linear economic model, “take-make-dispose”, is based on accessibility to large amounts of resources and energy and is increasingly less suited to the reality we now live in and will have to act in. By themselves, initiatives to support efficiency, which work to reduce resources and fossil fuels consumed per production unit, can only delay the crisis of the socio-economic model, but are not enough to solve the problems caused by nature that has run out of its stock of raw materials.
It is therefore necessary to change from a linear economic model to a circular one, that considers all the phases - from planning, to production, consumption and end of shelf life destination - and knows how to grab every opportunity to limit the waste of incoming materials and energy and minimise waste and loss, paying attention to the prevention of negative environmental external factors and the creation of new social and territorial value.
The existing relationship between human economic activity and the environment it is a part of: damage to any part of this relationship also damages every other part of it.
It is the definition of holistic wealth, i.e. a wealth that is not only monetary, but also the definition and achievement of shared well-being and prosperity, achieved through the harmonization of several types of wealth or capital, including social, cultural, living and experiential.
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
