The Environmental Influence
Natural disasters occur every year and have a great influence on human and economy. Although we cannot completely prevent them from taking place, we can reduce the frequency of its occurrence since human activities are important contributed factors. The natural disasters increase from last century to 2108. Despite the decrease tendency, almost three hundred natural disasters happened in 2018 (Ritchie, Hannah, et al., n.d.). Besides, many lives lost due to natural hazards. According to U.S News & World Report “10 of the deadliest natural disasters in 2018”, thousand people lost their lives, and more than hundreds were injured during “earthquakes in Indonesia, flooding in Japan, and a volcanic eruption in Guatemala” (10 of deadliest, 2018). Also, it can cause a huge economic loss, according to the estimates that more than hundreds of billion dollars losses by major natural disasters type from different hazards databases (Gall, Melanie, et al., 2009). In addition to the direct economic and human lives costs, natural disasters also will harm biodiversity, which can decrease the gross product. Based on the article Meet Four Small Businesses with Big Ideas to Help the Planet, it states that “loss of biodiversity costs the equivalent of about 10 percent of the world’s annual gross product (about $7.5 trillion)”. In other words, it will indirectly affect business profitability.
The New Relationship between Business and Environment
More and more companies engage in developing a new relationship with the natural environment. As Christine Meisner Rosen states in the article Business and the Environment, in the early business history, the business historian did not pay too much attention to the environment and continued to ignore that the impact and dependence of the big business on the natural environment. In the process of developing business, the relationship between business and the environment has begun to change, shifting from purely relying on extracting the raw materials to managing the resources to dealing with the generation of the waste problem. Though our company does not mainly settle that problem, we realize that the significance of maintaining a friendly relationship with the natural environment and devote to help other small business and other local areas who are at the most risk in the world. For instance, Seychelles locate in the Indian Ocean, which is disappearing while its sea levels rise. Seychelles, as a big tourism country, the rise in water levels has seriously affected its tourism industry and changed the way of life throughout the country. Moreover, this change has also affected the marine ecosystems that influence fishing industries. To assisting Seychelles to solve this problem and improve the current situation, our company works with NaturalVest to provide them strategic advice (“Saving Natural Resources” 2018).
The Concern of Sustainability Challenges
In fact, in protecting the environment and maintaining the relationship of development between the natural environment and economic, problems arise as well, such as sustainability challenges. In the book Our Common Journey: A Transition Toward Sustainability, the author comes up with two questions: one is that “what are the greatest threats that humanity will encounter as it attempts to navigate the transition to sustainability?”; another one is that “what are the most promising opportunities for avoiding or circumventing these threats on the path to sustainability?” (National Research Council. (1999), p. 185). Therefore, sustainability challenges are one of the biggest problems that we should concentrate on so far. However, actuary masters in modelling the outcomes and the TBL (Triple Bottom Line) which is a framework to use the measure sustainability (Reddy, T.L. et al. 2014). Thus, actuaries can promote sustainability in some degree.