Page 102 - UPthEM_Program_Final_December 2020

UPthEM – Upskilling Pathways for Employability
№ 2019-1-BG01-KA204-062299

• ... and, unfortunately, you can add a lot more to this list.

Acquisition of professional competencies – theoretical knowledge and practical skills

The fact that natural resources are limited at the planet level, may constrain or restrict the
development of businesses. The main environmental limitations posed by the planet are:

1. Limited availability of resources - The pool of ‘resources’ from which business and
companies can draw is getting smaller, as nature and the ecosystems are degraded at a
rate faster than their regeneration possibilities.
According to Global Footprint Network, throughout most of history, humanity has used
nature's resources to build cities and roads, to provide food and create products, and to
release carbon dioxide at a rate that was well within Earth's budget. But by the early
1970s, that critical threshold had been crossed: Human consumption began outstripping
what the planet could reproduce. Earth Overshoot Day (EOD) is calculated by Global
Footprint Network and it marks the date when humanity has exhausted nature’s budget
for the year. For the rest of the year, we are maintaining our ecological deficit by drawing
down local resource stocks and accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In 2020,
9
Earth Overshoot Day lands on August 22. The novel coronavirus pandemic has caused
humanity’s ecological footprint to contract. In 2019, EOD was on July 29.

2. Increasing generation of waste and emissions - The pollution generated by businesses
and society can cause problems when nature’s ability to process it is slower than its
accumulation rate. Synthetic compounds are foreign to nature and often cannot be
reintegrated within nature’s cycles.

Sustainable Development

”Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the
present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet
their own needs”.
Brundtland Report released in 1987
by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED)

9 https://www.footprintnetwork.org
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which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the
information contained therein.