Ecozoic Critical Thinking Applied to Cosmic Sustainability and Developmental Goals

Abstract

Executive Summary

This chapter deals with global sustainability, in its old and modern concepts, typologies, and theories. Most concepts of sustainability, we contend, are anthropocentric, a self-serving attitude that believes in the utmost superiority of man over the rest of the nonhuman universe, which seemingly privileges humans to use, extract, and exploit planetary resources for industrialization and infrastructure development and presumably lead to human growth and prosperity (the Anthropocene). The cost of this however is terrestrial depletion, deterioration, degradation, and decadence that manifest in the current global phenomena of global warming, global climate change, Arctic meltdowns, ocean acidity, massive deforestation, and global carbon footprints, which have collectively rendered human habitability on this earth drastically reduced and jeopardized. In this context, we review the timeline (1992–2022) of the United Nations' sustainability negotiations and accords, several nonanthropocentric and nonanthropomorphic conceptualizations of global sustainability such as Leopold Aldo's land ethic, deep ecology of Naess and associates, Thomas Berry's ecozoic ecology (updated by Spethmann). Combining the best nonanthropocentric developments, we propose a holistic concept of “natural sustainability,” more consonant with critical thinking, which mandates reduced or disciplined use of planetary resources such that Nature can regenerate and renew herself.

Natural sustainability advocates a more fruitful integrative ecozoic paradigm of “sustainability centrism,” which seeks cosmic sustainability of Mother Nature for herself as an end in herself, and we spell out its implications for organizational science and corporate responsibility as an extended global community.

This chapter runs into three parts. Part I: Major Sustainability Types versus Ecozoic Worldview of Cosmic Sustainability; Part II: Conceptualization of Natural Sustainability and Its Justification based on Environmental Ethics, Ecozoic Sustainability, and Deep Ecology; and Part III: Capturing Nature as Nature and Her Moral Imperatives for Understanding Natural Sustainability. Toward the end of this chapter, we also discuss managerial implications and directions for future research.

Citation

Mascarenhas, O.A.J., Thakur, M. and Kumar, P. (2024), "Ecozoic Critical Thinking Applied to Cosmic Sustainability and Developmental Goals", A Primer on Critical Thinking and Business Ethics, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 47-87. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83753-346-620241002