Ecosystem service- impacts and dependencies of business
Student name: Ms Sulagna Bhattacharya
Guide: Mr M V Shiju
Year of completion: 2013
Host Organisation: CII-ITC Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Mr Shikhar Jain
Abstract: Nature has often been seen as an aggregate of the various resources it provides, whereas actually
natural ecosystems are live dynamic systems with complex linkages that work as a whole to provide
the services of making available to us all the benefits we derive from nature. Corporations have
often been called the largest economic agents of our society. Therefore it is time for the realization
that they are a part of a larger ecosystem and must not look at themselves as a discrete entity with
one track goals. Following the school of “Systems thinking†nature and corporations are linked to
each other through impacts and dependencies. Services of natural ecosystems are mostly assumed to
flow in unconditional supply, but this is not so. These free services of nature must be valued in order
to take into account the true costs of industrial development and to integrate these values into
business decisions so that the balance sheet , at the end of the day shows “true profit†with no hidden
costs. The work embodied in this report contains an overview of a capacity building module designed
to impart awareness on the topic of “ecosystem services – impacts and dependencies of businessâ€
and to help companies manage the risks arising from this relationship with nature.
Key words: Ecosystem services, Impacts and Dependencies, Systems Thinking, Capacity Building,
Business.
