Revitalizing the Green mindset: Environmental Sustainability approach towards Community Resilience

Abstract

Global communities are increasingly becoming more vulnerable to natural disasters. Be¬sides the massive loss of invaluable human lives, the economic loss caused by natural disas¬ters is mounting day by day (Brikmann, 2016). The nearest experience was the COVID-19 pandemic which paralyzed the entire world both economically and socially. In the period 2000 -2019, 7,348 major recorded disaster events were claiming 1.23 million lives, affecting 4.2 billion people (many on more than one occasion) and resulting in approximately US$ 2.97 trillion in global economic losses (UNDRR, 2020). In face of the challenges posed by natural disasters, the concept of “resilience” started gaining much attention from individuals, organizations, and global communities at large. The term resilience simply means the ability to “bounce back”. It is rooted in the Latin term “resiliere” which gives the similar meaning of “jumping back” (Paton & Johnston, 2006). Despite the appearance of the term being noted in general use for decades, ecology was the first scientific discipline to adopt the term in building its theoretical construction. Holling (1973) pioneered the use of the resilience concept in the field of ecology. Resilience is a multidimensional, socio technical phenomenon about how individuals or groups manage uncertainty. The term community resilience, a branch of the resilience knowledge domain, is regard¬ed as a way of protecting and empowering communities while enabling them to reduce the negative impacts of both environmental and socio-political challenges in their lives, liveli¬hoods and dignity (Amul & Shrestha, 2015). Thus, building community resilience should primarily arise at individual, household and community levels (Silva, 2016). Community resilience relies on services and employment provided by the organizations to plan for, respond to, and recover from emergencies and crises (Lee, Vargo & Seville, 2013). Hence, the disaster preparedness, disaster response, and disaster recovery of organizations predict community resilience. Simply, more the organizations are resilient the more resilient the community will be. The ecological component, the biosphere of sustainability, is perhaps the widely discussed dimension of sustainability. The eye-opening report of “Our Common Future” (Brundtland, 1987) paved many governments, institutional bodies, and individuals to have a second look at their activities through the ecological lens. However, when it comes to defining and mea¬suring, this component of sustainability was found to be the most challenging among the three of them (Husgafvel et al., 2017). As the environmental challenges mushroomed since conventions, and policy frameworks (e.g., Vienna Convention of 1985, Espoo Convention 1991, Kyoto Protocol of 1992, Paris Agreement of 2015, Hyogo Framework for 2005_2015, Sendai Framework for 2015-2030 etc.) have been staged from time to time in ensuring eco¬logical sustainability. From a theoretical perspective, a gigantic number of scholarly works have generated an ample number of definitions and measures to assess environmental sus¬tainability. The common aim of almost all these models is to provide relevant information for decision-makers. There, the environmental impact of each decision is expected to be assessed within the frame of organizational performance. Next, they are evaluated against their im¬pact on the surrounding environment, society and economics. In such a way environmental sustainability plays a central role in the overall decision-making cycle of the large communi¬ty; thus, can look upon a tenable approach towards community resilience (Okvat & Zautra, 2011; Rivera-Muñoz, 2021; Shenk et al., 2019). In congruence with discernible interrelated¬ness between lead constructs, the authors of the present work are motivated in offering their insights on an enduring path towards community resilience: environmental sustainability.