2020 has been a year plagued with a plethora of problems, from the worldwide pandemic to the Australian bushfire and Lebanon explosion; 2020 has been a rough year for all. However, one issue that has been overshadowed by all these problems, yet still increasingly prevalent than ever, is the global climate change. This issue, although rampant, seemed to be less discussed and known by many. Thus, to enlighten people on the severity of this ongoing problem, the Centre for Sustainable Development and Corporate Social Responsibility in Business (CSDCSR) in collaboration with the Faculty of Accountancy and Management (FAM) organised a public webinar titled, “Exploring the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Practical Way of Addressing Them” on 18 August 2020 via Microsoft Teams.

Hosting the webinar was Dr Mehran Nejati, the senior lecturer and director of United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) & Sustainability at Edith Cowan University School of Business and Law while moderating it was CSDCSR Chairperson Dr Mohammad Falahat Nejadmahani. The webinar aimed to educate people on the reasons global warming occur and how businesses and institutions can help combat this problem.

Dr Falahat began the webinar by introducing Dr Mehran and his background, and from there, Dr Mehran started his segment by explaining the wasp metaphor by George Orwell, the story of the frog, and the bubble metaphor to explain how we have dismissed the big picture that is the climate change, by getting stuck in our own little “bubble”.  He then noted that there were nine boundaries for the planet, in which the human race has already broken four.

Dr Mehran moved on to explain the reasons these boundaries have been crossed.  “When I discuss this with my colleagues or my students, I find several themes emerging, some of which were the self-interests of humans, a great level of greedy individuals, organisations and corporations, and a lack of short-term thinking, where we have a tunnel vision as we focus on improving the economy. We are also taking the planet for granted, and overall, the lack of responsibility and accountability appears to lead us to focus more on “throw away economy”, disregarding the notion of trying to bring back used materials into the production cycle,” said Dr Mehran.

He continued to show evidence that climate change is increasing rapidly throughout the years, even stating that, “We must all work together to get to the level that we aim to achieve by 2030 and it must be done sooner than later. This is because if we were to continue at this pace, we will need to decrease the level by 15.4% to achieve the 2030 goal, which would be much harder compared to if we started earlier.” Dr Mehran also showed several statistics on the level of carbon dioxide emissions over the years, and then noted the many problems that have arisen from this climate change. For instance, the rise in temperature has caused the melting of ice in the North Pole and there has been an increase in the severity and incidence of natural disasters and wildfires.

Dr Mehran then went on to explain how higher education can play a key role in reducing this climate change, but he first quoted Prof John Sterman, who said that showing research does not work as it is insufficient. He also explained that the rules have changed in the organisations whereby they have placed a bigger emphasis on being sustainable due to three reasons. “The first reason is the declining resources in our world that are being used excessively, with people suffering from a mismatch in the supply and demand of clean water, biodiversity, food and energy. This can cause future generations to suffer as well, since all the resources are being used up. Next is radical transparency, where the use of social media and low-cost communication is increasing among users and stakeholders, to create a culture of connectivity and a platform where corporations see greater benefits in working with the stakeholders, instead of an “us-versus-them” approach. The last reason is the rising expectations of stakeholders and using it as a force of momentum to make changes in the organisation. By practising sustainability, corporations can attract new talents and keep investors happy,” said Dr Mehran.

He lastly moved on to explain the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). In essence, the main SDGs that corporations should focus has to depend on the sustainability issues that are in conjunction with their identity and success as well as the problems that they want to focus on. Higher education institutions also need to map these SDGs into their courses and introduce them in classes, so as to educate students that their decisions can affect society. It is also necessary to help students see the severity of the current situation and motivate them to work together to fix it.

The webinar ended with a brief Q&A session.

As a prolific researcher in the field of corporate social responsibility, business sustainability and ethical leadership, Dr Nejati has published in reputable journals such as Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, Journal of Cleaner Production, Journal of Small Business Management, International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology, Management Decision, and International Journal of Manpower, to name a few. With a Field-Weighted Citation Impact of 2.20 (according to SciVal) and h-index of 23 (according to Google Scholar), Dr Nejati’s publications have received more than 1,900 citations to date.