NAPSIPAG Abstract

Abstract

This paper attempts to review literature in search of a home-grown solution to expand values to incorporate the natural environment as an important stakeholder in organizational decision making in order to promote environmental sustainability of Sri Lanka, which is country’s one of the Millennium Development Goals to be achieved in 2015.
Major theories on development recommended and practiced in developing countries including various reformist economic-growth theories do not have much concern about environmental issues such as resource depletion, degradation, loss of biodiversity etc. that pose a formidable challenge to environmental sustainability. Thus, pursuit of unlimited material wealth can lead to uncounted ecological and social costs that could be rectified by re-evaluating existing value systems through seeking and sharing best practices and innovative policy advice.
An individual’s fundamental values and assumptions on the natural environment and the prevailing worldviews on environmental sustainability play a fundamental role in influencing environmental attitudes, and, subsequently, behaviour to minimize ecological costs incurred as a result of the development initiatives. Therefore, an organization’s commitment towards ensuring environmentally sustainable behaviour should be directed through value orientations of its members and their organizational policies and practices in the social and cultural contexts in which they operate.
A review of literature on ecological sustainability and discourses of Buddhism was used as the methodology to analyze environmental values. In this process, Value-Belief-Norm theory of environmental attitudes by Stern and Dietz (1994) and Schwartz’s universal value orientations will be used to recognize how value orientations affect beliefs about environmental consequences of actions and such beliefs in turn would affect behavioral intentions or willingness to take political action on environmental issues.
Sri Lanka, being a South Asian developing country, possesses a rich heritage that portrays a profound interest in preserving nature and a sound philosophical foundation of social and environmental values based on Buddhist teachings. Discourse of environmental values in the Buddhist doctrine is used to suggest new additions in orientating the value base of individuals to the local context.
The paper concludes suggesting incorporation of values that emphasize on coexisting with nature highlighting life’s interconnectedness or harmony with the natural environment, elevated consciousness and a conserving life style as environmentally oriented values replacing materialism, greed and ignorance that lead to the notion of conquering nature.
Key words: environmental sustainability, environmental value orientations, Buddhist philosophy