Ecoefficiency (measures to minimize environmental impact through the reduction or elimination of waste from production processes) has become a goal for companies worldwide, with many realizing significant cost savings from such innovations. Peter Senge and Goran Carstedt see this development as laudable but suggest that simply adopting ecoefficiency innovations could actually worsen environmental stresses in the future. Such innovations reduce production waste but do not alter the number of products manufactured nor the waste generated from their use and discard; indeed, most companies invest in ecoefficiency improvements in order to increase profits and growth. Moreover, there is no guarantee that increased economic growth from ecoefficiency will come in similarly ecoefficient ways,since in today’s global markets, greater profits may be turned into investment capital that could easily be reinvested in old-style eco-inefficient industries.Even a vastly more ecoefficient industrial system could, were it to grow much larger, generate more total waste and destroy more habitat and species than would a smaller, less ecoefficient economy. Senge and Carstedt argue that to preserve the global environment and sustain economic growth, businesses must develop a new systemic approach that reduces total material use and total accumulated waste. Focusing exclusively on ecoefficiency, which offers a compelling business case according to established thinking, may distract companies from pursuing radically different products and business models.
7. The passage implies that which of the following is a possible consequence of a company’s adoption of innovations that increase its ecoefficiency?
(A) Company profits resulting from such innovations
may be reinvested in that company with no
guarantee that the company will continue to
make further improvements in ecoefficiency.
(B) Company growth fostered by cost savings from
such innovations may allow that company to
manufacture a greater number of products that
will be used and discarded, thus worsening
environmental stress.
(C) A company that fails to realize significant cost
savings from such innovations may have little
incentive to continue to minimize the
environmental impact of its production
processes.
(D) A company that comes to depend on such
innovations to increase its profits and growth
may be vulnerable in the global market to
competition from old-style eco-inefficient industries.
(E) A company that meets its ecoefficiency goals is
unlikely to invest its increased profits in the
development of new and innovative ecoefficiency
Measures.
这道题的A也不怎么明白,没有彻底理解,能不能顺便解答一下,谢谢~
-- by 会员 miffyhui (2012/10/7 21:04:41)