Final answer:
Companies struggle to become more sustainable due to the difficulty in defining sustainability, economic pressures requiring innovation and technology that may conflict with environmental goals, market failures to account for the social cost of pollution, and greenwashing by industries.
Step-by-step explanation:
Companies face multiple struggles in becoming more sustainable. The issues include defining sustainability, which varies widely depending on the imagined lifestyle and per capita resource consumption. Economic pressures, such as the need for ongoing innovation and technology development to improve efficiency, can conflict with environmental protection and regulatory intervention, creating a balance that is hard to achieve. Additionally, unsustainable practices often present themselves due to market failures where firms traditionally have not accounted for social costs, such as pollution, unless required by government policies. This necessitates more flexible, market-oriented solutions that can better align economic development with environmental considerations.
Greenwashing is another major issue, where companies present a favorable environmental image that obscures the truth about their impact on the environment, often misleading the public and stakeholders. The anticipation of scarcity and climate change should theoretically increase prices and encourage the adoption of alternatives, yet this does not always occur due to various economic interests and absence of stringent policy interventions. Ultimately, the complexity of achieving true sustainability lies in overcoming these interdisciplinary challenges, which involve scientific, economical, and ethical considerations.