When we talk about sustainable development, we're referring to businesses and corporations making an essential contribution to the sustainability agenda through their strategies and wider activities. However, many business and corporations rather than being known for their sustainability agendas, are perceived as being largely responsible for causing or at least worsening many of the major crises around sustainability that we currently face. For example, while employment is essential for development with decent work and economic growth being one of the 17 strategic development goals, figures from the International Labor Organization showed that every year more than 2.78 Million people die as a result of occupational accidents or work-related diseases. An additional 374 million people are injured or made ill each year at work. While the promotion of greater environmental responsibility is Principle 8 of the UN Global Compact, much of the pollution in the world arises from business practices. The Lancet medical journals commission on pollution and health found that diseases caused by pollution and were responsible for an estimated nine million deaths in 2015. That is three times more deaths than AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria combined, and it's 15 times more deaths than all of the wars and other forms of violence worldwide in the course of that year. In the poorer worst affected countries and India tops the list, pollution is responsible for one death in every four. Now, these figures are sobering indeed. But can we identify structural factors that might ground concerns about unsustainable business practices? This week we examine three such factors; industrialization, neoliberalism, and globalization and consider some of the impacts at each of these had for sustainability issues. Overall then, the goal this week is to help you articulate the roots of societal concerns about the impact of business on sustainability to understand the major structural forces or factors that are giving rise to these concerns, and to begin to link particular unsustainable effects and outcomes to each of these.