Effect of Business Activities on the Environment
Senior 3 · Entrepreneurship
Effect of Business Activities on the Environment
Lesson 1 of 4
22 min
Look at the photograph and list everything in it. You will probably find hills, soil, crops, trees, sky, buildings, a track and fields. Some of these were made by nature, some by people; the terraces themselves were dug by farmers. Together they form the environment of everyone who lives and works there.
Every business, from a shop to a factory, takes something from this environment and puts something back into it. This unit asks how business activities change the environment, for better and for worse, and what can be done to reduce the harm. It begins with what the environment is.
Definition
Environment: everything that surrounds us and affects life: natural things (air, water, soil, climate, plants and animals), things built by people, and the social, economic and cultural conditions in which people live. Rwanda’s Law N° 48 of 2018 on environment uses this broad meaning.
Components of the environment: the parts that make it up: natural, built (human-made) and socio-economic.
Example: for a car wash beside a stream, the environment includes the stream and the fish in it, the road and the drains, and the families who fetch water downstream.
| Component | What it includes | Example in Rwanda |
|---|---|---|
| Natural, non-living (abiotic) | land and soil, water, air, climate, rocks and minerals | Lake Muhazi; the volcanic soils of Musanze; the rains of each season |
| Natural, living (biotic) | plants, animals and micro-organisms, and the ecosystems they form | the forest of Nyungwe; papyrus swamps; bees that pollinate crops |
| Built (human-made) | structures and networks made by people | a market, a feeder road, a hydropower dam, terraces |
| Socio-economic | people, their health, jobs, businesses, culture and communities | a farming village; a cooperative; a heritage site |
Definition
Natural resources: materials and energy taken from nature and used by people, such as water, soil, timber, fish and minerals.
Renewable resource: one that nature replaces within a human lifetime if it is used carefully, such as water, forests and fish. Non-renewable resource: one that is not replaced on a human timescale once used, such as minerals, clay and stone.
Ecosystem: a community of living things together with the non-living environment they depend on, such as a wetland.
A business depends on the environment for raw materials (timber, clay, crops, fish), energy (firewood, hydropower, sunlight), water, land to build on, and free services such as clean air, rain, fertile soil and pollination. A business also affects the environment through what it puts back: wastes, smoke, noise, cleared land; or, if it chooses, planted trees, cleaned water and restored land. When a business damages the environment, it often damages its own future supply of resources too.
Tip
Memory hook: N-B-S. The environment is Natural (what nature made), Built (what people made) and Socio-economic (people and how they live). When a question asks for the effect of a business on the environment, check all three: a quarry changes the land (N), damages a road with its lorries (B) and gives jobs but also dust to a village (S).
Worked example 1: sorting the environment of a business
A furniture workshop stands beside a river in a small town. Sort these into components: the river; the timber it buys; the road to the market; the workers’ families; the trees on the hill; the electricity line; the town’s Saturday market.
| Natural | Built | Socio-economic |
|---|---|---|
| the river; the trees on the hill; the timber (a natural resource, even when cut) | the road; the electricity line | the workers’ families; the town’s market |
The workshop is illustrative.
Worked example 2: renewable or non-renewable?
A brickworks uses clay from a valley, firewood to fire its kiln and water to mix the clay. Classify each resource and say what careful use means.
| Resource | Type | Careful use |
|---|---|---|
| Clay | non-renewable | dig only where permitted, fill and replant the pits afterwards |
| Firewood | renewable, if trees are replanted faster than they are cut | use an efficient kiln; plant woodlots; or switch fuel |
| Water | renewable, but it can be polluted or overused | take only what is needed; do not return muddy water to the stream |
Lesson: a renewable resource stays renewable only if it is used no faster than nature replaces it. The brickworks is illustrative.
Warning
Common mistakes. (1) Thinking the environment means only trees and animals: it also includes the built and socio-economic surroundings. (2) Calling forests “non-renewable”: they are renewable, but only if they are replanted. (3) Forgetting that the link runs both ways: businesses depend on the environment as well as affecting it.
Practice
Sources and credits
Written by Ganzaa: the diagrams, the tables, the worked examples and the practice items. The workshop and the brickworks are illustrative (2026).
This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
