The rapid environmental degradation taking place in the world could make the current financial crisis look like a tea party. But despair is a luxury we can ill-afford. We must continue to strive for the transition to a more secure and sustainable way of life on our planet – for our children and grandchildren.
World governments have responded with lightning speed to stop the economic meltdown. But they have failed to respond with the same urgency to deal with the rapid environmental degradation taking place in the world, the impact of which would make the current financial crisis look like a tea party.
‘Environment’, ‘climate change’, ‘sustainable development’ are now household words. Statistics about the wanton destruction of the world’s environment – the misuse of the world’s natural resources, upon which development depends – can be found in any ecological primer and do not neeed any repetition.
The current financial crisis has re-ignited the call for a socially-responsible and moral capitalism. The financial crisis also points to a need to halt the misuse of our natural resources and bring about the sustainable development of this planet. To make the transition to sustainable development, we need a fundamental change in the dynamics and direction of our economic life based on changes in our economic behaviour at every level of society.
Business is at the heart of this problem. For it is largely through our businesses that we manifest our economic behaviour and conduct our economic life and determine the way we use our natural resources. Secretary General of the historic 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment, Maurice Strong, a world-renowned entrepreneur, who globalized the environmental movement, likes to apply the the basic principles of business to deal with the challenge of achieving global sustainability.
To Strong, this means running ‘Earth Incorporated’ with a depreciation, amortization and maintenance account. On this basis, much of what we regard as wealth creation has in fact represented a running down of our common capital. Like any other business, Earth Incorporated, simply cannot function for long on that basis. In fact, if we were to present its accounts on a business basis, Earth Incorporated would be, in a very real sense, like the current banking crisis, heading steeply in the process of liquidation: bankruptcy.
Business people, when faced with painful trade-offs between immediate economic benefits, including jobs, are seldom prepared to exchange these for long term environmental benefits to society. But they cannot be written off. Rather they must be enlisted in the movement towards sustainability.
For all the good things that our political leaders are saying these days about sustainable development, the economic, fiscal and sectoral policies of government by and large continue to provide incentives and subsidies for environmentally-unsound practices.
All governments must undertake an extensive review and reorientation of these policies to ensure that they do in fact provide the positive incentives required to support the transition to sustainability. This would mean shifting the tax burden from environmental ‘goods’ to environmental ‘bads’.
No business sector holds more potential for profitable improvement than energy, which is at the centre of so many of our most critical economic as well as environmental concerns. Energy issues will shift from the industrialized to the developing world within the next three decades, as the latter’s proportion of world-wide energy consumption rises considerably.
The industrialized world must reduce its environmental impacts in order to leave ‘space’ for developing countries to begin to fulfil their own development needs and aspirations.
One of the most intractable myths surrounding sustainable development is that energy efficiency costs more than it’s worth, and that conservation is somehow a recipe for slow growth or no growth. The experience of industrialized countries, particularly Japan, has demonstrated that environmental improvement and efficiency in the use of energy and resources contribute to, good economic performance.
Business must on the leading edge of the transition to a sustainable mode of life which is the key to our common future.
The recent business conference, organised by Initiatives of Change in Caux, Switzerland, saw the emergence of a new network of far sighted, enlightened business leaders. During the conference, participants realised that business, including their own, cannot thrive in an economy that is not sustainable.
Is there, then, any basis for confidence that we can rise to the challenge? Despair is a luxury, which we can ill-afford at this time. The reason is that we must do it or civilization will degenerate into chaos, conflict and continued degradation of the planet. Pessimism would be self-fulfilling.
As long as there is the slightest chance that we can make the transition to a more secure and sustainable way of life on our planet, we must continue to strive for it – for our children and grandchildren.
Don de Silva
Well-known information technology specialist, environmentalist, journalist and author. A former official of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), he has pioneered and established numerous world initiatives on communication for sustainable development.
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