Achieving a sustainable future for Sri Lanka
Achieving a Sustainable Sri Lanka Vision and Strategic Plan by 2030 ensuring peace, harmony, inclusive reconciliation, social justice and security in following the middle path based on balanced inclusive green growth is important, stressed Prof. Mohan Munasinghe, Founder Chairman, Munasinghe Institute of Development (MIND), Colombo and Vice Chairman, UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC-AR4) .
Making a special presentation, he made this point clear when he addressed the forum organised by the Carbon Consulting Company (CCC) for Tom Popple, Senior Manager, Climate Change and Sustainability, Natural Capital Partners to inspire and inform Sri Lankan business leaders on the value of taking credible climate action held at Kingsbury Hotel, Colombo last week.
Prof. Munasinghe said that society meets the basic needs of the people especially the poor and vulnerable, including food, water, energy, health education, livelihoods, shelter, while ensuring peace, harmony, inclusive reconciliation, social justice and security, adding: “We will follow the middle path based on balanced inclusive green growth”.
He said a thriving and dynamic economy with a high quality of life that is resource efficient, advanced, stable and resilient to stocks availability should respect critical environmental and social sustainability constraints.
He indicated that the green environment builds on Sri Lanka’s traditional respect for nature and keeps the country’s resource use and ecological footprint within the sustainable bio-capacity of the country.
He said that sustainable Sri Lanka can show the world towards a sustainable planet earth and the business community can lead by building partnerships to support sustainable consumption and achieve the national objectives to implement sustainable Sri Lanka objectives in an atmosphere that enables them to succeed working together.
Prof. Munasinghe pointed out that sustainability and triple bottom line is the wave of the future and resource use efficiency is a win-win starting point where ethical values are key to long term sustainability.
Some examples for this are: BASF Germany (Chemicals); TESCO UK (Supermarkets); Unilever, Coca Cola, Reckit Benkeiser Junson SC Danane, Nestle’s (Retail); OPEC (Energy, oil and gas); Petrobrass Brazil (Energy, oil and gas); Sine Darby, Malaysia (Plantation conglomerates); Novazymes, Denmark (Biotechnology); Vale Brazil (Mining); Siemens, Shanghai Electric Group (Heavy industry) and Jaylor, Portugal (Wine producer).
Integration across the Central Government to provinces, districts and Pradeshiya Sabhas is also critical based on sustainability principle, he indicated to make development more sustainable with empowerment action and foresight. Making development more sustainable is a very practical step-by-step strategy because sustainable activities are easy to identify like energy and water waste and deforestation, he said.
Mr. Popple, presenting his talk, elaborated on the seven components of building a credible and successful Net Zero programme, through a Net Zero model and indicated that evidence shows that profitable businesses have ambitious sustainability programmes.
He said that a wider group of stakeholders are now engaged with the sustainability performance of a company, including investors, employees, customers and civil society. The role of social media has driven greater transparency in the business sector and also provided new opportunities for sustainable businesses to create brand value. He said that a credible Net Zero emission programme, as part of an ambitious sustainability programme, is now a critical risk management strategy.
He said that the Global Climate Change negotiation process at government level via the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFOCC) has called upon business leaders to contribute to the development of the Net Zero economy. In response to that call to action, Natural Capital Partners created a series of dialogues to understand the views of business leaders, he pointed out.
He said that business can play a critical role in addressing climate change by becoming carbon neutral, also reaping a range of benefits for a company. He said that Sri Lankan businesses have a unique opportunity to take the lead in Asia and create a profitable green economy built on Net Zero emissions.