What we all have to realize and internalize is the fact that over three trillion dollars of this “new wealth” was paid by the Earth in the form of “free” water, air, biodiversity, minerals, fuels, etc. [break]
The question then is what did we invest back to make sure the Earth remained healthy?
People, who have always argued for or against conservation and always made it a development versus environment debate, need to wake up and realize that their businesses depend on how intact the Earth’s ecosystems remain.
The pharmaceutical industry, for example, extracts six to seven billion dollars worth of natural resources from the earth each year.
If we destroy the natural environment and the biodiversity, where will our future medicines come from? There is no doubt that species become extinct naturally. The crisis we have at hand is that they are disappearing at a rate that is one hundred times faster than the natural rate of extinction.
As a human race, we are poor because we do not have a spare planet. If we had a spare, we could “use” this one up and just move to the next.
The question we all have to ask is: How come we have more poverty, less clean water, no clean air, and the areas of food deficit are growing? The list goes on and on.
Not all is bad, either. As a good case study, in 1973, the Chitwan National Park was created to protect Nepal’s globally unique flora and fauna, including the one-horned rhinoceros. In those early days, the rhino population was dwindling and there was fear that these beautiful creatures may become extinct.
Resources were set aside by the government and international agencies. Many people, including close to one thousand soldiers of the Nepal Army, guarded the less than 100 last remaining rhinos.
With protection, the rhino population began to grow slowly, a real success story that all of us Nepalis can and should be proud of.
The park not only employs people directly as rangers, game scouts, wardens and security personnel, but there are also a large number of people employed by the hotels, jungle lodges, travel agencies, airlines here and abroad.
They all owe their jobs to the rhino and its successful comeback. Add to this all the brands that use the rhino to sell everything from a national financial institution to the national cricket association, and we sure have a lot to toast the health and wellbeing of this animal.
Unfortunately, the Nepali rhino success story is rare in the world. The world has already lost 60% of its ancient forests to date, according the World Resources Institute.
Just as a comparison, Chitwan National Park covers 932 square kilometers. In contrast, when Russia opened its forests to foreign companies in 1996, it lost over 10,000 square kilometers of its tree cover in just that one year.
Business needs to understand and appreciate the fact that many people have jobs because we were successful in saving the rhino. There should be no more debate that saving the rhino and caring for the earth can and should become good business.
Surveys and studies done over the past decade with hundreds of businesses globally show that caring for the earth results in higher profits in the following ways.
1. Manufacturing processes and products that care for the earth do not waste raw materials, water, and energy, leading to minimum waste disposal costs and treatment facilities. Everything contributes to higher profits.
2. As international and local rules, regulations and standards are tightened in favor of the environment, businesses that have adopted earth-friendly practices find their liability, and legal fees, fines, as well as insurance and personal liability claims are much lower – leading to more profits.
3. Marketing of products that do not damage the earth is easier in a world of growing consciousness – especially among young consumers who have a huge purchasing power. Employee moral is also much higher in clean workplaces, leading to better productivity.
In this context, a key question needs to be looked at: Despite these obvious benefits of caring for the Earth, why is there so much animosity between business and environmentalists?
The reason perhaps can be found in the general belief that in the early 1990s, with the Earth Summit at Rio, people in business saw that environmentalists were getting too powerful too quickly.
This is definitely the observation we had in Nepal. The environmental movement was center stage, and all donors, international and national NGOs were focusing their efforts on the environment.
Going forward, both sides realize that caring for the environment is good for business and is a good business in itself. Today, the world has many entrepreneurs who are coming up with new breakthroughs that help business and help the earth.
Bill McDonough is an architect who has launched the Blue Green Institute, and in a public event in Washington DC, he asked the audience why food could not be packed in materials which would become soil nutrients rather than become garbage for landfill sites.
This is the kind of “out of the box” thinking that is going to help business care for the earth.
Tailpiece: On the tradition of planting trees on June 5 each year, there was a cartoon published some years ago which depicted a “minister” about to plant a tree. A local person comes forward and tells the minister to plant it at a particular spot. When asked why that particular spot, the local says, “That’s where they plant every year on June 5.”
Anil Chitrakar is an Ashoka Fellow.
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