What is biodiversity? What is the importance of grassland areas? How can we align a business and financial agenda with an appreciation for ecosystems and natural balance? Is there a shared platform on which the green movement and business can come together to pay more than lip-service to the notion of sustainability?
These were just a handful of challenging issues up for discussion at the South African National Biodiversity Institute’s (SANBI’s) Biodiversity: Powering the Green Economy conference, a two-day affair hosted by the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) in partnership with the Transnet Programme in Sustainable Development, the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP’s) Global Environment Facility and, of course, SANBI’s Grasslands Partners Forum.
While the gathering brought together a diverse group of experts, with a heavy emphasis on government departments, UNDP personnel and environmentalists, the notable absence of a significant business and entrepreneurial contingent raised some concerns and opened up debate about the framing of environmental concerns and collaborations.
GIBS’s Transnet Programme in Sustainable Development, which was established in 2008, is a progressive module offered as part of the business school’s MBA programme and signals the importance which business in South Africa views issues of environmental importance. The programme’s director, Donald Gibson, stressed that “there has never been such a heightened awareness of sustainability. Many South African companies are regarded as leaders in philanthropy and many of our top business schools are engaged in sustainability thinking, more so than some business schools globally. That is a strong signal that our business leaders are taking this seriously.”
‘Green’ issues are steadily making it into the mainstream, but, said Gibson, “this doesn’t mean the job is done … We as business leaders need to see sustainability as an opportunity for shared value creation.” Similarly the message to the conservation movement was one of co-operation and a strong need for a radical mind shift away from the cloistered research and NGO environment; of a more embracing approach to selling the green economy.
“There has never been such a heightened awareness of sustainability. Many South African companies are regarded as leaders in philanthropy and many of our top business schools are engaged in sustainability thinking, more so than some business schools globally.”
As well-known conservationist and director of Kijani Green Energy, Simon Gear, stressed: “The people who run the economy don’t think in terms of a green economy. Big fundamental changes in our economy are driven by policy and price. We are not even talking the same language. Yes, there are great arguments on either side but they just go straight past each other.”
Pulling no punches, Gear continued: “I do worry that we in this room are naïve and I worry that the business guys just don’t realise just how severe the problems are.”
Quite simply the need to find a shared language and learn to speak to business on its own terms emerged is crucial. “You’ve got to show efficiencies, but most companies have been through that already. So how do we explain that they are exposed to water or soil risk?” asked Gear. “So maybe we should be talking to insurance companies or banks rather than companies?”
An initiative that is doing just that is the Project for Ecosystem Services (ProEcoServ), which lead researcher Dr Belinda Reyers of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) discussed in a compelling address which cut to the core of the green economy in action. Stressing the need for partnerships, Reyers discussed the experience of partnering with companies like Santam to look at ways to manage risk to coastal fore-dunes. From an insurance perspective managing this problem makes business sense. “Between 2003 and 2008 the Western Cape incurred direct damages of R2.5 billion in eight severe weather events associated with cut-off low events,” explained Reyers. “Simple coastal engineering applied to good data can make a huge difference.”
The ProEcoServ project – of which South Africa is one of four pilot nations, the others being Chile, Trinidad & Tobago, Vietnam and Lesotho – looks at ways of using ecosystems effectively to combat the negative impact of climate change, such as flooding, fires and droughts. “It requires partnership, knowledge and innovation, so it’s a case of bringing the findings of science to bear on the needs of decision makers,” explained Reyers. “So it’s quite a complex area we are moving into … (but) we have here a meeting point and a small set of examples which show this engagement is working.”
ProEcoServ’s work highlights just how counterproductive an adversarial ‘us-and-them’ approach can be. Nor, she stressed, does the green movement need to ‘dumb down’ its message to business. “Engaging with a business like insurance you’re dealing with actuaries,” she laughed. “You do need to appreciate what other people (already) know and we need to recognise the power of partnerships.”
Bringing together stakeholders from government, the private sector, NGOs, researchers, academics, business people and entrepreneurs seems the only, feasible, way to go. “Government needs to work with the private sector if we are going to reap the benefits of the green economy,” stressed Dr Ivor Sarakinsky of Wits University. It means making some hard choices. As WWF’s head of the Living Planet Unit, Saliem Fakir, put it: “Being passionate about something doesn’t necessarily mean there is a good economic case for it. If there is a lot of co-ordination and levels of efficiency required to get it off the ground then there is a huge cost burden which is not immediately apparent.”
And that is a language business understands.