Agricultural livelihoods of green revolution & agricultural biotechnology are no ‘magic bullet’ to end global hunger

Agricultural livelihood of green revolution of 1960s and 1970s hoped to alleviate global hunger crises by improving seed qualities, farm technology, better irrigation and chemical fertilisers, which subsequently enabling developing nations to be self-sufficient. Regardless of the success of greater food production, it is highly questionable whether the lower strata of rural poor achieved greater food security or greater economic prosperity.

Parallel narrative like ‘we need new technology to end hunger’ in recent years has prompted even bigger debate with genetically modified crops. Monsanto, Novartis, AgrEvo, Dupont, Mycogen, American Home Products and other companies who are reinventing themselves as biotechnology companies with the help of international agencies having a global agenda to promote genetically modified crops to alleviate global hunger. It has been thought by these multinational companies that the second green revolution will save the world from hunger and starvation with the help of magic seeds and plants produced by genetic engineering techniques.

Before we get carried away, let us look at the facts. Proponents of green revolution technology were understandably happy to take the credit that in between 1970 to 1990 the total food available per person rose by 11 percent and estimated number of hungry people fell from 942 million to 786 million, a 16 percent drop. However, these figures can give falls assumptions. Eliminating China from this analysis showed that hungry people actually increased by more than 11 percent, from 536 to 597 million (Rosset et al, 2000). In South America per capita food supplies rose almost 8 percent but the number of hungry people also went up to by 19 percent. Even in South Asia, there was 9 percent more food per person by 1990, but there were also 9 percent more hungry people.

The agricultural progress that made green revolution possible did not take any account on equal distribution (Wolf, 1986). New seeds, fertilisers and pesticides boosted the crop yields and benefited those farmers who had the access to irrigation system and markets for their crops. Subsistence farmers remained vulnerable to crop failure, droughts, natural catastrophe and diseases. Distribution of economic power especially access to land and purchasing power was narrowly focused. It is still debateable if the poor did benefit from the technology; many poor farmers gained nothing from new technology. Indeed, they often lost (Jewitt, 2002). Farmers with ownership holdings larger acres of land got better opportunities to invest on new seeds, fertilisers and pesticides. Poor paid more and got less, as poor farmers could not buy fertilisers and other inputs. Bigger growers aimed to buy large amounts and got discounts. The relationship between small farmers and moneylenders became less traditional and more commercial, and many farmers became indebted (Conway, 1997).

Even in the case of tube wells, larger farmers could afford the initial investment and have lower costs per unit. The capital-intensive agriculture strategy tends to increase disparities within small farmers. Use of heavy machinery allowed a drastic reduction in the input of human labor. Rural people’s livelihood were affected from the impacts of green revolution in different ways; whether they were wage earners, cultivators or consumers, whether they came from landed or landless, rich or poor, male or female headed households. Final results had been massive displacement and loss of lands to the bigger growers, increasing urbanization, poverty amongst small farmers.

Impacts of green revolution were felt not only on rural livelihoods, poverty, politics and urban-rural relations but also ecological impacts were immense. Fertilizer, pesticide and herbicide runoff became a major source of water pollution. Green revolution allowed growing very fewer varieties of crops which mean fewer verities of diet and nutrient values were least than their ancestors. The introduction of green revolution staples into regions that previously had hundreds of varieties of crops and replacement of various nutrition sources, with a single green revolution alternative have led to poor nutrition diets. With the green revolution, farming became fossil fuel dependent. So the energy that must be expended to produce crops had also increased at a greater rate. Critics had charged that the green revolution destroyed soil quality over the long period by increasing soil salinity, heavy use of chemical fertilizers, killing off beneficial soil microbes and other organisms, erosion of the soil and loss of valuable trace elements.

However, the biotechnology revolution differs from the green revolution in many aspects. Major aspects of agricultural biotechnology (so called The Second Green Revolution) are to develop food crops and livestock as well as enhancing the nutritional quality of foods (value-enhanced crops) and reducing the need for toxic pesticides and herbicides. Research continues on crop varieties, which are drought tolerance and will produce their own fertilisers. Unlike the green revolution (classical or conventional plant breeding practices) where food production were increased by improving seed qualities, development of high-yielding varieties of staple crops, farm technology, better irrigation and using chemical fertilisers. As Shiva, 1991 concluded that heavy use of fertiliser had led to degraded soil with falling crop yields and polluted water sources during the green revolution. The new technology so far relies on the same chemical approach. Therefore artificial fertilizers continue to be used and pests are likely to become resistant to genetically introduced toxins with the risk of creating "super bugs” – the soil ecology is likely to be damaged (Bundell, 2004). 

Like green revolution technology, agricultural biotechnology has increased very sharply from 1.7 million hectares in 1996 to 11.0 million ha in 1997 and more than 28 million hectors in 1998 (Buttel, 1999). But despite of the 15-fold increase in GMO crop area from 1996 to 1998, crop biotechnology is still fairly limited in scope (Buttel, 1999). Will the agricultural biotechnology revolution alleviate global hunger as it was said in the case of green revolution? The answer is not very simplistic or evidential because the technology is still advancing and yet to be implemented in many countries in the world, particularly in those countries where there is more hunger. Whatever rewards it brings for humanity but its benefits are accompanied by controversy and not without problems. Scientific uncertainty, conflicting government priorities, lack of coordination among legislative bodies and the absence of civil penalty system have undermined the level of environmental protection conferred by GMO regulation. There are so many questions yet to be answered for example, do we need the product? Do we want the product? How does the product affect us? 

Private sectors are dominant for developing, promoting and commercialising of the genetic engineered varieties, whereas public and non-profit sectors played the predominant role during the green revolution. The process of new biotechnology is not very cheap. GMO technology has motivated a number of mergers and takeovers between seed and chemical companies because biotechnology requires considerable investment; the companies have attempted to exercise exceptional control over the processes, genes, and chemicals (Tripp, 1999). For example, the top 10-agrochemical companies control 85 per cent of the global agrochemical market; the top five control virtually the entire market for GM seeds. Concentration of ownership within the industry is increasing. If the new technology remains in the hand of big corporations then it will continue to reliance on external inputs, concentrate on ownership of land and resources. This will further widen the gap between poor and rich. GM technology does not address this fundamental issue of inequality of access. For example, ‘terminator technology’ or ‘the suicide seed’ will prevent farmers from saving seed for their next planting and force them to buy new seeds each year or to buy the proprietary chemicals needed to make the seeds germinate (Bundell, 2004).

Three distinct techniques such as tissue cultures, molecular markers and transgenic crops are classified as biotechnology, differing in costs and perceived risks (Byerlee and Gregory, 1999). Transgenic crops are controversial because of concerns of science, potential impacts on environment and human health and concerns about the structure of the transgenic crop industries. Growing number of biotechnology companies are trying to push forward their agenda through the government policies, USA is a good example in this regard and having trade difficulties with European Union (EU). There are conflicting regulatory approaches between EU and US, which make the whole GMO issues very controversial. The biotechnology dispute had the characteristics of a high-tech industrial dispute and this dispute had the potential to damage other countries.

Genes with specific characteristics are directly transported in the plant cells, which can be called as transgenic plants. Two well known agricultural biotechnology's first generation of products are Bt corn and herbicide resistance soybeans. Even though the success in USA, questions are always arising the capacity of existing regulatory approaches and institutions to address issues related to safety in biotechnology. It is vitally important worldwide efforts to develop and apply appropriate strategies and safety assessment criteria for GMO research and to ensure the wholecomeness and safety of its supply (FAO and WHO, 1997).

Regulatory response is not straightforward; it is as complex as GMOs. There should be provision of science-based mechanisms by which choices of acceptance can be made (Serageldin and Collins, 1999). For example, what magnitude of risk is acceptable by the government in accepting the technology? What are the likely outcomes in high-risk situations? What additional risks such as, opportunity costs and direct costs do face an individual firm?What risk do consumers face in chossing the product and how do they recognise those individual risks? Regulation in Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) remains a controversial topic. In Europe particularly, the law says that you cannot patent discoveries, you can only patent inventions (Serageldin and Collins, 1999). Genes are discoveries, therefore they cannot be patented. This argument does not apply in America because the law is differently phrased. An invention is defined as an invention or discovery (Serageldin and Collins, 1999).

But why these safety assessments are important? Because the sources of DNA are virtually coming from animal, plant, microbial or synthetic. They can mutate in response to environmental influences and thus may disturb the ecological balance.  Therefore, “Genetically modified organisms must not be released into the environment as the consequences for the environment and the evolution are unpredictable and irreversible” (Anderson, 1999). These modern techniques solely differ from the green revolution technology.

In the green revolution technologies farmers required to have the knowledge about how to combine the seeds, chemical fertilisers and irrigations but in the case of agricultural biotechnology farmers are facing uncertainties about the impacts. Educated and rich farmers can build up their adaptive capacity quickly than poorer farmers against uncertainties (Feder et al, 1982). Foster and Rosenzweig (1986) find that the return to schooling in India rose when green revolution varieties were introduced and that educated farmers were more benefited than uneducated farmers. Farmer’s learning will probably concentrate on knowing the plant-insect varieties instead of how much insecticide needs to be used (de Janvry et al, 1999). The major issues will be what crops should be developed and how the poor farmers will have access to those crops.

  

Regulatory concerns in developing countries are growing more and more because pressures will be applied from both domestic and foreign sources; these will include the interest of plant breeders, agriculture input and commodity firms and a range of political and advocacy groups (Tripp, 1999). To take regulatory decisions about GMOs require high quality of technical information about environmental interactions. This information is costly to acquire and most developing countries do not have adequate resources for this purposes. External funding is required to support environmental studies, as well as for the broader concerns of biodiversity conservation (Tripp, 1999). Strict regulations in some of the industrialised countries on the release of GMOs or products might encourage some biotechnology industries to conduct their experiment in developing countries without government knowledge or approval, because of lack of regulation, technical information and public accountability (Serageldin and Collins, 1999). Therefore, regulatory authorities of those countries are increasingly facing the new challenges.

Promises of green revolution were to alleviate global hunger, increasing global carrying capacity with increased yields, increasing technological knowledge and reaching the materials to the rural farmers. Primary objective of green revolution was a successful one but it did not alleviate the global hunger. It is claimed that lessons have learned from green revolution experiences. It is believed that hunger is not caused by a shortage of food and cannot be eliminated by producing more foods. Introducing any new agricultural technology into a social system without addressing the social questions of access to and who gets the benefits from it is a fundamental question. Without a strategy of addressing these issues of powerlessness of the poor, the tragic result will be more food and yet more hunger. Dubious benefits to the poor and potential risks associated with the second green revolution unfortunately will not end the hunger. 

Rapid urbanisation, poverty & environmental degradation will remain the greatest sustainability challenges in 21st century

Green agenda are spearheading discussions on resource management, global climate change and biodiversity issues, while the environmental problems known as 'brown agenda' in the urban areas are still being neglected in the developing countries although the planning and development professionals around the world are striving tirelessly for the greatest outcome possible. It is well accepted that rapid urbanisation has aggravated problems like sanitation and drainage, improper disposal of solid and hazardous waste, degradation of soil and land, uncontrolled emissions from the domestic and industrial activities, traffic congestions etc. resulting in poor public health.

Cities and towns have been hubs of economic development but a good question to be asked - do the rapid industrialisation, urbanisation and development of communication network have been impetus for economic development at the cost of environment? The root causes of environmental degradation in urban areas are unplanned and hardly coordinated inter-play of socio-economic, institutional and technical activities. There are many factors, which may have greater impacts on the urban environment but poverty still remains at the root of several environmental problems. Let us try to understand urban poverty and environmental degradation before blaming each other.

Urbanisation and industrialisation have provided livelihood and opportunities to the millions of people, but at the same time they have brought in the accompanied problems such as waste disposal, environmental degradation, disease-causing agents and pollutants, contamination of air, soil and surface water etc. The more we achieved rapid growth of industrial production, the more we experienced problems related to industrial pollution.

Urban environmental degradation in the developing countries is associated with households and businesses; those are not served by sewers, drains and waste collection facilities. Lack of or improper sewage treatment plants are contributing to the water pollution problems. Sources of air pollution are uncontrolled emissions and it is coming from the industries. Also, increasing number of motor vehicles which are often without catalyst converters and these vehicles has poorly maintained engines. In the urban areas, answers to the reasons for persistence of poverty can be traced back to environmental degradation. The urban poor are usually the most exposed to weather and thus most affected by environmental pollution. Therefore, attempt to tackle environmental problems without addressing poverty is likely to fail. Poverty reduction and effective environmental management in the urban areas are mutually dependent. Poverty is both cause and effect of environmental degradation.

This relationship between poverty and environmental degradation is of course an extremely complex phenomenon. Inequalities and lack of opportunities, social exclusion, lack of access to essential utilities that foster un-sustainability among a section of population, which results in environmental degradation because they do not find any other way but to using the available alternatives e.g. drains for toilet, live in a place which is already polluted, use contaminated water, generate waste and subsequently pollute the environment further.

It is well accepted that large population put stress on the environment, society and resources. Just imagine the current world population which is 7.2 billion and it is projected to increase up to 9.6 billion by 2050. Over population not only requires destruction of more and more natural resources but also generates large number of waste, which is associated with environmental stresses like loss of biodiversity, water pollution, air pollution and increased pressure on arable land. Over-consumption and unsustainable development may have the greater impacts and that is why the choices of how to use the resources and for what purposes are very important.

Furthermore, economic opportunities in the urban areas and their absence in the rural have created a huge urban-rural gap. Lack of opportunities for employment and associated stresses, impacts of climate changes are leading to ever-increasing migration of rural poor families to the towns. Urban slums are expanding due to increasing population in the cities. This rapid and unplanned expansion of the cities has resulted in the degradation of urban environment. The city of Dhaka is a classic example of this. Huge pressures have been created on the infrastructure and utilities such as energy, housing, transport, education, water supply, sewerage system and recreational amenities. These in turn speed up the deterioration of urban environment and the proliferation of slums contributes further to urban poverty.

If we look for some of the desirable improvements e.g. improved provision for water and sanitation, less crowded places, better quality housing, improved provision for storm and surface water drainage, avoidance of hazardous sites for settlements, promotion of cleaner household fuels and improved provision for solid-waste management, then probably financial needs would stand in the front row and one could argue that due to lack of money the poorer countries cannot build these infrastructures. In that case, poorer counties are bound to choose the model of economic growth, which requires exploitation of natural resources for expanding production. In rich countries, mass production and consumption is a major cause of environmental degradation and destruction of natural resources. In the poor countries, the creation of value and access to subsistence are typically linked to sacrificing environmental quality for short-term economic gain (Goodman and Redclift, 1991).

Poorer nations are introducing the neo-liberal policies, which turn rich people even richer, while the poor become poorer. Neo-liberal policies increases the material consumption, therefore more resources will be used and money will be diverted to produce and purchase these goods, hence poor people will be left behind. This has further led to ‘blaming the victims’ for their poverty. Blaming poverty as the main cause of urban environmental degradation will be one-sided narrowly focused conclusion. If poverty is a major concern in urban environment, conversely environmental degradation needs to be of great concern as well for further ill-being of the poor. It’s a vicious cycle and the poor are definitely caught in the middle.

High-income groups are far worse than low-income groups contributing to the environmental degradation by generating more waste and green house gas emissions. Improving urban poverty and preventing further environmental degradation or vice versa, the governments need to focus on sustainable urban infrastructure development with urban environmental management.

Circular Economy is logical, makes more environmental, economic and business sense

The ‘Circular Economy’ is a start-to-finish circular concept; hence it is not too difficult to imagine what the interpretation may indicate. It is an industrial economy, that rejects the traditional economic approach e.g. 'take-make-consume and dispose' pattern of growth, where degradation of environment by increased amount of waste are not an inevitable by-product. The Circular Economy concept is not new; it has been there for more than five decades. As Kenneth Ewart Boulding’s famous paper from 1966, the economics of the coming spaceship Earth, expressed the view that man will need to find his place in a cyclical ecological system which is capable of continuous reproduction of material. Basically, our society will need to follow a circular pattern so that the resources can be use for a longer period of time. 

To date, traditional industrial economy has created enormous waste and its adverse effects on the environment are well known. The fight for a sustainable future was not on the agenda after the industrial revolution as the society wanted to move forward by creating wealth, more consumption and comfortable livings. The world population has rapidly multiplied in the last 50 years than ever before. Therefore, there is an urgent need to look for more recyclable and alternative materials. And, that is why the recycling and material flow lies at the heart of the Circular Economy concept, which has now become part and parcel of our fight for a sustainable future. It is not only the end of life of a product which is important but the design phase is even more important, for example 80% of a product’s environmental impact is locked in at the design stage. We need to use the right materials from a very early stage in the product development cycle.

However, developing new products with the right materials at design stage is just one of the pieces of the puzzle. The other equally important piece is the effective use of existing resources. Let us take a more realistic view to understand the importance of effective use of existing resources. Imagine for a moment that all the precious metals such as Gold, Silver, Platinum, Palladium, Copper, Nickel, and Aluminium have run out. Now, ask yourself a simple question - 'why did we not think about these precious materials before, which are used to make the computer circuit boards might run out one day? In order to prevent it, we should at least have invented a method where these metals would eventually come back to the production process to be used up again?' That is exactly what the circular economy concept is proposing to take on – a closed loop recycling, a process where post-consumption waste is collected, recycled and used to make new products.

There is clearly a business case for circular economy as a mean to resource efficiency and cost savings, effectively more sustainable growth, competiveness, less impact on environment and climate. It is a perfect marriage between environmental protection and making profits. A McKinsey study in 2013 estimated for 2030 the financial benefit of resource efficiency will be at around $3 trillion per year; 70-85 percent of this potential would be in developing countries." Just imagine the massive boost to the GDP by adding trillions to the developing countries’ economies. This is to say that the developing countries have more advantages compared to the developed countries. This is because their economies are not locked in the markets that would only follow the traditional linear economic models. That is to say, it will be easier to break and re-shape the economic models of the developing countries. 

Despite the growing acceptance for the Circular Economy, there are still many barriers and common misperceptions that exist. One of the biggest misperception is that, if we encourage people to re-use or keep their products for longer; then it would discourage sales. Hence profits will go down; effectively there will be no interests from the business communities. On the contrary, I think Circular Economy concept will drive the innovation more than ever - creating new type of products, businesses, markets and consequently create more jobs in the new green industries. However, consumers are the key group who need to understand the green economic transformation and its benefits for the present and the future generations. In my view, this is one of the biggest challenges ahead whether the consumers are prepared to buy the products made from recyclable and alternative materials. 

Finally, Corporations have a bigger role to play moving towards a Circular Economy compared to smaller businesses. Corporations have necessary funding to kick-start the transition and they are in a position to persuade their supply chains and other stakeholders to change their business models. A collective approach would certainly need to drive of change in the fight for a sustainable future. The Circular Economy is definitely the way forward. 

Rampal power plant: Using coal – same old, same old!

Coal’s dominant role in the electricity making is not a new phenomenon. For centuries, coal has been one of the main energy resources, but experiences have shown that burning coal is one of the dirtiest ways to produce electricity. Despite the damaging consequences of burning coals on human health and environment, the race is still on to build more coal-fired power plants particularly in the developing world. In order to meet the country’s growing energy demand, Bangladesh has also jumped on the bandwagon to possibly build a total of eight coal-fired power plants under the tenure of present government.

 

The proposed 1320 megawatt coal-fired power plant in Rampal upazila, situated just 14 kilometers north of the world's largest mangrove forest 'Sundarbans' – a UNESCO World Heritage site, has been in the center of huge controversy in recent years. Besides the political debates over constructing the power plant with partnership of India's state-owned National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), the root cause of the controversy is the potential environmental impacts of having a coal-fired power plant so close to the world’s largest mangrove forest and the local communities that live around.

 

The proposed power plant has a multi-dimensional impact upon the local biodiversity, environment and half-million people who depend on the mangrove forest, from the coal combustion, waste storage and heavy coal barge traffic by the sea and river estuaries. The local air would increasingly be toxic by burning coal, which usually produce gases e.g. Carbon dioxide (CO2), Sulphur dioxide (SO2), Nitrogen Oxides (NOx), Volatile Organic Compound (VOC), and other chemical emissions e.g. Mercury (Hg), Arsenic (As), Lead (Pb) & Cadmium (Cd). By mounting a taller flue-gas stack would disperse and dilute the exhaust pollutants but it wouldn't necessarily defuse it, hence the risk still remain that the pollutants would cause acid rain and gradually over time the soil and aquatic ecosystems would become more acidic, hence invariably have knock-on negative effects on the terrestrial and aquatic flora and fauna.

 

Varieties of solid (e.g. fly ash, boiler slag) and liquid (e.g. coal sludge) waste are to be produced. A typical 500 megawatt coal power plant creates more than 125,000 tons of ash and 193,000 tons of sludge from the smoke-stack scrubber each year. Therefore, the proposed 1320 megawatt coal-fired power plant in Rampal would produce ash and sludge more than double a typical 500 megawatt coal power plant would have been produced. The risk is genuinely higher where toxic substances in waste e.g. Arsenic (As), Mercury (Hg), Chromium (Cr), Cadmium (Cd) could contaminate local water surface and ground water.

 

We cannot ignore the potential environmental and economic costs that would incur on the local population and the aquatic and terrestrial flora and fauna. Undoubtedly, Bangladesh needs a major shift from the natural gas-based power plant to something more sustainable energy sources as there is a genuine fear that the existing gas reserve would run out within a decade. It is therefore necessary to pay a greater attention on the diversification of country’s energy sources. Instead of putting too much emphasis on coal fired power plant, Bangladesh should concentrate more on renewable energy sources, which has huge potential to establish a stronger presence in the country’s energy diversification strategy.

 

Since the first industrial revolution, our predecessor had to burn coal as they didn’t have much choice. But, we now have the knowledge, experiences and technical know-how that promote sustainable energy including renewable energy sources that we didn’t have back then. Bangladesh doesn’t need sleepwalking to the past mistakes that our predecessor did; instead the country can potentially leapfrog into more cleaner and sustainable future in order to fulfil the aspirations of the green industrial revolution.

 

Near sustainability at Jhenidah Cadet College

Jhenidah Cadet College (JCC) was established in 1963, and that is what makes it the second oldest cadet colleges in Bangladesh. It is located on 103 acres of land in the outskirts of a town called 'Jhenidah' in the South West of the country. Bangladesh was still a part of West Pakistan (modern-day Pakistan) when the college was established. The main goal was to build a school and college, which equivalent to the English version private boarding institutions. This will be where students would physically and mentally be prepared to join the country's Military Academy after completing their high school graduation. This provided, at very best, the equal opportunity for the local students and maintained the diversity and social cohesion, which in effect, promoted a social and economic enrichment. This has been a potent symbol of social responsibility of the JCC so far. I will touch upon some social responsibility initiatives by the Alumni organisation (i.e. Jhenidah Ex-Cadet Association - in short JEXCA), reserved for later discussion.

The highs and lows of being a cadet are still vivid in my mind after so many years. I have been one of the lucky ones who attended JCC, in fact, it engulfed almost my entire teenage years. Since my father worked there as a physics’ teacher, I lived in the campus for more than eleven years of my childhood before joining the college at age 12. One of my favourite memories from childhood in the campus is discovering the stunning natural surroundings. Also be drawn to the allure of the rare sense of serenity where I could often get away from the reality. I still marvel over how I spent countless hours wandering through the bushes, fearlessly running around barefoot on the ground infested with weeds, shrubs and prickly plants, and recklessly jumped into the canal water without thinking of the consequences. It’s hard to forget - I still cherish those wonderful days.

It was almost unthinkable to me then as a young boy but now it makes perfect sense that the gorgeous natural surroundings of the college campus has actually made JCC a perfect example of a natural carbon sink. It absorbs the traffic pollution that is created by the nearest busy motorway from Jessore to Kushtia district. Inside the campus boundary, all the residents live within the walking or cycling distance from their workplace hence the usage of vehicles (e.g. cars, vans, buses etc.) is minimal.Therefore the amount of usual traffic exhaust pollutants (e.g. NO2, SO2, carbon monoxide, Pb& heavy metals etc.) are negligible, as a result, it poses no real health risks for the local residents. The level of air pollution in the campus had (probably) never been tested, but, if it had been tested then the results would have showed far better outcomes than any European cities.

At JCC, the basic elements of sustainability have always existed between and within.The contexts of 'Think globally, act locally' (perhaps it has never been thought through the lenses of environmental perceptions), are to be seen in many aspects including the electricity and water supply, which are produced locally, in effect, it encourages in creating more local employments. There is a real potential to save money, be environmental friendly and self-sufficient in electricity if JCC start using the renewable energy technologies like solar panels & wind turbines and earn its place as the local and regional leader of renewables. Initially the electricity generated from the renewables could be used to light up some small places like the toilets, front and the back of the cadet dining hall, some of the rooms in the main offices where the bright lights are not always required. From the larger scale renewable installation, the surplus energy could potentially be supplied to the main grids or possibly lighting up some homes outside of the boundary walls. It would make a real difference on the lives of disadvantaged people.

Other areas, from supply chain and logistics to food production and the procurement are generally done with the local vendors and many of them practically depend on doing businesses with the JCC authority. In this aspect, JCC should encourage and promote in creating a socially and environmentally responsible supply chains, which eventually would help to create a sustainable society, however small-scale that might be. Also, need to encourage primarily the residents and other stakeholders to live low carbon lifestyle and purchasing local goods and services. 

The proper management of waste and recycling are the key components of environmental sustainability. Systematic collection, recycling and disposalof waste are still premature and sporadic at JCC and that is why I believe that there are immense opportunities to improve in the waste management areas within its boundaries. From the kerbside collectionto different types of recycling bins (e.g. plastics, papers, glass bottles, used clothes & shoes etc.) could be placed in some of the main points in the campus areas. The reusable clothes and shoes could be distributed among the poorest communities in the villages outside of the college boundaries and rest of the other reusable and recyclable materials could be sold to the local traders for low or no-cost basis.

Composting is a simple and an inexpensive way to transform the kitchen and garden waste into a nutrient rich fertiliser. Even the cadets could get their hands dirty making compost from the dining hall food waste when they carry out their gardening sessions. Moreover, awareness raising campaign focusing on one member of each household in the campus, men and women alike, should be educated how to make compost from the food waste, which eventually would help to increase in soil productivity and plant growth in their own gardens. Also, encourage people to harvest rainwater off roofs to minimise fresh water wastage for gardening.

As has been touched upon earlier, the obvious social role remains quite evident from the Alumni organisation. JEXCA Bangladesh medical doctors run two free clinics in two major cities for people who cannot afford to pay for their health care. JEXCA Bangladesh is also providing, among others, child sponsorship for some orphan children from the recent disaster of Rana Plaza garment factory collapse, provide humanitarian help for the flood (e.g. flood in 2007), cyclone (e.g. cyclone SIDR in 2007 & cyclone AILA in 2009) victims and financial support to the former JCC members (e.g. ex-teachers, ex-students and ex-member of staffs) who suffer from difficult illnesses. These are some of the outstanding works that have been carried out by JEXCA Bangladesh over the years. JEXCA UK and North America are also contributing to many aspects of social responsibilities by providing direct supports to JEXCA Bangladesh in order to act for the benefit of society at large. I look forward to more promising tale to tell – hopefully a lasting legacy to leave for the future generations in the social responsibility areas.

Finally, sustainability needs to be the top management agenda. JCC has the opportunities working towards a more sustainable future. Sustainability is here to stay, embrace it and let’s make it more visible.