Adaptation to climate change is the only feasible strategy for Bangladesh

Bangladesh has been in the spotlight of its notorious and devastating natural calamities and other disasters like cyclones, flooding, desertification, salinisation, soil impoverishment and arsenic contamination in ground water for many years. Indisputably the impacts of global warming and climate change have severely imposed another disastrous phenomenon with existing one. Nonetheless, climate change sceptics may think otherwise. I don’t blame their doubts and above all denial as there has been turbulent year 2010 in which the climate change science has been undermined by leaked emails, which were shared by climate scientists from the University of East Anglia in the UK, failure of Copenhagen climate summit and mistakenly claimed in the IPPC’s 2007 report that all Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2030.

On the contrary, particularly on Bangladesh many climate change experts stated that the combination of rising seas, harsher storms and degradation of the Bengal delta may wreak so much damage that Bangladesh as we know it may virtually cease to exist (Jodi Jacobson, 1988 in Saunders, 2000, p.237). So many undeniable evidences are there and I believe that good sceptic arguments are always healthy when science gets very big. With carrying these new threats Bangladesh has been in the forefront of the debate, also has repeatedly reinforced the global arguments surrounding global warming and climate change.

Impacts of climate change are first felt in biophysically such as sea level rise inundates low-lying coastal areas, stronger cyclones results in increased coastal flooding, changing patterns in crops and vegetations, runoff changes and the risk of spread of infectious diseases. Long lists of biophysical consequences do not stop here; they impose a range of potential socio-economic impacts. Coping with these impacts depend on a society's technical, institutional, economic, and cultural ability. Therefore planned adaptation would determine how Bangladesh would cope against all odds of impacts of climate change (Klein and Nicholls, 1999).

In relation understanding regional and local environmental changes in Bengal delta is very important. Bengal delta has complex physical environment. The regional climate diversity, seasonal variation, geological characteristics, subsidence of low-lying coastal areas, local unpredictability and even variations of monsoon seasons from one year to another put Bangladesh in an unique situation to weaken the global discourse of global warming and climate change.

Bangladesh faces constant threats from floods, which are the usual scenario every year.  Large scale flooding during the rainy season and its force and length brings devastation on society and economy as a whole. Bangladesh is well known as one of the most flood-prone countries in the world. Fifty-four rivers flow into the country, which has the largest system of deltas and flat lands in the world (Symonds, 1998). Bangladesh captures only 7.5 per cent of the catchments area of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers with 1.5 million square kilometres (Brammer, 1990). Rest of the vast catchments area with headwaters of those mighty rivers lie outside of the Bangladesh and has a tropical monsoon climate. Monsoon climate brings heavy rainfall that ranges annually from 300mm to 11615mm outside (Valleys in Nepal, Tibet and Cherrapunji on the Meghalaya plateau) and 1250mm to 5000mm inside of Bangladesh (Brammer, 1990, p.13).

Subsidence; motion of the earth’s surface is an alternative threat to Bangladesh. Many experts have blamed on several factors which have contributed to Bengal delta subsidence (Milliman, 1992) including continuous loading of sediment from the rivers, excessive tapping for hydrocarbons or groundwater, and compaction or shrinkage with drying. Milliman et al (1989) make more explicit reference to Bangladesh and they suggest that some low-lying deltas have natural subsidence rates as great as 1 to 10cm/year, that is 10 to 100 times the rate of present sea-level rise (Bradnock and Saunders, 2000) and Bangladesh is shown as subsiding at 1cm/year which is greater than Nile (3.5mm/year) and less than Mississippi (1.5cm/year) and New Orleans (2cm/year).

Another unique dimension of Bangladesh’s environment is the role of plate tectonics (Bradnock and Saunders, 2002). This primal but recently understood tectonic origins of Bengal Delta have provided another new facet, its destructive nature and impacts of it has catastrophic ability to bring an end to existence of Bangladesh. Three geo-tectonic provinces such as the Stable Shelf, the Central Deep Basin (extending from the Sylhet trough in the northeast towards the Hatia trough in the south and finally the Chittagong-Tripura Fold Belt have been related to a regional plate tectonic scenario, especially the collision pattern of the Indian plate with the Burma and Tibetan (Eurasian) plates. Movement of these tectonic plates will create earthquakes which remain far greater threats than impacts of climate change in Bangladesh.

Human vulnerability in Bangladesh from environmental changes are immense including yearly flooding, cyclones, storm surges, mass deaths, droughts, displacement of human settlement, loss of fisheries and vegetation, loss of financial services, human health etc. Living in a world of such natural hazards most of the people in the region need to facilitate adaptation with these hazards (Ahmed et al, 1999). The economy of Bangladesh strongly depends on agriculture and natural resources that are sensitive to climate change and sea level rise. Target population’s coping capacity differs from one place to another. For example, cyclones in Bangladesh in 1970 and 1991 are estimated to have caused 300,000 and 139,000 deaths. In contrast, Hurricane Andrew struck the United States in 1992, causing 55 deaths (WHO, 2003).

In order to safeguard from the impacts, effective adaptive responses to climate change and sea level rise is very necessary. These measures include such as the creation support and extension services to improve or change agricultural practices, efficient mechanisms for disaster management with construction of safe shelter for emergency situation, construction of embankments where possible, development and introduction of desalinisation techniques, and the plantation of mangrove protection belts (Haq, 2002). We need to evaluate the effectiveness of our sea and river defences. One of the main focuses has to be how can we prevent big cities from flooding? However, the adaptation needs to be cross-cuttings of different disciplines and hence a multi-disciplinary and integrated approach needs to be taken up to reduce vulnerability. Coastal resources, Freshwater resources, Agriculture, Human health, Ecosystem and Biodiversity were identified as the most vulnerable to climate change in a study on Bangladesh: climate change and sustainable development 2000 by World Bank (Haq, 2002).

The question has always been raised whether adaptation or mitigation, which strategy is for Bangladesh? Lots of initiatives towards mitigating measures of climate change have taken into account both national and international levels namely signing the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol, to stabilising or reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and enhancing carbon sinks. Even though how rigorous the mitigation levels are placed there in countries around the world the impacts of climate change are inevitable (Haq, 2002). And that is why country like Bangladesh needs to focus on strategic adaptation and implementation to the effects of climate change into the policy making under the National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) and Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP) for continuous adaptation and mitigation activities.

Building adaptive capacity (Klein and Nicholls, 1999) depends on a country’s plan, prepare, economic wealth, technology, infrastructure, knowledge that it processes, institutional arrangements, its commitment to equity, and its social capital. It is therefore not surprising that most industrialised countries have higher adaptive capacities than developing countries. Consideration of such issues question can be asked whether developing countries like Bangladesh do have the current level and sufficient adaptive capacity to cope with the impacts of climate change in the long run and what about funding for such strategies. Rajendra Pachauri; chair of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said before 2010 UN Climate Conference in Cancun that ‘financing is a prerequisite for a climate agreement’. He also stated that developing countries are very sensitive about the funding issue; talks will collapse in Mexico without strong and secure financing in place. The Poor have always been vulnerable to natural calamities. Therefore the best way to help the poor is to enable an environment that would provide the poor an opportunity to climb out of poverty and can afford a whole range of adaptation strategies to protect and insure themselves against climatic uncertainties (Haq and Klein, 2003).

Undoubtedly our planet is warming up, but we don’t know how far this will affect us in the future, also difficult tasks will still remain how to quantify the effects. More difficult when there are so many regional and local environmental variables exist. When we talk about global environmental issues like global warming and climate change it is important to understand the regional and local concept, more specifically Bangladeshi local environmental variability. How far is the global debate explains or taken into account the regional and local impacts of environmental changes? Many scientists argue that the impacts of climate change are inevitable and it appears that global warming already has increased the frequency of different unwanted scenarios in Bangladesh such as harsher storms and heavier rainfall, and because of that we experience further displacement of people from coastal areas and destruction of their livelihoods. As a result many people move to the cities where they will have limited or no access to basic utilities, or services and eventually settle down in the slums.

Even though how scrupulous the mitigation levels are placed, impacts of climate change are remarkably destructive for Bangladeshi livelihood. Therefore, it is necessary country like Bangladesh to focus on strategic adaptation and implementation to the effects of climate change into the policy making. And climate change issues should not be only the environmental concerns but also developmental problems where social concerns also need to be addressed.

Climate Change myths: Common misperceptions and sceptic's incorrect assertions

The science that supporting global warming and climate change are under endless scrutiny by sceptics who blatantly promoting incorrect assertions without checking the facts. Many of them continue to publicly challenge and claiming that human activities are not to be blamed. Countless recent statements and reports by many prestigious world leading scientific bodies have suggested that  warming of the Earth over last half-century has been caused largely by human activities such as usage of fossil fuels as the main sources of energy, changes in land use, agriculture and deforestation.

Positive and healthy debates are always welcome, which de facto keeps the science on its toes, but the combination of myths, common misconceptions and sceptic's incorrect assertions have created spheres of mistrust, ignorance and change of perception among general public who may or may not genuinely have the knowledge of Climate Change. Therefore, it’s not surprising when we hear that in the UK more than half the population does not believe climate change has been caused by humans (Daily Mail, 14th November 2009).

To some extend public should not be blamed as the roots of climate change science recently have been shaken by the leaked emails which were shared by climate scientists from the University of East Anglia in the UK and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 report mistakenly claimed that all Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2030. Everyone thought that the leaked email was a part of conspiracy, which directly played into the hands of sceptics who always look for more ammunition to reload their guns of denial.

What follows is only (among many) a main list of myths, misperceptions and some incorrect statements, in addition with some brief correct scientific clarifications. It is claimed that anthropogenic (man-made) sources of CO2 are so tiny that they can't change climate, on the contrary volcanoes and other natural sources are producing more. According to the U.S. Geological Survey man made CO2 amounts to about 30 billion tons annually, which is more than 130 times as much as all the volcanoes produce. 95% of CO2 releases to the atmosphere are natural but these CO2 draws back to the nature by plant growth and absorption process by the oceans which ultimately off set  the total amount but leaving behind the amount produced by humans. Many experimental measurements including carbon isotopes have shown that burning fossil-fuel and deforestation have been the primary reasons where atmospheric CO2 levels have risen 35% since 1832.

Ongoing sceptic arguments on whether CO2 levels are strongly related to global temperature rise have played upon people’s misunderstanding of the relationship between CO2 versus temperature. Of course there are cases when this up or down relationship hasn’t worked in perfect synchrony as CO2 is not the only factor that determines global temperature variation, hence sceptics quickly point to the period where CO2 went up but during the same period temperature remained unchanged or didn’t rise. Evidences from Antarctic ice cores have revealed the history of last 400000 years, where they show strong correlation between CO2 and temperature. Evidently they fall and rise together. Furthermore, when the ocean temperature rises it tends to release more CO2, which further help rising the temperature. Due to more temperature rise, consequently there would be further release of CO2; therefore CO2 appears to be both the cause and effect of further warming.

We can not expect scientists to invent miracles. It is virtually impracticable applying traditional science on the entire atmosphere where all the variables are unpredictable, keeping one variable constant to see the trends of other variables or even replicating the same experiment is not feasible. Critics always argue that scientific climate models are not reliable; they are not very good projecting the future climate change. Climate models are mathematically representation of interactions of processes that occur in the atmosphere, ocean, land, frozen surfaces of the earth and the sun. General Circulation Models or GCMs is the most advanced tool available so far which can simulate the global climatic changes in response to increased amount of green house gas concentration. Models have been verified with the past temperature variations and if they can predict past correctly then why it wouldn’t reasonably predict changes in the future.

No doubt those who has read ‘New Nasa Model: Doubled CO2 means just 1.64C warming’ – a piece written by Lewis Page on ‘The Register’ news site has perhaps been marvelled over not to fret about mere temperature rise. Lewis Page wrote ‘it now appears, however, that the previous/current state of climate science may simply have been wrong and that there’s really no need to get in an immediate flap. If Bounoua [Lahouari Bounoua of Nasa] and her colleagues are right, and CO2 levels keep on rising the way they have been  lately (about 2ppm each year), we can go a couple of centuries without any dangerous warming.’

But Nasa’s research conclusion never said so. Out of three models, Nasa’s first simple control model suggests that a doubling of CO2 would lead to warming of around 1.94C. Researchers also stated that their control result was at the low end of a range of other models from 2C to 4.5C. The purpose of controlled model was to include evapotranspiration data and find out if there were any differences and it showed that warming dropped to 1.68C, with the difference 1.9.4C – 1.68C = 0.26C, but researchers never suggested any absolute conclusion on temperature. Lewis Page most likely took the value of the control model and subtracted the dropped temperature 0.26C (rounded figure 0.3) and wrote that we don’t have any problems with the temperature rise as it would be just 1.64C (Hadley in Guardian, 2010).

Based on another Nasa model Lewis Page combined doubling of CO2 concentration of 780ppm (today’s accepted figure 390ppm multiplied by 2) and growth rate of 2ppm/yr, which would take 195 years. Later he quoted we can go a couple of centuries without any dangerous warming. But the Nasa researcher’s actual figure was 700ppm, not 390 ppm or Lewis’s imaginary figure 780ppm. Considering 700ppm is more than 310ppm of today’s accepted figure, therefore it will take 155 years not 195 years (Hadley in Guardian, 2010).

Lewis Page’s conclusion at best one classic example where a myth has intentionally been created, at worst it has spread like virus through the internet and it is rightly the winner when people have experienced extreme cold and big snowfalls particularly in the northern hemisphere during the last winters. No one dares talk about global warming when there is such extreme cold weather and certainly for many big freezes have been further indication that the notion of climate change is all empty and exaggerated talk.

Plethora of similar myths, ambiguous challenges by sceptics and misunderstanding of core scientific knowledge by general public have polarised the climate change debates. The challenges as well as the success for international climate science community lies in transparency, accuracy, honesty and knowledge sharing, otherwise perpetuators will continue push frontier to the wrong end.      

Cancun 2010 post-mortem: From dead-lock to a frail lifeline

There are no longer debates whether climate change is a real phenomenon but there are continuous dispute over what are we going to do about it. While the earth’s climate has always varied naturally, the last decade has witnessed some of the most extreme weather events throughout the globe. In December 1997, the international community agreed to tackle climate change by adopting the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which requires industrialised countries to reduce their anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG). Under the protocol, 37 countries (Annex I – Industrial countries) committed themselves to reduce four GHG (e.g. carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulphur hexafluoride) and two other groups of gases (e.g. hydro-fluorocarbons, per-fluorocarbons) produced by them and remaining countries committed in general to reduce their emissions. It was agreed that Annex I countries would collectively reduce their GHG by 5.2% from the 1991 level.

But the world had two options after less than four years of UNFCCC when The US withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol in March 2001 on the grounds that it did not include binding commitments by the developing world. Withdrawal of the US from the Kyoto Protocol drove international climate change negotiations to all time low. Options were either to abandon the world’s most critical environmental treaty following the stand taken by the Bush administration or to go ahead without the US, who was until recently the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases (GHG). Fortunately and very wisely the world chose the latter.

The disagreement of G77 group of developing countries like India, China, and Brazil etc. during the Kyoto negotiations was based on the principles of equity and historic responsibility, which stated that the industrialised countries had created the global warming problem to start with and should therefore take the lead in its mitigation. This was a contentious issue with the US, which demanded that the South should also have quantified GHG emission limits under the Kyoto Protocol.  The Southern leadership argued that it was extremely unfair of the US, the world’s strongest economy to demand that the developing nations freeze their standards of living at such early stages of their development. The rich countries became rich by polluting the environment and why the poorer should pay the consequences, which subsequently lead the birth of dead-lock in the international climate agreement.

The dead-lock has been relentless throughout the climate change negotiations which lasted for many years and even gathered speed with greater intensity when the question raised 'what should we do beyond Kyoto?' Shall well completely paralyse it and start another new accord? Or rolling on the same with legally binding new objectives & targets? Kyoto Protocol clearly has not worked as expected due to rejection of the protocol by the US and Australia, also reluctance by the developing countries on binding emissions reduction targets. While the time is getting closer to 2012, the need for an extension of Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012 has been past due. Yet again, the world has been divided between 'The Rich' & 'The Poor' countries on mainly legally binding emission reduction targets, climate finance, transfer of cleaner technologies and conservation of rainforests. Many experts have claimed that the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009 has been real disappointment due to the arrogant behaviour of two countries particularly The US and China. For millions who anticipated positive outcomes at Copenhagen Climate Summit felt their hopes and expectations were completely shattered. Lord Nicholas Stern agreed that what he described as the 'disappointing' outcome of the Copenhagen talks was largely down to rich nations' failure to understand developing world positions and concerns.

At the beginning of the Cancun 2010 Climate Change summit Russia, Japan & Canada hardened their position that they wouldn’t renew their commitment to cut emissions under the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012, which had caused consternation particularly among developing nations and many NGOs. Failure at Copenhagen then, and now at Cancun, the announcement by Russia, Japan & Canada looked outright collapse and damage the credibility of entire UN negotiating process. Announcements paved further longstanding division between rich and poor countries, indisputably also jeopardised the outstanding advances made in the conference to tackle on other issues such as climate finance and saving the rainforests.

Interestingly enough, while the climate negotiators were virtually tussling with not to commit Kyoto protocol beyond 2012 and drowned in their nations self-interest, many parts of the world’s temperature had tumbled to the record level. 2010 is ‘the year of the heat wave’ where more than 17 countries experienced the swarming heat which devastated their harvest including Russia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Sudan & Burma. Even more add to this – By NASA, World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and Britain’s Met Office reported that from January 2000 to December 2009 was the warmest decade on record which stretches back to1880. Germanwatch; a German research group showed that Bangladesh, Burma and Honduras have been affected mostly in the past 20 years by the impacts of climate change. Also in the top 10 other countries were affected namely Vietnam, Nicaragua, Haiti, India, The Dominican Republic, The Philippines and China.

Unmistakable signals and collective evidences of extremes of weather of climate change along with the pressure from the society and media have forced the negotiators not to miss another opportunity at Cancun while the wounds are still fresh from an unsuccessful Copenhagen accord a year ago. UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon urged at the eve of the conference to agree to a modest deal to rein in climate change without holding out for perfection. At the opening ceremony in Cancun he said ‘We don’t need final agreement on all the issues, but we do need progress on all the fronts. We can not let the perfect be the enemy of the good’. Well said by Ban Ki-moon as Cancun certainly needed a breakthrough. Business as usual can not be an option where millions or even billions of people around the world are facing directly or indirectly consequences of climate change which were initially created by the richer nations by emitting most green house gases since the industrial revolution.

Talks in the Cancun summit has been so delicately balanced between a positive outcome and a ‘car crash’ because of the deep division between rich and poor countries over the future of the Kyoto Protocol – stated by the UK energy and environment secretary, Chris Huhne. A leaked document emerged during the negotiation on a closed-door meeting between the EU and a group of small island Pacific states who had jointly proposed a new treaty on developing and developed countries to reduce their emissions. Bolivia and Saudi Arabia complained to the Mexican presidency that all the parties should be consulted in open before taking on board any new proposal.

As the talks entered into its final hours, there has been a standoff because of Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol has been the connective tissue for everything – said by a high ranking UN official, which expected to wreck the hopes of making a deal on forest protection. However, after a long night of negotiation, despite of Bolivia’s strong opposition, ministers came to a compromise which would potentially save the Cancun talks from immediate collapse. As Brazilian climate change ambassador quoted ‘We know we can not finish this here but we would like a further commitment to further discussion’. Precisely, when a modest deal outlined many analysts argued that the deals have actually saved the dysfunctional UN negotiation process from collapse, rather than protecting the planet from the climate change.

So, what are the deals? Delegates in Cancun among others predominantly reached agreement on forestry, transfer of cleaner technology and green funds to developing countries to facilitate their mitigation and adaptation process from the impacts of climate change. Adaptation, finance and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) were the strongest areas where the International community has moved to the right direction but the details have not yet been put forward how it will be managed on regional, national and local level. An essential part of mitigation of climate change - transfer of cleaner technology aspect that had long been thought it would help developing nations 'leapfrog' over from the coal to the clean energy technology; hence received fierce opposition in Cancun because many private companies in the developed world do not wish to share technology to the developing world due to weak enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). This issue is still up in the air who will govern cash flow and the IPR.

A green fund of $100 billion a year was promised by the European Union, Japan and the United States for the developing countries by 2020 and another $30 billion in immediate assistance. However, many questions still remain unanswered on who will pay and how much, how this money will be managed. Developing nations deep distrust of World Bank's motives that usually perceived as pursuing western countries foreign policy, therefore giving money to the World Bank wouldn't be a good way forward. Many developing countries have previously argued that green fund should be governed by a new board and supported by an autonomous secretariat. Now there are big jobs ahead to build a committee which will be finalised next year by UN and will provide a fund structure before the next year's climate conference in Durban; South Africa.

Many countries share whole heartedly Bolivian’s concerns who were accused of being obstructionist at the conference. May be the conference was largely a triumph of UN credibility of multilateralism but Bolivian’s obstinate behaviour can not be ignored. Not a single nation promised that they would up their emission reduction target from those which was pledged at Copenhagen summit, also the accord text replaced the legally binding emission targets with voluntary pledges; further more, pledges to solve the role of the carbon market would be settled later. The most contradiction of all has been the goal of capping the rise in temperature at 2C, which generally agreed to be the threshold for dangerous climate change, but the Cancun pledges would steer the temperature up to 4C. So, the texts are full of loopholes, no legally binding obligations, no consequences if not fulfilled and reduced obligation of developed countries to act on their emission reduction targets.

Shall we call it irresponsible behaviour from the rich world? Is it really, in effect, our planet is in limbo? Yes - the answer is very simple as who has seen the science on climate change knows that the Cancun agreement wouldn’t stop our planet from further warming up. Undoubtedly, the world particularly big players need to do better than this, but one also needs to be realistic and recognise that the progress was unquestionably made in Cancun, which even looked impossible a few weeks ago before the conference. A train certainly has started rolling from its breakdown but it needs to roll faster. However, risks are even higher next year when the fate of Kyoto protocol and other unresolved issues will be raised in Durban. And solution thus lies yet again on the hands of the big polluters.

Building a sustainable society, but how? – A corporate perception

Recently in his word President of a world leading manufacturer of copiers and office automations (fax machines, scanners, photocopiers, printers, printer cartridges, toners etc.) stated ‘with the global environment in crisis, the commitment to a sustainable society is stronger than ever.’ This is not a usual rhetoric from the head of a very successful corporation who were recently listed amongst the Global 100 Most Sustainable Companies in the world. It’s a genuine commitment and clear departure from a model of mass production and mass consumption to build a new business model. Such paradigm shift and finally radical changes from the precedent model to a new model has challenged the traditional principles of society and economies that are built on.

Corporations are facing new environmental challenges, trying to achieve things that can make a difference to our society and planet as well as to the businesses environmental performances and its productivity, efficiency and profits. It’s not a trillion-dollar question any more on who will now lead the environmental conservation battle. Economic research has always opposes the strategies on urgent actions to reduce green house gases often misleading, while Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change has concluded that strong and urgent action in fact good. Beyond the conclusion of array of dubious reports yet there are evidences which strongly suggest that business as usual in not an option anymore, on the contrary big businesses are benefited by tacking the two critical issues – business risks pose from biodiversity and environmental degradation and ethics of the responsibility of current generations for the future generations. Big businesses have come a long way from those days where corporate greed prevailed over the mass degradation of biodiversity and environment. Corporations are now more and more moving towards to create a new society with new values and rules.

Sustainable society said to be built when there is a balance in using the natural raw materials and assimilate waste while maintaining the biodiversity and quality of life. This balance has been increasingly undermined since the Industrial revolution as environmental impact imposed by human has increased, which sequentially destroyed the earth’s self-recovering capabilities. Therefore, it is absolutely vital to adhere the environmental impact reduction goal ensuring both human beings and the environment can coexist; moreover restoring the Earth’s self-recovering capabilities.

Following initiatives may apply for the medium and long-term environmental impact reduction. Firstly, areas of Energy Conservation and Global Warming where reduction of total CO2 emissions throughout the life cycle of products and technologies for better environmental performance and advice for customers greener use. Secondly, Resource Conservation and Recycling in other word reduce new input of resources in view of possible resource depletion. Those elements which are usually dealt with for instance, reduction of new extraction of fossil and mineral resources, smaller size and longer life of product (resource use could be minimum), increase recovery and recycling rates and more use of biomass materials. Thirdly, Pollution Prevention where necessary (management and reduction of chemical substance to minimise environmental-related risks) such as minimise potential damage from chemicals and rigorous management with a traceability system (Ricoh Group Sustainability Report, 2010).

Alongside reducing environmental impacts, more and more business corporations have started to respond by reducing their impacts on biodiversity, which lies at the core of sustainable development. Biodiversity plays an important role to keep our planet and its people healthy, it sustains human life. Failure to conserve biodiversity in a sustainable manner would have far greater negative consequences on all living species on the planet, which will affect us all. For quite sometimes, Multi National Corporations (MNCs) have been engaged in global environmental conservation in maintaining and recovering planet’s intrinsic capabilities to cure itself and also helping to reduce the negative impacts from their business activities.

The obvious connection between business activities and the biodiversity may not seem to be connected at first stance; however the following connections are very important to recognise. For example the procurement of raw materials, using of energy resources in every steps of manufacturing process to logistics, use/maintenance, collection/recycling, environmental protection, ensuring sustainable growth, strengthening supply chain, cost savings, being seen to be green, healthy and happy staff etc. Therefore, there has been a strong business case and principles for the MNCc to integrate biodiversity conservation plan into their core business management to move further closer to the new model.     

In order to achieve best biodiversity performance it is necessary that the biodiversity action plan has a co-ordinated approach. First step is to strengthen existing environmental management system. A simple systematic management ‘plan-do-check-act’ cycle could be implemented. Responsible people in management must identify first the projects or activities that they want to carry out. Three levels of biodiversity such as species, genetic and eco system diversity must be protected. Following action examples to restore ecosystem recovery may be considered. 1) Think and Act from creatures’ point of view e.g. creation of natural habitats for the endangered species, restoration of neglected woodland, securing the spots of areas of uniform environmental conditions (biotope) for the flora and fauna e.g. recovering or creating of shallow water areas. 2) Monitoring & evaluation e.g. using the ecological indicators such as counting the number of dragonflies and frogs in an area. 3) Building collaborative and cooperative relationship with local people e.g. contributing to the local community scheme, engage with highly specialised organisations, plan and implement cultural services such as aesthetic, emotional, spiritual inspiration & recreational activities, encouragement to the next generations for future biodiversity conservation activities. 

Pursuing a sustainable society would not be fulfilled without the development of innovative environmental technologies. It’s an ongoing task for MNCs yet as the player of ‘Environmental Industrial Revolution’ to continue contributing towards a new society through the development of clean technologies. This would be driving force for corporations which will anticipate lead to a prosperous society and economy as a whole with different values. Innovative environmental technologies would touch the fundamentals of sustainable business practices with the aim of reduced waste, innovative manufacturing processes that requires less energy, minimising green house gas emissions, using more recycled and alternative materials to manufacture the same products. However, stand alone efforts undertaken only by the company wouldn’t be sufficient rather it should be rolled out and continued working with the stakeholders throughout the world including customers, up and down-stream supply chains, investors, NGOs and the public.     

A stronger environmental management is even more necessary to incorporate all the elements of new business models. One of the focus strategies of corporation is to strengthening and intensifying sustainable environmental management for their mid and long term plan. Identifying the risks and opportunities that global environmental problems pose, social changes which inevitably resulting from those environmental problems and incorporating all these into decision making process based on finding results have become routine and sustainable environmental management aims to achieve concurrently environmental conservation and profits. In time, successful corporations will be those who recognize and put into practice sustainable environmental management considering their competitive advantage that greening their products and having clean technology in place can help bringing them closer to a sustainable society in the future.