3. The second action of sustainable development
The first thing that came to my mind when I wanted to write this article was the quote "don't bite the hand that feeds you!". As humanity, we only have 1 environment / environment from which we get everything to provide for our livelihood. Why would we break this and not take care of it? For several decades, as humanity, we have begun to understand better that if we continue like this, we will destroy our planet with all its diverse eco-systems. Now it is true that we started doing this out of ignorance. And that the use of raw materials has also produced a lot of positive benefits for humanity but
"Now that understanding and knowledge has emerged about the influence of our current way of developing on planet Earth, it's time for everyone to do something about it: you call that environmental care!"
On the bright side
Lately there has been a lot of news about our environment such as global warming, a decrease in biodiversity and rising sea levels. In itself, I think this is all true. You can conclude that our "old world" will change. In this reporting, it is often forgotten to mention what this impact on the environment has produced. The state of technological progress is enormous. Consider the smartphone and the internet. This has greatly increased our connection with other people. It gives us free access to information, knowledge and sharing thereof.
In the Netherlands(where I live), practically everyone has a smartphone (with internet). When you put technological progress in the perspective of environmental care, there are industries and fields where this is a central theme. You can think of: transport, water, clothing, energy and food. In itself you can say that the progress is not fast enough. But there is certainly progress. Pain and harm ensure that we as humanity work harder on progress / sustainable development.
"Let's have a positive attitude!"
Consumers:
I hear many people ask themselves "what is my influence on this?" Many people think that they have no influence on how technological progress is going. However, that influence is greater than you think. This can best be explained on the basis of the technology push / pull strategy. In the past it was mainly the case that companies determined what was good and what technology consumers needed (technology push). Nowadays, it is consumers who can indicate to companies in the market what technology they want and need (technology pull). Consumers are, for example, much more articulate due to freely accessible knowledge and information. Everyone is a consumer and everyone has a household. If we place that in the light of sustainable development, it immediately becomes clear how much influence consumers have on this process. This is the reason why we have started to develop a sustainability platform. Namely to offer consumers the opportunity to develop their households sustainably. And to encourage companies to make more sustainable products through consumer purchasing wishes
Politics:
The system of the Trias Politica (three-force doctrine / separation of powers) is one of the basic principles of a Western democracy. The point is that there are 3 state organs that monitor each other's functioning. These 3 organs / powers are the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. On 24 June 2015 Urgenda (foundation / organization for innovation and sustainability that wants to make the Netherlands, together with companies, governments, civil society organizations and private individuals, more quickly sustainable) won a lawsuit against the Dutch government (Urgenda has had the judiciary check the functioning of the legislature). Urgenda filed a case because she believes that the state should do more to protect its inhabitants against climate change with imminent consequences. The verdict of a court in the Hague was that the state must do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the Netherlands. The government has appealed this decision. On October 9, 2018, the Court of Appeal confirmed the ruling of the court and decided that the State should reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25 percent by the end of 2020 compared to 1990. The government appealed in cassation against this. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Urgenda at the end of 2019. A political party that is committed to the environmental sustainability action is Groenlinks. Groenlinks and other left-oriented political parties use this case to advocate for their goal, that is environmental care. It seems that the Dutch government is being forced by the judiciary power to do more environmental care. There is currently a climate agreement on the table that the majority of the political parties can agree on. The climate agreement is an agreement between many organizations and companies in the Netherlands to combat global warming. The most important gases that heat up the earth are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and laughing gas (N2O). The agreement contains 600 measures to reduce these greenhouse gases. According to some, the changes are far too slow and some find the intended measures nonsense. One thing is certain, the Dutch court believes that there is indeed a good reason to do more about environmental protection!
Appointments:
The following international agreements are important: in 2015, 192 countries decided to limit global warming. That is laid out in the Paris climate agreement. The European Union, and with it the Netherlands, signed this agreement. The Dutch government opted for an approach to involve many organizations and companies. There are a number of well-known environmental organizations. In an international context, these are, for example, Greenpeace and the World Wide Fund for nature. See fig. 1.
Fig. 1: greenpeace and wwf logo
- CE marking:
In Europe, a mandatory CE marking (in accordance with European regulations) applies to every product sold within Europe. The marking serves 2 purposes, the marking indicates that a product is freely tradable within Europe and that the product meets safety requirements applicable within Europe. The latter in particular is a direct action to protect people against unsafe products and therefore charity. See fig. 2
Fig. 2: CE-marking
- Quality marks:
Another example of agreements that are made and sometimes checked in order to be able to implement a policy on the sustainability action environmental care are quality marks. There are quality marks for all 3 actions of sustainable development. The logos of the best-known quality labels that focus on the environmental sustainability action are shown in Fig. 3.
Fig. 3: logos of different environmental labels
Hereby a brief description of each quality mark (from left to right):
FSC: The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is an international organization dedicated to the preservation and responsible management of forests worldwide. FSC speaks of responsible forest management when the ecological, social and economic aspects of forest management are taken into account in a balanced way.
Milieukeur: Milieukeur is a Dutch quality mark for products and services that have less impact on the environment. The requirements for the quality mark are set at SMK (Stichting Milieukeur) in consultation with producer organizations, retailers, the Dutch government, scientists and consumer and environmental organizations.
Planetproof: The independent label On the way to PlanetProof proves ('Proof') that you buy a product that is produced in a more sustainable way and is therefore better for nature, the environment, climate and animals. With On the way to PlanetProof, farmers and horticulturists strive to keep their way of working in balance with the capacity of our planet. That is a process of taking ever more steps to burden our earth less ("On the way to ...").
European ecolabel: The European Ecolabel (EU Ecolabel) is the European Union's eco-label for non-food products and services. The goal is to stimulate sustainable production and consumption. The criteria relate to the entire life cycle of a product or service. From raw materials, energy use to harmful substances and waste. For producers or suppliers, the EU Ecolabel is reliable proof of the environmental friendliness of a product or service. It is a voluntary quality mark and the criteria are referred to by public authorities in the context of Sustainable Procurement in public tenders.
Der Blaue Engel: The blue angel (Der Blaue Engel) is a German certification for products and services that are environmentally friendly. It is the oldest ecolabel in the world and covers around 10,000 products in around 80 product categories.
Umweltzeichen: Austrian ecolabel that provides consumers with information for making conscious, environmentally-friendly product purchase choices.
Nordic ecolabel: The official ecolabel of the Nordic countries
PEFC: The Program for Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes (PEFC) or PEFC International is an independent non-governmental non-governmental organization that promotes the sustainable management of forests through independent certification by third parties. This offers customers and consumers the opportunity to choose products from environmentally and socially responsible and economically viable
- ISOs
Another method to see whether a company works according to certain rules is ISO certification. In an ISO standard, requirements are set that an organization must meet if one wishes to obtain an ISO certificate. To meet the standard requirements, the organization must critically review its existing management system in order to adjust existing processes and procedures accordingly if necessary. There are 3 ISO certificates that relate to the environmental sustainability action. ISO-14001, ISO-31000 and ISO-50001.
ISO-14001 is a certificate with requirements for an environmental management system developed by the International Organization for Standardization. The environmental management system is used to develop an environmental policy appropriate to the organization and to guarantee its implementation. ISO-31000 is a certificate about risk management for an organization, also in the field of environmental care. ISO-50001 is an energy management standard, which provides a method to integrate energy efficiency into existing industrial or commercial management systems for continuous improvement.
Measurable:
For world residents (and therefore consumers) it is often challenging to take the environmental action sustainability action into account when making a product purchase choice. In itself, you can support organizations that deal with environmental issues. But that does not make you overall sustainable as a consumer. When building the online sustainability platform, we thought about how you can make the sustainability action environmental care measurable for product purchases. We have arrived at the 3 aforementioned methods (CE marking, quality mark and ISO certificate). If these matters are or are not linked to a product, a figure between 1 and 10 appears via an algorithm, which constitutes a rating for the environmental sustainability action. Together with ratings of the 2 other sustainability actions (humanlove and self-reliance) and user experience, an average sustainability rating between 1 and 10 is then achieved.
Man and life:
In this last paragraph I want to emphasize why environmental care is an essential action of sustainable development. It is not true that environmental care is more important than the other 2 sustainability actions, but we are talking about the environment in which we live. Environmental care is not the only action of sustainable development but certainly not unimportant, we all live on this planet that we must take care of. To conclude, I want to talk about some urgent challenges that we as global people face.
"Forest fires in the Arctic"
There were major forest fires in the Arctic last summer (Greenland, Siberia, Canada, Alaska). Forest fires are more common in these areas, but this scale is new. Climatologists blame this phenomenon on climate change.
"Forest fires in Australia"
This phenomenon has reached an unprecedented scale, and climate change blames it on climate change. As I have said before, "sustainable development is not a possibility but a necessity!"
The conclusion of this article is that there is a demonstrable need and urgency to deal better with our living environment. If you fill in the environmental care symbol in the NMZ principle you will get the following picture (see fig. 4)
Fig. 5: HES-Principle with symbol for humanlove and environmental care