Driving Sri Lanka towards a greener tomorrow

By Shabiya Ali Ahlam

The second Sri Lankan roundtable session on sustainable consumption and production, a three-day event, commenced yesterday under the theme ‘Driving Sri Lanka towards a green economy’.

Organised by the National Cleaner Production Centre (NCPS), key officials present at the inauguration ceremony included Industrial Development Officer and Project Manager of NCPC Sri Lanka in UNIDO Petra Schwager, Vice Chairperson Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Professor Mohan Munasinghe, Secretary Ministry of Industry and Commerce Anura Siriwardena and and NCPC Director V. R. Sena Peiris.

Professor Munasinghe in his keynote address noted that Sri Lanka could become a leader in innovation and developing processes as it has the necessary attributes. “We have to build our base of consumers and sustainable producers starting small but eventually it should start spreading across society.”  

While the challenge of undermining current attempts towards sustainability prevails, Munasinghe emphasised the need for integrated solutions and stated that the required level of response has been low, attributing it to the current scenario where world leaders have a lack of political will.

To this, Siriwardena added that the Mahinda Chinthanaya, which targets a GDP of US$ 4,000 by 2015, stresses on the need for sustainable development and necessary action has been taken up by the Government to promote this.

Frowning upon the fact that the financial sector has had to learn from the experiences faced during the 2008 economic depression, Munasinghe warned that if a blind eye is turned towards incorporating sustainability practices to business processes, a similar downward spiral would take place in another 10 years.

To this, he added that as governments of the world are inefficient in solving the problems of the world by themselves, businesses and civil society organisations should plug themselves to the process of formulating solutions.

Having worked towards greener production for seven years, Schwager also called for parties to support the Sri Lankan Government to help introduce new concepts of sustainability that would effectively take the economy forward. He added that the support would help eliminate the consequences of facing an era of depleted resources. Schwager said: “Promoting green is important and much focus should be emphasised on greening existing industries.”

Munasinghe pointed out that 80% of the world’s consumption is by the rich which is 60 times more than what the poor utilises. He condemned the ongoing unethical set of social values that are leading to economic mal-development which is based on unsustainable debt and consumption all over the world.

Following the inauguration session, Dr. Micheal Knaus delivered a presentation on regional material flow management and zero emission design which is an innovative and holistic strategy for sustainable consumption and production on regional levels.

Last evening, the NCPC also held its cleaner production awards ceremony which was attended by Minister of Technology, Research and Atomic Energy Champika Ranawaka as the Chief Guest.