Rahmi AYDEMİR
Aydemirler A.Ş.
While the artist has the ability to make and destroy, which are two important elements of creation, Rollo May stated that this situation is different for neurotic personalities whom capacity remains at the level of destructiveness. Still, according to May, neurosis is one of the best ways to fit into a diminished world. Undoubtedly, when our planet which we pushed from abyss down into anthropocene age starts giving alert, we neurotics cannot do anything but trying to adapt to it.
Society, the sole factor of destruction, and so-called civilization are now barely approaching the threshold of adaptation and understanding the nature of the planet. Epidemics rising in parallel with melting glaciers, increasing heat waves, instability of greenhouse effect and loss of biodiversity continue to challenge our economy, infrastructure, routines, health and financial security.
As result, concerns like unemployment and women and children will be affected more deeply of climate change undoubtedly fuel our collective anxiety and fear. While psychological tension increases year by year in the present world, there seems neither economical nor life security that the planet can provide with this trend at the future on the horizon.
We can say that our planet is able to cope with excess carbon dioxide and has managed to clean almost 350 billion tons of more than 550 billion tons of carbon dioxide we emit into the atmosphere with ongoing emissions and deforestation. While our planet has no tolerance for bluffing our primitive and neurosis civilization, which drags it to destruction, has only one chance. Playing the sustainability card in no time!
I’m sure that you read and hear the word sustainability almost every day. I am very uncomfortable with the indigenous use of this word, which is the language of governments, municipalities and private sector. In my humble book titled “Sustainable Life and Energy Talks”, which entered the term sustainability literature in 2013, I had the opportunity to meet and discuss the subject with many people from political scientists to climate experts, from NGOs to private sector representatives. While I am glad that the concept of sustainability is now a topic that is frequently
on the agenda of world leaders after all this time, I also regret that many companies, which claim to be institutional as a label only, have declared illegitimately that they are sustainable.
I believe that such an important issue concerning the world and our future should be addressed with a concern similar to the Sisyphus myth. Real artists and people who can show creativity, courage, and leadership share Sisyphus’ goals. They try to achieve the goals of actions undertaken without expecting applause and appreciation. In today’s essential issue, we also need people to lead the planet’s climate change problem, which is really important, and a society that will provide this transformation. Although it may sound utopian, the Global Goals Community (UNDP) calls for universal action to eradicate poverty, protect our planet and ensure peace and prosperity for all people. I have tried to talk about these sustainable development goals consisting of seventeen points, both in the conferences I have attended as a speaker and in the articles I have written. Quite literally these sustainable goals are true salvation map of the earth, yet it seems we have a long way to go even for the reduction of inequalities specified in the tenth item.
In this sense, it seems difficult to achieve the target of a sustainable world unless the first world countries stop investing carbonemitting technologies in the second and third world countries, the aims of decent work and stable economic growth can be achieved, the hunger and poverty can be completely eliminated, and everyone has equal access to quality education and health at the same rate. Yet nothing is ultimately impossible in a universe of possibilities. Rapid transformations and environmental revolutions in which global unity is achieved can happen at the very time.
It is necessary to focus on the companies that will play leading role in this transformation and participate in the utility-generating institutions (B-Corp) network, and to increase their number. In the next article, I will examine the importance of utility companies in the path of sustainability and advantages of being a benefit-generating institution, investors’ tendencies towards companies that have made environmental and social developments in recent years, and how to become a utility company.