Green, innovative and sustainable solutions beyond confinement
Confinement and pandemic, while they involve more than one difficulty, should be seen as opportunities to drive positive changes in every action we take for the future.
The measures taken by most governments to contain the COVID-19 outbreak led to a drastic reduction in greenhouse emissions, an improvement in air quality in most large cities and the reappearance of wild animals in environments where they had not been recorded for a long time.
However, experts have already warned that these are not lasting conditions and that it is essential to focus attention, from now on, in building and strengthening more sustainable, environmentally responsible and socially equitable models.
Generally speaking, the call of international experts states that, when the reconstruction stage arrives, we will have to consider many variables, in the center of which must be the environment.
Healthy natural ecosystems are crucial for survival, providing oxygen, water, food, fiber and other goods, regulating cycles and weather patterns.
The nature’s message is very clear: the spread of zoonotic diseases is associated with the degradation of ecosystems; We must recover from this pandemic with a completely different vision of the use and consumption of natural resources.
Green investments and post-pandemic Sustainability
Green investments are a long-term tenure, but today they are also the only path to economic growth.
The abrupt interruption of daily activities has a great impact on our lifestyle, but it also means cutting off a significant number of industrial and commercial activities that will influence the economic situation of millions of people in all the world in the medium and short term.
Both realities are being analyzed and will be included in sustainability studies from the new perspective that this situation has left us, in which the world economy has suddenly stopped.
When we resume our activities, we will no longer do it as before. We also need to prepare to get out of business as usual and strengthen more environmentally friendly measures in our business.
Within the framework proposed by the Sustainable Development Goals, investments in businesses linked to green energy, health, restoration of ecosystem services, as well as products and services that contribute to supply chains and smarter cities, are generating interest.
The stance of large funds towards these issues also pushes the commitment of companies and investors focused on sustainability.
To change the trajectory of global warming, long-term systemic transformations with sustainable plans for investmenting in clean solutions are necessary.
New models, new challenges
A global environmental model would reduce emissions by approximately 10% and, if maintained for at least 1 year, it would effectively reflect a reduction in the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Improving the way we manage natural resources implies changing consumption patterns, improving resource extraction methods, investing in the restoration of important ecological zones, promoting new markets and, in particular, executing more efficient solutions in the management of waste.
In the context of the pandemic and with new preventive practices to prevent the spread and transmission of viruses, a new challenge emerges: the increase in waste that is especially difficult to treat.
The increase in the generation of medical and dangerous waste, as well as of masks and gloves for domestic use, is already causing environmental demands around the world.
They appear on streets, sidewalks and parks, in addition to ending like so many other plastics, in the seas and coastal areas of innumerable locations.
Whether due to individual wastefulness when discarding them or due to a structural failure in waste management, this is one of the new challenges that humanity can face with green, innovative and sustainable solutions.