I always go out of my way to try and meet any constituted body or organisation that asks for an appointment, even if it might not be directly linked to my portfolio. Particularly when they set out their agenda requests.

More and more organisations seem to have accepted the fact that sustainability does help to add value to their business

In the past few months in office I have met a number of such entities and organisations, ranging from environmental NGOs to business related bodies, while other important appointments are due soon.

What has struck me most is that, out of their own free will, a number of them have brought up subjects for discussion that would normally be expected to hail strictly from the e-NGO domain. I am referring particularly of sustainability, the green economy and climate issues.

While I cannot exclude that governments worldwide often use the word sustainability as a convenient camouflage for activities that are far from sustainable, I consider it definitively positive that in Malta more and more business organisations seem to have accepted the fact that although sustainability might sound like a buzz word of the moment, it does indeed help to add value to their businesses.

Global and large quoted corporations are in fact today increasingly seeing sustainability issues as important to their own business model. The tourism sector, for one, is relying more and more on the sustainability factor.

But then this begs the question: Have those who seem to have grown cold to sustainability ever really got down to thinking what it really means as well as what it should mean in practice?

The old notion that sustainability is just a green movement issue, as if it were something strictly parked within the e-NGO domain, is a fallacy.

It also betrays total ignorance of the UN’s own definition of sustainability as something that brings together at least four dimensions – the environmental side, the economic, the social and more recently the cultural too.

We had the opportunity to discuss this issue during a working lunch of an EU Ministerial Meeting in Brussels. I was particularly struck by two points made by a colleague minister of mine: that academics seem to have grasped the importance of sustainability more than politicians have.

Coming as it did, in a forum made up entirely of cabinet ministers of the environment, it was indeed frank and honest of him to make that comment.

Secondly, although the cultural dimension was only added on in recent years, I have heard the point made that unless there is a real cultural change in our collective and even personal approach to sustainability, there is a big possibility that it will remain just a buzz word. As it was never intended to remain.

A cultural change is vital because unless the subject is approached with a completely different mindset, the whole purpose of tackling sustainability collapses like a pack of cards.

Some might bring up a counter argument, that certain commercial entities tend to hide behind sustainability imagery to cover up their own sins, as was definitely the case with a number of oil companies when they chose to resort to greenwash and mouth a number of platitudes favouring renewables and climate change.

But in the majority of cases, I find that particularly so far as Maltese businesses and business organisations are concerned, there seems to be a growing awareness of the need to put sustainability issues higher up on their agenda and even on the national one.

The fact that those with a spirit of enterprise feel that the time for corporate sustainable development is now, is indeed encouraging, irrespective of whether it is intended to form part of their own corporate social responsibility remit or not.

While biodiversity is difficult for some people to understand even though it affects all of us as well as the world surrounding us, on the other hand sustainability can be tricky to define in a way that satisfies everyone. One of the best definitions of it that I came across was to be found in a dossier on sustainable business by a leading auditing firm. In it they stated that sustainability involves planning for the long term, seeing the linkages between all of the influencing factors, and understanding that the relationships between an organisation and its environment (in the broadest sense) are both dynamic and interactive.

One of the biggest questions that we need to ask is what are the threats and opportunities coming from global shifts in resource use and patterns.

At a government level Europe wide, although there might be various issues that are subject of heated debate, I think we should also include in the whole discussion the changing government regulations around areas such as carbon emissions, waste management and renewable energy.

I take this opportunity to appeal to all local corporates – without in any way sounding paternalistic – to keep on thinking hard about these issues and ideally also to think outside the box.

On our part we will definitely be good listeners.

Hopefully, on the basis of such suggestions, ideas and proposals we can be even more effective as catalysts of change.

Brincat.leo@gmail.com

www.leobrincat.com

Leo Brincat is the Minister for Sustainable Development, the Environment and Climate Change.