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May 27, 2022
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The month of responsible consumption invites us to reflect on the way we consume, the decisions we make every day, and, at the same time, the lifestyle we lead. It is an invitation to review what our relationship is like with ourselves, with others and with nature.
A sustainable lifestyle is one in which you are aware of the impact of your decisions, habits and behaviors, and you take action to reduce those with a negative impact and reinforce those with a positive impact. Seeks to be Sustainable Over Time: one feels in balance with oneself, with others and with nature; understanding the interrelation and interdependence that exists between the parts.
The purpose of this article is to publicize what is happening today in relation to responsible consumption in Latin America and the world, and what are the main trends observed: we believe that as decision makers, from our different roles, we can transform our actions to enhance the positive impact.
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This is also reflected in the WEF study (World Economic Forum) called Global Risk Report, where five of the main risks of the world economy are environmental, among which climate change and the loss of biodiversity rank first. It's not difficult to measure the economic damage that extreme weather events can cause, we just have to imagine floods, hurricanes, droughts and fires and think about the infrastructure and assets destroyed by them. Although calculating when they will occur is not an easy task, we can get an idea of the direct impact that climate change can have on the economy and on our daily lives.
The term ecosystem services has gained great popularity, and refers to all the “services” provided by nature (that is, natural ecosystems functioning healthily) for free. If, on the other hand, it were a company that offered them, we would most likely be willing to pay for them. As a general rule, these services fall into 4 categories: support, supply, regulatory and cultural services.
Healthy ecosystems provide the oxygen we breathe and are even key to our mental health. In several cases, the connection is distant: forests in a mountain range are the water suppliers of a town hundreds of kilometers away, because they capture rainwater or moisture from the air, store it and dose it to aquifers and other bodies of water. How much is that service worth?
In this sense, there are numerical estimates of the magnitude of nature's contribution to the economy. Some are around 125 trillion dollars a year. In it, there are key players such as bees and other pollinators whose services are extremely obvious and crucial. Some estimates suggest that pollinators contribute $217 billion to the economy each year.
That's why it's so important and urgent to take care of biodiversity. But what does caring for biodiversity mean? To a large extent, it is a matter of reducing our intervention since it has a great capacity to take care of and regenerate itself. It is, for example, to fence off territories and designate maritime zones of non-extraction.
Netflix has just released a new documentary, narrated by Barack Obama, called Our great national parks which expresses very well the need to create more protected natural areas. In line with this, there is a movement called Half Earth Project who argues that half of the land and the sea should remain without intervention. Other sources, such as TNC and NatGeo, say that, if the territories are well chosen, it is enough to leave 30% without human intervention.
Fortunately, we see some progress along these lines: at the last United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP 26) a coalition of 70 countries was signed, known as the High Coalition for Nature and People (HAC), to protect at least one third of their lands and seas.
So, how do we manage to measure the state of biodiversity in a concrete and scalable way locally? There are several innovation efforts to develop new forms of biodiversity monitoring. An interesting case to follow closely is that of Xprize, which is running a 5-year competition in this regard.
In the meantime, we can keep thinking: what are we willing to do today to take care of the biodiversity on which we depend so much?
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