1) Debate: the first thing I’ve done when I got back to the university was to join forces with the local student directory and organize a seminar to discuss the curriculum of the Bachelor’s Degree in Management. I invited students from freshmen to seniors, professors, staff members and entrepreneurs to mediate groups that discussed the inclusion of themes like entrepreneurship, sustainable development and social innovation in the curriculum. Important issues like the role that alumni play in society and the interaction between educational activities and real problems have been addressed. The resulting ideas were presented to the school director.

2) Talk about sustainability whenever you have a chance: I always choose sustainability-related themes when professors allow students to pick their subjects. Recently, in a Marketing Management course, I made a very successful presentation about greenwashing. I also gave a lecture about work opportunities in sustainability, together with my friend and work colleague Bruno Peroni.

3) Start a Net Impact chapter: I’ve contacted students with compatible interests to found a Net Impact chapter in Porto Alegre. Net Impact is a global network of leaders who are changing the world through business.

4) Write a thesis: I’ve already talked to some professors about my research project, which is the final endeavor of my degree, to be accomplished until July 2011. I intend to link sustainable finance and public policy for climate change in an innovative way. I hope it works.

The strength of consumer culture: the recent development of the city’s commerce is remarkable. New shops are more aware of trends and niches. Taking night life as an example, there is a rampant supply of bars offering boutique products, such as premium-quality beers. Moreover, a new and huge shopping mall has opened its doors in the southern part of the city, which is considered to be more peaceful. It seems to me, by talking to people, that they now aim to belong to social groups which are able to take advantage of this growth in the offer of new and better products and services. They forget, perhaps, the other dimensions of life.
I believe in the transience of such fetishism. When clear signals of mitigation of social inequality in Brazil appear, other forms of individual and collective expression tend to emerge.

The disappearance of kindness: the traffic in Porto Alegre is an expression of the individualistic greed that prevails among the inhabitants of this emerging metropolis. It’s all about a dispute to arrive faster, earn faster which follows a ruthless pragmatism in relations between people. There is no reason to thank somebody if we won’t see the person anymore.

Inefficiency, though: everybody runs, but arrives late. Each service takes twice as long as it should.

The seeds of good news: in the political arena, some initiatives deserve attention. There is a councilman who promises to spread environmental awareness in the city, a strong investigation against corruption in the state government, an amazing campaign regarding safety of pedestrians, and the intensification of civil society movements. I’ve attended to a seminar named “Creative City”.
The arts seem to be a little more present. Bienal do Mercosul is coming soon.

These new vibrations, combined with the flourishing economy, make me believe: it is a good time to be here.

This text was originally written in Portuguese.

But the industry has grown rapidly, creating jobs and development. Everybody wanted to stay cool.

the_toe_stubber - CC BY 2.0

Then the CFC crisis arised. They said we were destroying this ozone layer, and that it could burn our skins. As we didn’ t want to lose our right to go to the beach, we had to find technological solutions to the problem.

But now they came with this global warming, saying air-conditioning spends much of the energy we generate by burning coal and gas. They say it can cause the melting of polar ice caps, the disappearance of insular nations and other disasters.

thedailyanchor.com

Staying cool is no longer cool. All that jazz because not everybody in this world can afford an air-conditioner.

qnr - CC BY-SA 2.0

We had stopped smoking because it’s no longer cool. We have even stopped driving. How far will this trend survive?

panoptico.wordpress.com

apocalipsemotorizado.net

Our lungs are still bad. Will we have to deal with heat now? I hope technology and politicians find a solution soon!

This text was originally written in Portuguese.

Not every environmental problem in the planet is caused by global warming and its consequences. Actually, the central issue here is the use and distribution of the finite natural resources and other forms of capital. A second aspect that deserves our attention is the impact of by-products of human activities on the environment. Climate change, which is related to the second subject, generates, however, most of our current revolutionary questions in the fields of morality, culture and Economics. Major decisions now incorporate the impact of the variable ‘climate’, especially in what comes to the measurement of emissions.

The access of most humans (and even decision-makers) to primary sources of knowledge is limited. It is true that this already happened in the past, mostly due to scarcity of information, but the reasons have changed for many of us. Anyone who has access to the Internet and to other contemporary means of information is noticing that we are actually lost on the excess of sources. Moreover, filtering them is increasingly difficult. Have you already read the documents from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), the old Club of Rome, or the Stern Review Report? Any critics, the skepticals and Bjørn Lomborg? Why not to read them?

Much of the criticism of the hypothesis of a relation between climate change and human action is motivated by the political connotation of the work of the IPCC, which has failed to remove that image throughout the years. There is a political influence in the definition of the agenda of such UN panel, and we have to admit that. However, recognition by the international scientific community (excluding those sponsored by the oil industry) also exists. Science now affirms: humans impact the environment, and will increasingly do so. The Royal Society, for example, expressed its concern about misinformation and responds to the main skeptical arguments in a page on the web.

Science is the contemporary expression of concreteness, reason and non-ignorance. Therefore, putting a consensus of the scientific community in doubt is more difficult than questioning the intentions of some actors of international politics. The two sides are interesting, and I would encourage those who want to study philosophy of science, but, in this case, the issue is different and more profound.

Experts like Jean-Marc Jancovici highlight the population expansion and the increase on the use of energy resources which has happened in the most recent slice of human history. Combined with social inequality and climate change, these factors cause the misery of environmental refugees, new residents of cities and small farmers who see their crops shrink. Much of the world population feels the consequences of global warming, reduction of volumes of rain and glaciers, and alkalinization of waters. This should be enough for us to start trying to reduce our share of responsibility on climate change.

Notice: the content of this website does not represent the position of any institution. The author does not disclose any information related to the role of the institutions he works for.

This text was originally written in Portuguese.

Pigouvian solutions are a tool for correction of market failures related to the non-inclusion of externalities to the price of goods. Consumers in gas stations do not pay for all the social and environmental costs generetad by the fuel they buy. As highlited by Lester Brown, the costs of climate change are not included in fossil fuel prices. Such failure is an incentive to the massive use of these fuels worldwide.
The role of the State is to correct such malfunction, taxing oil-related products and investing the revenue of this taxation in programmes to compensate the negative consequences. Governments which consider such possibility have the opportunity to increase tax revenues from products such as gasoline and diesel, and thus to relieve other sectors or products that generate welfare for the population. Additionally, some benefits of such policies are intagible. The humanization of cities, generated by reduction of the number of cars on the streets, is an example of immeasurable reflex of these actions.

The effectiveness of pigouvian solutions depends, however, on government efficiency, given that the State expands its role in resource management when such measures are adopted. It is true that Brazil does not exhibit a great performance in the management of public finance and the institutional environment, but there are signs of improvement which allow some boldness in the formulation of sustainable public policies. Anyway, it is better to lose some time due to inneficiency than moving in the wrong direction.

In the 21st century, some actions of Brazilian government contain traces of what we may call Beetle solution, in a reference to the well-know public policy to encourage production and purchase of cars that pushed the German economy just before World War II. Since then, Germany has learned many lessons and now leads efforts for sustainable innovation, including governmental activity, as shown by Iochpe, the commentator.

The Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul has just signed an agreement with General Motors that provides a deadline of 10 years for the first payment of 75% of the taxes generated by the expansion of the local plant of the company. GM still has 12 years, after the commencement of the payments, to remove the debt. No interests will be charged! This means that the State is taking a huge risk and a loss of tax revenues in favor of supposed economic benefits of a multinational which faces a process of reorganization (after going bankrupt) in its home country. The project is also being funded by BNDES (Brazilian Development Bank) and Banrisul (a local state-owned bank), instituting extremely favorable conditions to the corporation.

Besides investing in a business (and economic development) model which is completely outdated, the government of Rio Grande do Sul will have to deal with a conflict of interest. The administration probably expects to receive, someday, the debts of the American multinational. Therefore, government and banks may lose their willingness to invest in public transportation, sustainable urban development and intercity trains. The ideal situation now is that every local buys a car to help with the success of the factory, which has no plans to build electric or energy-efficient vehicles.

That is what I call moving in the wrong direction. What is expected of a government committed to sustainability is a clear policy to encourage the replacement of cars by other means of transportation, more compatible with the reality of the planet and cities. Taxes are only a way to express that choice. In the European Union, the current proposals for the taxation of cars is taking environmental factors into account very seriously.

Notice: the content of this website does not represent the position of any institution. The author does not disclose any information related to the role of the institutions he works for.

This text was originally written in Portuguese.

I will take the risk of presenting the main forces that drive my comprehension of what is sustainability.

The literal meaning
A desirable first step for this reflection is the isolation of the word. Something sustainable is something that lasts for a long period, perhaps eternally. This enunciation generates, almost automatically, an interrogation: what is this objects that remains intact?
Some would say that it is Mother Earth who deserves all the concern from all its inhabitants, but I humbly believe it is all about humankind. We only exist in the last fraction of the history of this planet.

Ethics
Assuming that the question is merely human, it is natural to consider the individual conducts that lead (or hinder) the success of our species. That is the role of morality.
A particularly important concept in the relation between ethics and sustainability is utilitarism, since sustainability depends on the impact of human actions on the individual well being (utility).

Sustainable Development
The notion of sustainable development is fundamental to the recent conceptions of actions designed to ensure the permanence of humanity on Earth. A definition that appeared in 1987, by the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development, is often quoted:

Sustainable Development is the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

International forums have also originated the three pillars of sustainable development: economic, social and environmental. Valuable solutions were conceived from that demarcation, like the idea of triple bottom line, the measurement of organizational performance through the three pillars.

I would include, as a pillar of sustainability, the cultural dimension of sustainable development, as presented by the Polish-French economist Ignacy Sachs.

The decline of civilization
An essential source for the comprehension of sustainability is Lester Brown’s Plan B (available online).
The first half of the book addresses the major problems of the present civilization, especially those caused by climate change and scarcity of natural resources. A symbolic example is the increasing number of environmental refugees, due to falling water tables, floods and desert expansion. The pressures generated by these issues overpass the social aspects and arrive to the political, causing the weakening of states and the decline of life quality in many parts of the planet.
The second part of the texts concerns the solutions to our challenges. Topics like poverty eradication, promotion of renewable energy and food security are addressed in a concrete and consistent way.

Contribute to such solutions and mostly to the necessary evolution of sociocultural paradigms. That is my mission. I trust the richness of this debate and the relevance of the development of all concepts I presented as a condition for the emergence of a positive scenario for humanity, with fewer wars, tragedies and suffering.

Notice: the content of this website does not represent the position of any institution. The author does not disclose any information related to the work of the institutions he works for.

This text was originally written in Portuguese.