The ecological transition must not only be technical but cultural and in this process all public and private actors must be involved.
Words from Tony Juniper, key-note speaker at the ESG Dialogues organized today by Sace, a closed-door meeting with the leaders of the Italian economic, industrial and institutional world to promote dialogue on sustainability issues.
Juniper, environmentalist and internationally renowned expert on biodiversity issues, president of Natural England, the English government organization working for the conservation and restoration of the natural environment in England, and Fellow of the Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) of the University of Cambridge.
"We must move from a consumerist culture to an opposite one, in which using less and having a more ecological mentality becomes the common mindset", claims Juniper in an interview with ANSA.
"And governments have a crucial task: to ensure the transition from where we are to where we need to get to. This is one of the greatest challenges of democracies: ensuring continuity from one administration to the next towards the final objective".
"In this path, all stakeholders must be involved in a transition that is not only technical and operational, but also cultural", he explains, speaking of the meeting promoted by Sace to explore the role of companies as drivers of long-term well-being for the Community and contribute to definition of Sace's long-term sustainability objectives.
At the center of today's meeting is the theme of biodiversity.
“One of the many pressures we need to manage,” says Juniper, who to ensure resilience in the natural world “and create more habitat in larger and better quality areas,” suggests “creating a biodiversity recovery network in each country: a space where It is possible to begin to anticipate future threats and manage existing threats, as part of a national ecosystem plan."
Answering a question, Juniper also addresses the issue of the aesthetic impact of renewable energy systems (wind and photovoltaic) which often triggers protests in local areas.
"If an overall rational analysis is carried out, we will need a very substantial quantity of renewable energy, also in an integrated planning logic. One solution for solar panels is to place them in places where there are already services capable of hosting them (e.g. on top of buildings, above car parks) before proceeding with large-scale land occupation. For wind power you can go offshore. In the Atlantic Ocean and in the North Sea around Great Britain there are now 10 MB machines, unimaginable even a couple of decades ago ,
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