Environmentalists: Do they do more good or more harm?

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by Lisa Pearce

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I am an environmentalist. These days it's almost a career-limiting statement to make, especially in the company of engineers or business owners, but I make it with conviction anyway. Don't get me wrong: I am no greenie. Instead, I am a realist and although my training is in botany, geography, environmental law and conservation biology, I find increasingly that my work makes the biggest difference in policy, politics and finance. If you as an environmentalist can't relate to the real world in real world terms, you don't accomplish much.

I believe strongly in doing things right. Not purely or exclusively (or in fact at all) for the sake of the environment, but because doing things right translates into respecting people and place and nine times out of ten means making better business decisions. "Environmental management is everything management", in my view.

As with any group of people, there are always different shades of grey within the collective. Some environmentalists I've met are very good at propaganda and fighting a cause merely for the sake of having a cause to fight for. Much like so many politicians. Then there are individuals for who I have a tremendous amount of respect: those who actually know what they're talking about and are able to not only understand the implications of what they're lobbying for in terms of political, social or economic terms, but are able to bring that message across in a sane, non-emotional way. I take my hat off to those people.

Once I had the opportunity to motivate a significant financial investment purely on safety and environmental terms: an industrial installation belonging to the company I worked for was polluting a local dam because it was located in a wetland area too close to the dam. The flooding was getting so bad that it endangered the safety of employees working there. In days gone by, engineers viewed wetland areas as non-valuable' and it made short- to medium- term financial sense to drain such areas and construct these industrial installations there. However, nature has a way of returning to its original state and the wetlands started healing themselves over a period of about two and a half decades. By that time workers were refusing to enter the installation because their lives were threatened, and we were called in to find a solution. The engineers had tried in vain by then to find a way to divert the water away from the installation.

After assessing the situation, we found that pollution from the installation was significant enough to attract legal action from other users of the dam. To cut a long story short: a significant financial investment was made to move the installation to another, more environmentally appropriate site. The positive spin-off that sold the project was that the company would avoid litigation and save money in future from delays due to the flooding. It would also be a positive image-booster to the company since they voluntarily removed a source of pollution from the local area. We did the right thing for the right reasons. No emotional hogwash, no manipulation, only good sense.

Yes, environmental sentiments can be a little fuzzy sometimes. Maybe because people from all walks of life pick up on the wrongs of corporate rationale and do their best to try and fight the rollercoaster. It's the voice of the common people that constitutes many NGOs, not always those of intellectuals or savvy business people. And for those people who choose to stand up for what they believe, even if they don't quite grasp the full global context, I also have much respect.

But let's take a look at the bigger reality: environmentalists fought and won the case for the environment to be considered a legal entity. Yes, we need economic progress, but how short sighted can one be to think that short-term economic gains are justified in the face of long-term eradication of (free) environmental services such as clean water, clean air and healthy land? Think of it in monetary terms: does it really make sense to line the corporate pocket by dumping untreated effluent in a water source, only having to spend exorbitant amounts of money to treat that same water source in years to come because, either, people are dying, crops are failing or the Green Scorpions are closing the plant down? Does it really make sense to operate a plant at a lower cost margin, but at the same time hazard the loss of employees to disease or forced closure?

I once worked with a shrewd contractor who was awarded a contract because he accepted the terms of the environmental management plan assigned to the project. One condition of the EMP was that work would not continue if it was raining, due to the risk of soil pollution from an old industrial oil spill which they were attempting to clean while demolishing old plant. Yet when the time came, this contractor instructed his subcontractor to continue work in the rain. Needless to say, the activities resulted in a major spread of industrial oil, necessitated a costly six-month delay in work while the soil was treated and rehabilitated, and the subcontractor losing his income during that time. So much for progress'.

Another business owner I once met was able to turn his failing business around after implementing a number of environmentally friendly' practices: using less water and less hazardous chemicals in the production process meant reduced cost for the actual water, as well as in penalties from discharging high concentrations of toxic waste into the municipal sewerage system. Environmental management made good business sense.

Please permit me to comment humbly on the article from a fellow writer in the no' section: wildfires in themselves are not polluting or devastating. Those fires allow regeneration of the forests, not destruction, their smoke and ashes feed new life, it is not pollution in the natural scheme of things. It is precisely the incorrect notion that land management is able to contain fires that has created unnatural conditions where wildfires become too hot, too fast. The natural carbon sequestration resulting from wildfires in fact curb pollution. Granted, no sane person can argue that people's lives shouldn't be protected from raging wildfires. Should we not consider, rather, alternative geographic settlement and development patterns instead of exposing people to that risk? If our land management practices (and this goes for the South African context of burning grasslands particularly) actually create unbalanced situations where fires become a real threat to life, we should take a broader view to find ways of dealing with it more responsibly.

On nuclear power: I am still of two minds on the subject. Nuclear power generation creates virtually no pollution, yes. BUT... are we really sure that we can handle the nuclear waste? O yes, the corporates tell us, of course we can guarantee long-term safety of nuclear waste sites. And they're even working on technology that will make it possible to recycle spent nuclear cells. But in my heart of hearts I can't still that quiet the whisper that bias can be bought. That's only my opinion of course and I will gladly be proved wrong one day.

Environmentalist s can and do bring about positive change. Provided that environmental lobbying is sound and makes good sense, it brings depth to business decisions and long-term financial strategy. Environmentalists must be able to relate to economic, social and political realities in order to be heard and affect the quality of change that is needed. The biggest challenge facing any environmentalist is not global warming or the mass of plastic swirling around in the ocean it is changing peoples' minds about the way we live on our planet. Progress must be for all, today and tomorrow. Let good sense prevail.

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