Working towards sustainable development

The Rana Plaza tragedy at Savar in Dhaka last year that had claimed lives of about 1,200 garment workers had sent a shock wave across the world. While the buyers in Europe, Australia, Canada and the U.S. were considering the possibility of sourcing their ready-made garments from Bangladesh on a larger scale, the industrial disaster tainted the image of the country. They raised questions about the working conditions here. It is true that in most cases the working conditions are horrible. The factories, especially in the apparel sector, lack sufficient space, light and fire safety, supply of drinking water, foods and medical facilities for the employees. However, corporate entities are these days thinking of ways and means to address the negative aspects and thus ensure sustainable development to stay in the race in the free market era.
Sustainable development means development of business as well as development of socio-economic condition of a country, where people and environment get the top priority to the benefit of future generations in the long run.
According to the 1987 Brundtland Report, the interconnectedness of culture, economy and environment are at the forefront of sustainable development as we know it today. The World Summit on Sustainable Development took place in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2002 and in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2012 for raising awareness about sustainable development. It has three pillars: economic growth, environmental stewardship, and social inclusion, which covers all sectors of development from cities facing rapid urbanisation to agriculture, infrastructure, energy development and use, water availability, transportation, etc.
Yet the idea of sustainable development is a relatively new one in our country. The concept came to national prominence very recently, although it first came to the fore at the United Nations Conference on Human Environment in 1972 that recognised that the rapidly expanding human population would have to survive off a finite pool of resources. Without careful management, resources such as food, energy and water could exhaust leading to obvious global crises. After a long time, we are now realising the essence of the conference in the wake of scarcity of natural resources to meet the demand of the increasing population.
The sustainable development lies in the sort of sustainability of business and other economic activities where people engage themselves to earn their bread and butter. The entrepreneurs in our country are taking steps to ensure sustainability in their business by providing medical facilities, education and raising awareness of employees about environmental threats and climate changes.
The steps towards sustainable development are encouraging in some aspects, but in some cases frustrating also in our country. The entrepreneurs often ignore social safety of employees for the sake of making lofty profit from the business. The greed for profit blinds them, which ultimately spells a disaster for the business. So, in order to ensure sustainability of business, they should ensure physical fitness of employees, offer health facilities and also ensure congenial working condition and ecological balance that are pre-conditions for the development. Since sustainable development has made a lasting impact on businesses around the world, there is still much to do.
ADDRESSING ENVIRONMENTAL THREATS: While the country has made progress in reducing poverty over the past decades, less progress has been made in managing the environmental sustainability. Pollution, overexploitation of fish stocks, biodiversity loss, overuse of water and land threaten our development efforts.
The country's population has grown larger, crossing the 160 billion mark and while the country's gross domestic product (GDP) has nearly doubled from the level a decade ago, the proportional consumption is increasing as well. As a result, agriculture has intensified leading to agrochemical pollution, soil exhaustion and deforestation. The demand for food has also prompted water withdrawals that have tripled over the last 50 years. Addressing these environmental threats is not that easy. But the following steps may help lessen their impacts to some extent.
n Enhancing livelihoods through promoting sustainable management of ecosystems and natural resources.
n Preventing and reducing environmental health risks through reducing people's exposure to indoor and urban air pollution, waterborne diseases, and toxic chemicals, and
n Reducing people's vulnerability to environmental hazards.  
CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS: Different international agencies have extended their helping hands to combat environmental threats and minimise the climate change impacts. The World Bank's approach to improving the quality of growth has been supporting policy, regulatory and institutional frameworks for sustainable environmental management. This support includes facilitating partnership to address environmentally sensitive issues and agreeing on benchmarks for environmental management.
Natural and man-made environmental resources - fresh water, clean air, forests, grasslands, marine resources and agro-ecosystems provide sustenance and a foundation for social and economic development. The need to safeguard these resources crosses all borders. Today, the World Bank is one of the key promoters and financiers of environmental upgrading in developing countries including Bangladesh.
SUSTAINABLE ENERGY: As millions of people of the country still lack access to electricity, it remains a major factor in equitable development and prosperity of the national economy. The World Energy Congress 2013 took a look at the global energy trends, after the Montreal Congress in 2010, to cover a broad range of energy issues and find solutions to the world energy challenges. The delegates attending the congress discussed how policymakers, industry people and key decision-makers in the energy sector must work together to form a more sustainable platform for future energy development.
The renewable energy that witnessed substantial growth in the last decade encompasses the wind energy turbines and the hydropower. These are the areas where we need to work for developing sustainable energy. The wind energy turbines installed globally now can generate 3.5 per cent of the world electricity demand, which is encouraging and Bangladesh may follow the suit to resolve the energy crisis.
SUSTAINABLE HOUSEHOLDS: Not only climate and environmental threats, problems with the family of an employee can also hamper productivity of the industry and thus deter the development of a country, especially in the third world. Everyday thousands of people lose their jobs, fall victim to crime, or are hit by natural hazards. To meet these challenges, people need to have sufficient resources and to be closely connected to their employers and their communities.
In practice, many developing countries may be able to provide only a minimum level of benefits to only a targeted population with a view to helping them and bringing them under a social safety net. That is true in particular for countries where the old-age dependence ratio is growing fast. To ensure their long-run sustainability, the government should make sure that policies are fiscally sustainable, not ambitious.
To confront risks and pursue opportunities, people should acquire knowledge and invest in their protection. The quality of their risk management depends on their access to information, markets, public services, and infrastructure, as well as the level of risk sharing within the community.
Over the past two decades, economic growth has lifted millions of people out of poverty and has raised their income levels, but too often it has come at the expense of the environment and the poor. We should take measures to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor. Sustainable development recognises that growth must be both inclusive and environmentally sound reducing poverty and ensuring shared prosperity for today's population and continue to meet the needs of future generations.
These days corporate entities are undertaking corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes so that they could stay in the competitive commodity market. It would definitely contribute to socio-economic development of the country. It is also necessary to ensure political stability in the country to spur the economic growth. It is also necessary to make sure all our development efforts are fruitful. Otherwise, achieving the sustainable development will be a far cry.
The writer is Senior Assistant Secretary, Press & Publications                  at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh.                  abutaher011@gmail.com