World Environment Day: From greed to green

By Yoo Yeon-chul

When this year started, I wrote an article in The Korea Times titled, "Climate Outlook 2022," in January. This article mentioned a wide range of significant global events for climate change and sustainable development. Indeed, 2022 is a historic milestone, as it marks the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, which resulted in the establishment of the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP). This conference was widely known as the first international meeting on the environment.

The 1972 Stockholm Conference stimulated the formation of environment ministries and agencies around the world and the establishment of World Environment Day on June 5. This conference kickstarted a host of new global agreements, in which poverty eradication and environmental protection became linked. These agreements paved the way for the Sustainable Development Goals.

In particular, World Environment Day has been the biggest international day for the environment. Led by the UNEP and held annually since 1973, the event has grown to be the largest global platform for environmental outreach. With over 150 countries participating, this U.N. international day engages governments, businesses, civil society, schools, cities and communities, raising awareness and celebrating environmental action.

Each year, World Environment Day is hosted by a different country where the official celebration takes place. The host country for 2022 is Sweden. With "Only One Earth" as the slogan, the campaign focuses on "Living Sustainably in Harmony with Nature."

"Only One Earth" was, in fact, the very first slogan of the 1972 Stockholm Conference. 2022 World Environment Day is re-engineering the slogan to emphasize that planet Earth is still the only livable planet and to push for transformative actions to reset the balance between 1) people and the natural world, and 2) economy and the environment.

The 1972 Stockholm Conference delivered a compelling vision of people living in equitable harmony with nature. Over five decades, it catalyzed the formation of international institutions and creation of landmark environmental conventions. However, many half-hearted efforts have been made to implement those ideals as well. Therefore, we need to identify clear paths to implement and follow them.

In this regard, I'd like to make the following three recommendations on the occasion of Stockholm+50 Conference and World Environment Day.

In the first place, people have to make a shift in their perspective from "greed" to "green."

For this, we need to cultivate environmental awareness from childhood through education. Children are quite curious, learn new concepts quickly, and absorb new habits more easily than adults. Schools are responsible for the future generations by teaching them about environmental awareness and formulating an ecological culture among them. Ecological culture is a culture of respect for nature. This respect for nature can be acquired through environmental education, which will lead to new habits for a better future. The shift to green thinking can lead to avoiding the destruction of nature due to our own greed, which recently caused the COVID-19 pandemic.

Secondly, businesses also have to shift their perspective from "greed" to "green."

It is critical that businesses and the financial sector should see development as a long-term business opportunity. For this, we need to bring sustainability to global value chains. In recent years, it is so pleasing to see the change in perspectives around environment, social and corporate governance (ESG) values, which indicates that the attitude of "business's only goal is profit" is well on its way to disappearing from popular discourse.

In this context, it is recommended that we need to formulate a simplified mechanism that easily informs the general public and consumers to identify which companies are building the best environmental practices and which are falling behind. A simpler indication will increase the transparency and accountability of businesses embracing sustainability.

Indeed, positive business opportunities will be available when building on environmental awareness and ecological culture. Unlike in previous decades, we now have the tools of finance and technology to advance economic and environmental health simultaneously.

Last but not least, I'd like to propose that Korea host the global event for World Environment Day together with the UNEP in the near future. This event will provide a very good chance to showcase the hard work the country has done so far and to raise awareness of environmental issues and cultivate ecological culture here.

I look forward to seeing Korea host the global World Environment Day event in the near future.

Yoo Yeon-chul (ycyoo87@gmail.com), the former ambassador for climate change at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is serving as the secretary general of the U.N. Global Compact Network Korea. He also served as Korea's ambassador to Kuwait.