“The opportunities are there and we must grasp them.”
Elizabeth Thompson, an executive coordinator of the just concluded Rio+20 United Nations conference in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, was directing her comments to Barbados’ private sector.
Thompson, a former Barbados Minister of the Environment who played a key role in getting developing countries to participate in sessions of the Earth Summit June 20 to 22, believes Barbados and its neighbours are well placed to take advantage of the business opportunities being created by the outcome of the Rio meeting attended by more than 50 000 people, including at least 3 200 business executives.
“Coming out of Rio, Barbados’ business sector must look at its methods of production, operations, state of physical plants, as well as its manufacturing cycles,” said Thompson, an assistant UN secretary general.
“Going green can generate considerable savings for the private sector because energy is a huge input in manufacturing and business generally. When the energy policy of Barbados was developed in 2007 and laid before Parliament five years ago, we deliberately put into it the development of independent power producers – as long as it was from green energy sources – to feed back into the national grid.”
The idea back then was for businesses to generate their own energy, a measure the Freundel Stuart administration seems to have endorsed.
“Now, it is something that warrants very serious attention” by the business community, she said.
Next on the private sector’s list of priorities should be the marketing of organically produced goods.
“I am not sure how we market the organically produced goods in the boutique shops and specialty stores that carry such products, which are becoming increasingly popular,” Thompson added. “We must get the word out about what we are doing.”
Then there is the green energy sector, such as the solar water heating business which, she insists, “needs a new impetus” in order to move forward.
A fourth plank in the business platform would be helping alternative energy specialists to secure consultancies from other countries.
“That also means we have to showcase throughout the UN system what we have done as an example of good practice,” the executive coordinator pointed out.
“The first thing the private sector must consider is what the green economy would mean for their businesses and what opportunities emerge for jobs, the economy and the country as a whole, given some of the businesses we have at home,” she added.”
A key cost saving that would reduce the high volume of imported energy would be the greening of transportation.
“We have companies at home with large fleets and if I were them, I would be looking to put some of the vehicles into alternative energy modes of transportation,” she said.
“Barbados is perfectly well suited for natural gas vehicles and so on.”