Greta Thunberg recently thundered “How Dare You?” at the world’s leaders over their failure to take action to protect the planet. The 16-year-old spoke fewer than 500 words at the UN Climate Action Summit 2019, but those words rang agonisingly loud alarm bells that much of the world continues to ignore. Sri Lanka is no different; we have failed in multiple ways at political, business, and personal levels to tackle even the tip of the iceberg. It is time that business, at least, steps up action to combat climate change and models behaviour of how best to use the limited resources at our disposal. Sustainability and corporate social responsibility shouldn’t just be the buzzwords of choice that companies litter about in their PR and communications. It must instead be translated to meaningful action and a deep understanding of a company’s actual footprint on the environment. Celebrating Earth Day and Earth Hour, while great to create awareness, amounts to little more than tokenism if not founded upon real action to deal with real issues. All those tree-planting activities, shramadana campaigns, art and essay competitions, and other such feel-good activities are of no use if we do not recognise climate change for the existential threat it has become. And really, what good is that tree planting you just did if you have no plan for who will nurture those trees and ensure they don’t wither and die in a few months? What business needs to focus on are long-term actions and solutions that create a sustained impact. Fundamental and critical issues that the business community can influence include energy use, emissions and waste, plastic packaging, and sustainable use of raw materials. Many of our biggest industries – from agriculture to apparel and many of the manufacturing sectors in between – have a substantial carbon footprint. These sectors are responsible for harmful emissions, release toxic chemicals into our water, use large amounts of energy from non-renewable sources, produce tonnes of non-degradable plastic waste, and much, much more. The case for action on climate change is that it can impact your financial performance; in Sri Lanka, we have plenty of examples where even a spate of rain tends to disrupt our supply chains and day-to-day functioning of business. What businesses and the public need to acknowledge is that extreme weather events like floods and droughts are likely the result of global warming. It may sound simple, but there is little understanding of this, even right at the top of our business community. So many issues are at tipping point and there is so little that the collective community has done in terms of concrete action. Sri Lanka faces greater issues such as deforestation, rapid urbanisation, marine pollution, and biodiversity loss...but where business can do little to intervene, they must advocate and lobby politicians to enforce legislation and support the Government by sharing technology and knowledge resources that enable action. The worst business can do is resort to greenwashing by engaging in shallow initiatives that merely scratch the surface of the real issues. While there is everything to gain by claiming to be “responsible” and “green” in a market full of consumers who don’t fact-check, emphasising a tiny environment-friendly attribute and covering up an entire swathe of actions that cause harm leaves a bad taste. In this market, transparency doesn’t really carry the premium it should and we’d never know the real depth of a business’ environmental impact until it is too late. Overenthusiastic PR people like to promote greenness and throw about hazy words like eco-friendly and “natural”; good thing most of us don’t even know that arsenic too, is “natural”. Each week, The Sunday Morning Business focuses its headlights on the private sector of Sri Lanka as the engine of growth and the torchbearers of our economic progress. Through our editorial, we seek to applaud and celebrate our corporate heroes and shed light on the multiple challenges that stand in their way.