The Future of Sustainability: Have Your Say!

Week Three - “The New Economy and Biodiversity”
Comment / Comentario / Commentaire

Ghulam Amin Beg, Head IUCN Northern Areas, Gilgit

Moderating team: Ghulam Amin Beg discusses an alternative to the contemporary economic model, including factors needed to promote sustainable future consumer societies.

Ghulam Amin Beg plantea una alternative para el modelo económico contemporáneo, incluyendo los factores necesarios para promover sociedades de consume sostenibles.

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The contemporary economic model is not sustainable, as we all agreed. What is the alternative model? One argument is to work on the 'consumers' as their changing lifestyles, desires, preferences, dreams and copy cat attitudes are responsible for increasing the greed of capitalism, which has no soft heart either for the poor or for nature. If this is true, can China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh, where the future 'consumers' of the world reside, be motivated to reflect back to their roots, where austerity, self-reliance and giving are the key ethics and values for progress and modernization?

In summary, if these 'future consumer societies' need to be sustainable, they will require to focus on;

i) developing a participatory and pluralistic governance models, where equity and egalitarian values are nurtured and promoted;

ii) promoting individual enterprises to unleash the power of human creativity, but not compromising on the ethics of fair trade and fair-play;

iii) develop and foster consumer protection societies and the civil society which is vibrant and pro-active in checking the unchecked greed of capitalism and at the same time influencing the behaviour of the consumers towards sustainable lifestyles and preferences;

iv) develop, and continuously do so, the formal and informal education systems in these societies, where these values and principles are imbedded, which may come from socialist, Chinese, Indian and other value systems and could find a common ground here.