Bizcuits | Environment: Not quite leaderless

Leanda Lee

In an unusually forthright utterance at MIECF last week, Antonio Trindade (CEO of CESL Asia) made the surprising statement that Macau lacks integrity in environmental leadership. The surprise is not about the statement’s veracity, for those who know our coastlines are privy to the devastating putridity. Rather, it is surprising because Trindade has always been assertively measured, rather diplomatically so, in his public interviews on the state of the environment.

A year ago, Trindade was already critical of the lack of environmental leadership but it was of a general nature and couched with hope: hope that the government post-Hato would recognise the weaknesses in our logistics’, waste management and utilities’ delivery systems; hope that policy development would be expedited; hope that the Greater Bay Area and diversification would broaden policy horizons; and hope that the technological solutions CESL has on offer would be leveraged by the government.

This time he did not mince words: “…over 80 percent of the sewage water is discharged untreated”, “…no possibility of a marine economy”, “We must change everything we do”, “This pollution occurs…because none of the wastewater plants works properly.”

Given CESL Asia’s loss of a waste-water treatment contract and disputes with the administration going back more than seven years, the CEO’s acerbic statements might be taken as a resentful “we told you so” to an administration deaf to expert advice and now caught napping on the job. Given that it is not in his company’s interests to lose friends in high places, Trindade’s response is more likely to be a considered one of a seasoned and well-networked professional entirely frustrated by the head-in-the-sand apathy of an administration that is not able to make the culture shift to presiding over a civic community rather than a consumer/commercial/political entity. His message highlighted more black holes in our environmental policy – blind spots in the beautification, regeneration, and sustainable management of our city; such a pearl Macau could be.

Spreading environmental awareness and leadership go beyond government and its administration. When the time is right, leaders from the community become visible and have a voice. Macau has seen the rise of community groups taking on this leadership and to shake those sleeping on the job out of their indifference. There are groups cleaning up rubbish from beaches almost every weekend, others re-planting the mangroves, photographers capturing the undreamed-of diversity in our flora and fauna, and friends banding together to teach other community members how to sort recyclables. It’s a ground-swell.

Only 10 percent community uptake is needed to shift behaviour and, subsequently, values, and given the administrative initiatives announced on Wednesday, community voices are encouraging baby steps out of inertia. The Environmental Protection Bureau is making some bold moves that other jurisdictions are still debating: this year we will see collection boxes to recycle light-globes; reverse vending machines to return plastic drink bottles; and take-away diners will be encouraged to refuse disposable plastic cutlery. Not every good idea has the intended impact, but this is a start, and the message is significant.

Much hard work has been done elsewhere, and the activists and leaders driving change in environmental attitudes can borrow from initiatives that have worked in other highly commercialised and industrialised countries. The European Parliament has voted for compulsory labelling of environmental impact on packaging, and to ban some single-use plastic items by 2021. This will drive a huge change in packaging design which will impact far beyond Europe because of the integrated global supply chain. In a huge message to producers, suppliers will be required to cover the cost of collecting cigarette butts and fishing gear, clearly shifting the responsibility up stream.

From the influential to the “small potatoes”, groups and individuals, people are voicing their concerns for environmental problems and something is happening – the time is ripe.