SUSTAINABILITY
ENA’s ambition on sustainability.
The General Assembly of ENA approved, on 18 March 2021, the ENA's sustainability ambition document.
Points of attention for sustainable production
Time is running out for the answers we need to find to the signals that nature, the economy and our social life send out. We can't go on the way we've set our lives up to now. This is a dead-end and puts a healthy future at risk for all.
With a new balance between the ecological, social and economic dimension of sustainable living and production, hope can return and we can find the necessary answers. The support for this and the direction provided by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This manifest is also a call for all members of ENA to implement this at the national and business level.
The pursuit of sustainability is an important topic in the European Nursery industry. Also to balance and continuously improve the three elements of performance: People, Planet and Profit.
1. Balance in choices
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations are aimed at creating a new balance between the ecological, social and economic dimensions of sustainable development. The 17 SDGs ask us to make choices because not all SDG’s play an equal role for ENA members.
2. Responsible together, doing together
Our society is increasingly about cooperativeness. We can no longer solve the issues that directly affect our companies in isolation. The members of ENA need each other's support and cooperation. The broad intrusive effect of the SDGs demands a common approach.
3. Bottom-up transition
The process of change needed to make the SDG’s the starting point of our thinking and action must be fueled by the power of cooperation. The initiatives taken nationally and internationally, to make our production process more sustainable, are a good basis for enabling the necessary transition. The movement of this transition must come from the bottom up and the members of the ENA must act accordingly.
4. Connect the three dimensions of sustainable development
Sustainability appeals to what we, as a company and as human beings, in our society find important and valuable to preserve and strengthen.
The ecological dimension is mainly concerned with the development of Biodiversity Policy (SDG 15). The social dimension appeals to our sense of responsibility and the economic dimension stimulates social entrepreneurship (SDG 8)
5. Give young people a clear place in the process
SDGs focus on creating a future perspective for all, in which today's young people will get their place. They get the "legacy" of acting today on their plate. That is why we must take today's young people into this process and play a clear and recognizable role.
A 'sustainable normal' as the 'new normal'
The Covid 19 virus has gripped the world. The world is in 'lockdown' and stands still for the most part. And at the same time, we see a nature that lives up worldwide as a result of the 'Lockdown' of man. Corona didn't just fall out of the sky. Every year a new virus develops with 6 major outbreaks in recent years; Ebola, Mers, Narrow Mountain Virus, Bird Flu, Q Fever and Zyka. All caused by how man deals with nature. We use much more than the Earth can produce in natural resources.
We will have to make choices for human and nature's health. We can't keep looking away, we have to act and formulate our ambition.
'The difficulty is not developing new ideas, but escaping from the old and the old reflexes'. A quote from Keynes. So we have to make choices, where the health of ourselves and that of our products is paramount.
1. Choose a broad understanding of sustainable development
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals were adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015. The SDG’s define sustainable development as 'the balance between its ecological, social and economic dimensions'.
2. Choose as Green Producer for Biodiversity
This is not only a global climate crisis but also a biodiversity crisis that is closely linked to it. The rate of extinction of plant and animal species is higher than at any time in 10 million years and is increasing.
3. Choose for cooperativeness
The Corona crisis is a hard but also valuable lesson in cooperativity.
"All of us together, we're going to get Corona under control." The question is not how we can move from self-reliance to cooperativeness, but much more how we can hold this sense of cooperativity in the future in the 'new normal'.
4. Choose for social entrepreneurship
Social entrepreneurship is in fact a form of the 'challenge right': better, smarter and cheaper. Social entrepreneurship thus makes an important contribution to solving social problems.
5. Choose for the future of young people and give them a voice
It seems forgotten in this coronary age; the climate strikes the young because it is about their future. SDG 17 asks for support and invests in good and concrete ideas from citizens.
The General Assembly of ENA approved, on 18 March 2021, the ENA's sustainability ambition document.
