The Climate Conference... «For everyone not just environmental activists»
Ahmed Ghanam a journalist and Managing Editor of Al-Dustour newspaper writing about How to turn environmentally polluting companies into environmentally friendly companies.
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While I and my friends were sitting in a café in Cairo, I missed soft drinks, which I had decided to boycott two weeks ago. The sentence RECYCLE ME caught my attention on the plastic bottle I decided to buy, which I considered a good sign to raise awareness of the impact of those bottles on the environment.
On the same day, while browsing LinkedIn for professional networking, I read a statement by the COP27 Presidency, about the same Coca-Cola sponsorship of the COP, but I also read broad objections to the statement in every language of the earth. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/cop-27_cop27-activity
· Coca-Cola is one of the biggest pollutants in the environment
Coca-Cola is one of the largest environmental pollutants, with an estimated production of 120 billion plastic bottles annually, and a statistic for the "Break Free From Plastic audit" campaign revealed that there are about 58% of the total 330,493 pieces of plastic waste collected from parks and streets around the world belonging to brands Consumer products, such as Coca-Cola, Unifiller, and others.
The above explains the reasons why more than 10,000 people signed an online petition, calling for Coca-Cola's sponsorship of COP27 to be rescinded.
The enthusiastic objections to these companies' sponsorship of COPs are understandable, but if we applied the same principle to everything related to COPs, we would have to prevent Umbrella or the European Union from attending, given that their countries' emissions are the largest around the world.
And if we asked companies that comply with the requirements of environmental protection to support the conferences of the parties, this is an additional burden on those companies, while the companies that cause these problems continue to bear their responsibility towards them, and sponsoring these companies and involving them in solving the problem has a good effect as well.
· Unilever biggest culprits for environmental pollution
In 2019 consumer goods giant Unilever was one of the biggest culprits for environmental pollution in the Philippines, and in 2021 the COP26 Presidency announced the company's sponsorship of the conference, so what has changed since the announcement?
· Climate & Nature Fund
Unilever has established the Climate and Nature Fund to invest in projects that help protect nature, reduce emissions and build resilience to the effects of climate change. It also launched a project in partnership with Google to protect forests, monitor and prevent removal efforts, and identify forest areas that need urgent protection. It was not possible before the company sponsored COP26.
In the same context, Coca-Cola said that it is ready to "collect and recycle a bottle or packaging for every bottle of its products sold," and announced environmentally friendly packaging solutions to reduce plastic waste around the world, which can be considered.
I understand the enthusiasm behind those comments, but I think that getting these companies to fund COP is part of an effort to hold them accountable for their actions, and perhaps one day we can get them to believe in climate change and stop the pollution from their practices for good, rather than throwing them away.
· Conclusion
The companies that pollute the environment with their consumer products must take urgent steps to become environmentally friendly, reduce their waste and stop the pollution resulting from their practice.
