Too rich to care?

On December 13, a group of researchers from the Kryvy Rih Botanic Garden and Dnipropetrovsk Institute of Problems of Nature Management and Ecology of the National Academy of Sciences might become the winners of the first unique international ecological contest. The project “Creation of transportable centers of biodiversity in Zhovtokamiansky quarry (Dnipropetrovsk oblast)” developed by Ukrainian researchers has already won the first place at the national stage of the competition. And in less than a month, scientists will go to Germany to represent Ukraine at the final stage of the international contest.

In 2011, the transnational company HeidelbergCement (which is represented in Ukraine), the world leader in the production of nonmetal building materials, announced a contest The Quarry Life Award, directed at support and development of biologic diversity in the company’s quarries. During the six months of field work, students and researchers developed and tested their ideas in practice. As some of them stated, the very opportunity to do this is a great achievement of this competition, because nowadays applied science does not receive sufficient funding from the state. Thus, scientists’ ideas often remain in theory.

A total of 80 participants from 18 countries submitted their projects for the contest. And according to the organizers, Ukraine is the most active country: 20 projects were sent by Ukrainians. Three quarries in the eastern and central Ukraine were studied: Zhovtokamiansky (Dnipropetrovsk oblast), Olshanytsky (Kyiv oblast), and quarry Osnovny (Donetsk oblast). Five projects were selected for the finals, and they shared the prize fund of the local stage of the contest. The winners received 5000 euros. The second-place winner, the group of researchers of the Donetsk Botanic Garden with their project “Botanic assessment and monitoring of mining territories,” was awarded with 3,000 euros.

The third place and 1,500 euros were shared by projects “Natural recovery of vegetation for the purpose of further planting of greenery in the exhausted soils” (by groups of professors and workers of the Bohdan Khmelnytsky State Pedagogic Institute, Donetsk, and the Pryazovsky National Park) and “Olshansky granite quarry: from man-made to quasi-natural ecosystems” (by groups of professors and students of the Study and Research Center “Institute of Biology” of the Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University, Biology Department).

So, what happens next? It remains unknown if the progressive ideas of Ukrainian scientists will be implemented and if the territories of devastated quarries will be rejuvenated. Karel Oklestek, head of the jury and chairman of the board of HeidelbergCement Ukraine, said that the company experts are going to look into such possibility.

It is obvious that foreign companies demonstrate their interest in science and ecology of the country they work in, this is a very positive and important aspect. However, it is a pity that while spending money on contest organization, money prizes, and the splendid award ceremony, the masterminds forgot to take care of the projects’ future destiny. Despite all their progressiveness and greatness, they might still be not carried out.

The Day addressed environmentalists to know how actively large industrial enterprises care about recovery of the resources they use. Volodymyr BOREIKO, head of the Kyiv Center of Ecology and Culture describes the situation from the critical point of view. “I cannot say that anything at all is being done in this direction. I treat our business in a rather cold way, because there is no place for nature and biodiversity whenever business goes, and people find it hard to live in those areas too,” says the expert.

Therefore, the contest organized by HeidelbergCement surprised environmentalists and provoked a whole set of questions, for example, if at least one project will be implemented, or the company just decided to collect “reputation bonuses.” “Such contests, and especially real cooperation between enterprises and environmentalists and scientists, are incredibly rare, or practically nonexistent. Even though they should be more common. Large industrial enterprises violate the territory on landscape and geological levels: quarries are dug, mountains are ransacked, and waste heaps are created. And in most cases, recovery is not something these companies are interested in,” says the expert of the National Ecological Center of Ukraine Ihor SIRENKO.

According to the former ecology minister Ivan Zaiets, there are three reasons why the industrial companies do not cooperate with environmentalists and scientists on recovery of used resources. “Firstly, Ukrainian government consists of people with a Soviet mindset who are used to communist practices. At that time, natural resources were not valuable, and the nature itself was viewed as an inexhaustible system. Secondly, we do not have efficient environmental education, while the traditional system of respecting nature, which is typical for Ukrainian culture, upbringing, and mentality, was destroyed. And the third reason is of tactical nature. Our legislation became very liberalized when it comes to such problems. Today, the integral system of environmental legislation, which was based on the doctrine of sustainable development, is destroyed,” he says.

The experts say that environmental responsibility brings reputation benefits in the first place. However, it can also bring more material bonuses for business. “In the present-day globalization era and the infinite information network, there should be a complex approach to measuring the effectiveness of any activity. This approach has to include economic, social, and ecologic compounds. An enterprise cannot be considered successful and promising if it has good economic indicators but destroys nature,” Zaiets explains. Sirenko has a similar opinion: “If your business brings the ecosystem to misbalance, its success is out of the question.”

The ecologists say that the current generation of Ukrainian businessmen is only the first one, they are at the stage of capital accumulation and do not care to think about anything else. “Significant economic preferences like tax cuts should exist in order to motivate entrepreneurs,” Sirenko says. The expert thinks that the general level of environmental awareness should be raised, and this should be taken care of starting from the kindergarten and elementary school.

“Environmental thinking is created in the process of cooperation among business, society, and government. And such dialog does not exist in Ukraine. It should be understood that we live in an age when the natural environment limits the development of human civilization, therefore, we need to treat natural capital in the same way as any other scarce resource is treated. We need to be frugal while using it and invest in its recovery and increase,” Zaiets emphasizes. And Boreiko thinks the situation may be changed by implementing considerable fines. “In order to make business work for ecology, it should be fined. It is the only possible way to achieve something,” the environmentalist sums up.

However, the Center for Corporate Social Responsibility Development remarks that ecologists rush to conclusions. In fact, there are companies in Ukraine that understand their responsibility to the environment they work in. An exhibition that displays thousands of social and environmental projects on CSR MarketPlace and has been carried out by the Center jointly with the DTEK for a few years is a proof of that. “We fully realize that long-term development of business is possible only in the conditions of society development and increase of living standards. About 15 percent of Ukrainians live on the territory where the DTEK companies are located, and all of them require quality and affordable medical care, comfortable and safe working conditions, and clean air. That is why we support core measures in the sphere of sustainable development and corporate social responsibility, share our experience and expertise. Implementation of sustainable development principles is necessary for any country that is in the process of dynamic development, and such leading business as DTEK should set an example and help popularize these ideas,” says the director for External Affairs of the DTEK Aleksandr TOLKACH.

So, if any businessmen in our globalized information society believe that it is enough to pay good salary, give an employee a nice office and modern equipment to make them work devotedly and for a long time, they are deeply wrong. In the modern world, it is not the companies that compete, but the whole countries. It is about the level of life, infrastructure, and above all, the state of environment. Because human health directly depends on the ecology. It is obvious that when an educated professional with working experience and knowledge of a foreign language (in other words, a dream of any employer) reads the statistics on the catastrophic state of the environment of the country where they work (for example, as a result of air pollution, in 2009, carcinogenic risk reached 6.4-13.7 cases per one thousand people, which significantly exceeds international risk rates), they will consider the option of changing the country for living, having children, bringing up grandchildren. Back in 2004, Ukraine was enlisted among the countries of environmental depopulation at the Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health in Budapest. Since then, dozens of cities of the industrial eastern part of the country felt the effects of this “diagnosis.” And so did business there: jobs are created, but there are no people to take them.