COMMENT. Turkey. — For weeks now I have been personally following the financial crisis on business channels, local stations, international channels and it is still frustrating to logically puzzle the pieces together and make sense of it.

Consume, Borrow, Consume.

We knew far in advanced of a financial crisis that would affect us all globally. It seemed unavoidable, and perhaps we may have thought it would go away if we avoided the problem.

As an environmental engineer, here is how I evaluate the situation.

I believe the “system” as we know it globally is crashing and diminishing before our eyes.

The circulation of wealth, developed nations reaching their peaks, hence satisfaction levels being reached as you can only consume so much as a society. We then begin looking for other societies to draw into our consuming world.

Developing Consumers.

The developing nations were not too far behind the developed counterpart in aspiring to reach satisfaction levels. In fact, they were probably even quicker to reach a stable consuming index as they had heavier debts and investments to reach the privileged developed status.

The third world countries would require more resources to reach the desired development levels, even if they did as a society they would just enter into the same cycle we are in.

In the short term they would probably relieve the financial crisis until we ran out of consumers again, then what?

I now believe globalisation was a desire that evolved when borders became too restricting economically and financially.

There seems to be a naturally progressing trend towards the environment, the demand is increasing however the politics of corporatisation are placing pressures to devalue this need. The unknown is always scary and the environment is the unknown for most large corporate companies.

New opportunities.

I personally felt change in the air when vehicle manufacturers were denied further funds from the US government, this finally convinced me that the world is searching for a serious change in its economic and financial management strategies.

The management of the US automotive companies were under questioning, even the execs private jet ownerships during the crisis came under the spotlight. The Japanese automobile competitors were examined against the crisis and were found to be performing better against the crisis.

If government’s fund companies that are being poorly managed, they will just be encouraging bad behaviour and jeopardising their own economic health whilst doing so.

In my opinion, the US government made a wise decision to let nature take its course, otherwise it would not have resulted a change in corporate behaviour and direction.

Kyoto, signpost of times.

The Kyoto Protocol placed good pressure on changing the “attitude” on decisions and now globally perhaps an “alternative” financial and economical system is required.

Every crisis no matter how crude or cruel has a turn around and positive benefits are possible. Of course with a little bias, as an Environmental Professional the crisis could be positively inclined towards the environment.

Environmental Opportunity.

I believe if the right professionals are in the business of taking this as an opportunity to advocate the environment as the new “true” sector and provide it the status it deserves, anything is possible.

The right attitude is almost certain to succeed, however environmental professionals need to be more financially astute and understand the dynamics of the current corporations to ease transitions and provide assistance along the way instead of personal judgements.

I believe the environment will prove to be one of the sectors that will rise in overpowering the financial crisis.

This new “true” demand could be named as a sector realistically.

Value Environmental Externality.

It just makes sense to start placing monetary values on all environmental assets all over the world. This would also prevent some companies seeking more lenient conditions to produce elsewhere.

Let your imagination run wild and think of environmental insurance covers on air pollution and how the polluter would be held liable as it becomes an asset with depreciation and risks against accelerated depreciation.

As much as we should hold cigarette factories liable for terminal illnesses like cancer, what about the quality of the air and water which are governed by Countries, isn’t the environment a component in most terminal illnesses like Cancer?

Environmental opportunity.

Government’s funding the management of their most valued natural resources or assets whether it may be a natural resource like water and air or whether it may be renewable energy, or whether it be a natural rain-forest.

Most of all your resources are now infinite rather than finite, as you aim to preserve the same qualities you set in your assets.

Think of all the jobs you could create in the environmental sector to provide all these evaluations and to manage the assets instead of policing them.

Create Opportunity.

We all know the Supply and Demand curves in economics, here is a small personal evaluation, my demand for improved air quality and water supply and quality is much higher than what it was say in the 80’s, or 90s.

Personally, I would not be willing to trade these values for just another pair of new shoes or a handbag.

Arzu Durukan
Managing Director
Alinga Environmental Consulting

See: www.alingaconsult.com/en/default.asp

ARTICLE EDITED BY CHRISTOPHER HIRE.