São Paulo – Brazil should be a leading country in the transition from the current model of world economy to a greener economy. The claim was made by professionals in the environmental and entrepreneurial areas who are attending the Ethos Conference, which is discussing the new paths of the economy, on this Monday (8th) and Tuesday (9th) at the headquarters of the Federation of Commerce of the State of São Paulo (Fecomércio). “Brazil may have an inclusive, green and responsible economy, and has the potential to be a leadership,” said Paulo Itacarambi, the executive vice president of Instituto Ethos, which is promoting the meeting.
“The country has vast natural capital, is biodiversity-rich, has a population characterized by wide biodiversity, has active organizations, a dynamic economy with a good energy matrix and an ongoing process of reduction of social inequality,” explained Itacarambi. “Brazil may have a head start, we have a clean energy matrix, we can create a lot using our biodiversity,” said the vice president of Organizational Development and Sustainability at the company Natura, Marcelo Cardoso, another lecturer.
The national secretary of Technological Development and Innovation at the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology, Ronaldo Mota, who was also attending the event, believes that Brazil is already a leader in this field due to its energy matrix. “No other country has as clean an energy matrix as Brazil’s,” said the secretary. At present, 47% of the energy generated in Brazil comes from renewable sources and 53% comes from fossil sources. The rates were mentioned by the president of CPFL, Wilson Ferreira Jr., who is also attending the event.
Mota highlighted that Brazil, unlike other nations, cannot conceive its economy with a low rate of growth. In other words, reducing growth is not a path to lowering emissions or having a more sustainable economy. The path toward sustainable growth in Brazil, according to the secretary, depends on several variables, one of them being innovative capacity. He highlighted that currently, the country accounts for 2.7% to 2.8% of scientific production worldwide.
According to the secretary, however, Brazil is having trouble transposing the scientific knowledge that it generates on to the consumer market. “Innovation has to do with creating products and processes that affect the world of demand,” he finished off. The Ministry to which Mota is linked has incorporated the name “Innovation” this week and one of the challenges facing the Brazilian industry, according to him, is precisely that of combining innovation and sustainability.
Energy
Energy, while placing Brazil among the world leaders in terms of clean models, is also a challenge for the country considering the expected economic growth. The model of energy generation through hydroelectric plants, according to Ferreira, of the CPFL, is among the least environment-impacting ones and Brazil has potential to generate over 250,000 megawatts in the area. For the sake of comparison, the Itaipu Power Station generates 14,000 megawatts. According to the executive, there is also potential for 143,000 megawatts to be generated through wind energy. Another 15,000 megawatts should come from projects for power generation from biomass, up until 2019, and there is also potential for solar energy.
Ferreira also stressed that even though Brazil is the seventh economy in the world and accounts for 2.9% of the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP), it occupies the 17th position in the ranking of most polluting countries. “We have a huge advantage, which we have constructed over the past decades, and may become even greater,” said Ferreira. According to him, Brazil will have to increase its energy supply by 142% over the next 20 years to meet its demand.
The globe
The moderator of the first lecture this morning, which was attended by Ferreira, Mota, Cardoso and representatives of Alcoa and Walmart, was the economist Ricardo Abramoway, a professor at the Department of Economy of the School of Economics and Administration of the University of São Paulo (FEA-USP). Abramovay highlighted the worldwide progress toward a more sustainable economy. According to him, products are manufactured using less and less energy and materials. “The progress that Brazilian and contemporary society has made toward this society is extraordinary,” said the specialist.
Hunger, which used to plague one out of three people in the world in 1970, according to Abramovay, now affects one out of seven. Thus, 80 million people join the consumer market each year. And these peple, according to the professor, are not what causes emissions to increase, but rather the concentration of wealth. An Indian citizen, says Abramoway, uses up 4 tonnes of material (food, clothing etc.) throughout his life. A Canadian, on the other hand, consumes 25 tonnes.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
