Malta needs a centralised sustainability task force for a successful move to the green economy.
Sustainability is not just environmentalism. Sustainability is about continuing economic growth without depleting our natural resources and destroying the planet and environment for future generations.
This may sound simple enough but it is not.
To make our economies and development truly sustainable, dozens of players need to be involved. We need to coordinate almost every sector in the country, with the input of multiple actors and several actions which need to be carried out at different yet synchronised times.
The European Commission has said that to implement sustainable development across Europe we need to begin, at the very least, with the energy, buildings, transport and industry sectors.
That means that here in Malta we need solutions to generate and source cleaner energy, solutions to make existing buildings efficient and build more efficient new ones, solutions for cleaner and cheaper transport and solutions to incentivise industry to use more recycled materials.
And that poses a very real problem.
Sustainability is about continuing economic growth without depleting our natural resources and destroying the planet- Gayle Kimberley
Here in Malta, energy falls under the Ministry for Energy, Enterprise and Sustainable Development, construction falls in part under the Ministry for the Environment, Climate Change and Planning yet sustainable development falls within the remit of the Ministry for Energy, Enterprise and Sustainable Development. Transport falls under the Ministry for Transport, Infrastructure and Capital Projects, however, e-mobility does not ‒ it falls under the responsibility of the Ministry for Energy, Enterprise and Sustainable Development. Classifying industry is another feat, of course. Do we do this according to subject matter or does it fall under the umbrella of ‘enterprise’?
Not only do answers to these questions need to be found immediately but all of the above ministries need to work seamlessly together in a coordinated manner to ensure they are all pulling the same rope and achieving the same common end goal.
That is why Malta needs to follow the example of European counterparts and urgently create a dedicated sustainability task force under the auspices of one ministry.
This task force will be charged with tackling sustainability in a holistic manner and provide a bespoke, yet, harmonised, centralised and uniform national approach to sustainability across all sectors and departments.
The importance of having this task force – to some extent – under the umbrella of the government should not be overlooked. We do not need another think tank or talking shop but a ‘command centre’ that can properly assess all the proposals being made by existing think tanks and interested parties and then take action on the good ones.
This needs to be done by senior advisers who are able to make decisions, together with industry experts, under the umbrella of this task force. In the UK, quangos are often used for similar activities. In Spain, they have this under the remit of a ministry.
This sustainability task force should then leverage its oversight and unique position to foster green entrepreneurship and extend its scope of work as progress is made. This has been done in Spain, to name but one example, and is a resounding success.
So, while sustainability might be a complex multi-sectoral challenge, it is certainly an achievable one if we implement a central management structure. The danger of not putting a ‘task force with teeth’ in place is that the left hand and the right hand will not be communicating, various players’ work and effort will either overlap or move in different directions (or both) and much-needed European funding opportunities will be wasted or ignored.
Whichever way we decide to go, one thing is clear: Europe has a duty to become green, digital and competitive and to make sustainable development a reality. The European Commission is rightly adamant that we pull the same rope together. Modelling the sustainability task forces used so successfully by our European neighbours means that we’ll go more quickly where we need to go without reinventing the wheel.
Gayle Kimberley, director, Ewropa Consultancy.