EPA - Ireland's Environment 2016 - An Assessment

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but also one that requires economic entities to engage
– for example through corporate social responsibility
practices (including sustainability reporting) or similar
business-led codes of conduct – with their environment
and their communities in order to protect and nurture
the interdependencies and in so doing will ensure
enduring competitiveness and growth. Government
departments have significant responsibility too: to
plan for, design and integrate social, educational and
infrastructural systems that support our ambition
to become a carbon-neutral, climate-resilient and
sustainably competitive society. Our economic and social
development principles and practice must move to an
operational norm of “beyond compliance” involving
systemic eco-innovation.
We are now at a stage that requires governance, corporate
and citizenry solutions and interventions that are:
Disruptive, Innovative, Systemic, Transformative,
Integrated, Creative and Relentless
So, what is stopping us in adopting DISTRICT
solutions? A mixture of risk aversion, economic lock-in,
individualisation, short-term planning, fear of change,
policy conflict, etc., but most of all perhaps an absence
of the necessary commitment and integrated long-term
bigger picture planning needed to drive the scale and
nature of the transformational change required. We
need brave, well informed, determined, committed and
enduring leadership within our homes, our businesses,
our communities, and most especially in our governance
structures. After all, our future is everyone’s responsibility.
References
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