Too many businesses are only paying attention to the environment out of a sense of legal responsibility, says Government Senator Andwele Boyce.
“There is no evidence of sufficient consideration as time goes on, as production begins,” he said.
Boyce was speaking in the Senate yesterday during debate on the Storm Water Management Bill, 2025.
The consideration of storm water protection must exist in a broader framework that includes water conservation, waste water reduction and energy efficiency, Boyce said.
“When we plan environmentally we must include the stakeholders, the persons who live next to your businesses, those who are impacted by your enterprise, not just at the preconstruction and preproduction phase but at all phases because we appreciate that the climate crisis that we consider today is not the climate realities that we considered five or ten years ago,” he said.
Environmental planning at the level of businesses would ensure a greater degree of sustainability and would make economic sense particularly for countries like Barbados which did not have a large economy and for which closing a business for a short period had implications for workers, operators and the country.
Better planning
“It is time the business sector took a more holistic approach to the notions of business continuity and environmental planning,” he said.
The proposed legislation, Boyce stated, is to ensure that protection is crafted for the people of Barbados as they contended with the vagaries of climate change based on how acute the issues of climate have been within recent times.
“In the last couple of years, we have become victims to greater flooding and more extreme weather events which have dire implications for businesses and ultimately the country’s economic stability.
“That is why I think that this intervention by the Government of Barbados is critical. The bill does a number of things. It assigns duties to land owner and developers. It creates a system for inspection and the declaration of flood zones, ascribes penalties and create a system for cost recovery in relation to negligence,” he said.
Boyce said the legislation provided a degree of clarity on storm management systems as to where responsibilities were placed, crafted a system on which all can depend, and inspired a sense of environmental responsibility.
“It speaks to all of us, whether we are occupiers, developers or average citizens and it should compel us to consider that what we do in relation to the environment matters,” he said.
(AC)
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