The private sector of Bangladesh will have to adopt a new set of business practices as the UN-sponsored Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) stipulates new approaches in doing business.
“We have to change our approaches in line with global practice and trends,” chief of the apex trade body Kazi Akram Uddin told the Dhaka Tribune.
All the countries in the world formed the Open Working Group at the United Nations to hammer out goals and targets for the Sustainable Development Goals to be effective from 2016 after the expiry of the Millennium Development Goals in 2015.
The OWG has concluded its negotiation this month after an unprecedented negotiation that continued for 17 months and come up with 17 goals and 170 associated targets.
The targets that are directly related to production and consumption are diversification, environment, decent work practice, labour rights, productivity and less pollution.
FBCCI is working on environment and labour rights issues and there are certain achievements in this regards, he said. “Now the government does not allow doing business if environmental regulations are not compliant,” he claimed.
The global business is changing and Bangladesh cannot be immune to it, Akram said. He said: “We cannot depend on ready-made garment sector alone.”
Centre for Policy Dialogue Distinguish Fellow Debapriya Bhattacharya said the SDGs would provide guidelines for increasing productivity and diversification.
The old approach of doing business will have to change, he said. “The domestic constituents must understand that this is the future.”
The private sector cannot back off from providing decent jobs or ensuring labour rights or creating less pollution, Debapriya said.
He said in the implementation of SDGs, the role of private sector, along civil society, local government, and parliamentarians, is very important.
For the smooth implementation of the SDGs, there needs to be financial package and non-financial policies.
The countries must decide where new money would come from to make the SDGs successful, he said.
Non-financial policies include systematic reforms in all sector and the government will take the lead role in the issue, he added.
“Success will depend on how the countries craft the implementation policies,” Debapriya said.
The SDGs stipulates that by 2030 the countries should double the agriculture productivity and implement resilient agriculture practices that maintain ecosystems.
The factories would have to resort to a new technology to eliminate dumping or minimize release of hazourdous chemical to water bodies by 2030.
In Bangladesh many factories, specially tanneries and textiles ones, pollut water by releasing toxic chemicals into the water, resulting in the loss of fisheries. The private sector will have to attain higher productivity through diversification and new technology and promote decent job creation and innovation and it must improve itself to such a level where it can use global resources efficiently.
The governments and the private sector by 2030 must upgrade their infrastructure and retrofit their industries for sustainability.
Bangladesh with the assistance of Japan has undertaken a project to retrofit several key installations like fire brigade offices and several administrative buildings and two garment factories in the country.
Under the SDGs, all countries will formulate a 10-year framework of programmes on sustainable consumption and production and implement it and by 2030.