Professor David Hood explaining the seriousness of climate change to the audience. 

Every individual has a role to play in ensuring sufficient natural resources and the availability of ecosystem services that support life on earth. That is the message of Professor David Hood to those who attended the “Turning Sustainability into a Business Imperative” Education Seminar.

Hood, a chartered professional engineer and an accredited presenter on Al Gore’s Climate Project, has lectured widely on climate change and sustainability where his passion enthuses others to make a difference and reduce the damage we are inflicting on the earth’s systems.

During the talk organised by the School of Engineering at Monash University Sunway campus recently, the National President of Engineers Australia encouraged and challenged the audience to think differently  in an effort to save the environment.  

“We need to think about what the planet is going to be like if we keep going the way we are going at the moment in terms of economic development and lifestyle.

“We need to stop doing things we are doing and to do things differently,” he said.

He warned the audience that the climate change issue was much more serious that what the Intergovernmental Panel Climate Change (IPCC) made it out to be in their climate change reports.

In order to generate energy, he said human beings had enslaved the planet and destroyed the natural resources that have been taken for granted so far.

To get the audience understand the severeness of climate change and global warming, Hood also explained the thinning of the Arctic ice and its effect on the rise of sea levels, the Milankovitch theory that describes the collective effects of changes in the Earth's movements upon its climate and the greenhouse effect.

“Climate change, resource scarcity and the loss of ecosystem services are now seriously threatening to trash our economy because we simple cannot grow the economy forever on a finite planet,” he said.

He said nothing much is being done to save the planet because many people think they are to small to make a difference and such a task is just too big for them to handle.

“We suffer from cognitive dissonance whereby our brain is not hardwired to cope with such incredibly big problem, which is beyond our brain,” he said.

However, he said, it will make a difference when each individual starts playing a small part in changing the way they have been doing things.

“You may think that changing a light bulb will not make a difference but if six or seven billion people all change a light bulb, it will make a difference,” he encouraged the audience.

He said sustainability - the ability to maintain and improve the quality of life for all people, both now and into the future, whilst ensuring the continued availability of the natural resources and ecosystem services, is essential to supporting life on earth.

“Sustainability is important because our activities on the planet have destroyed forever 50% of the natural capital or ecosystem services, which took 3.8 billion years to create, in only the past 30 years,” he said.

Hood, who is also the Past Chairman of the Australian Green Infrastructure Council, therefore urged businesses to start sustainability investment to reap benefits from such practice.

“When you introduce eco sustainability initiatives, you are not only doing good for the globe but also for the good of the company.

“You can improve the use of renewable and non-renewable resources and make less use of the non-renewable resources.

“You will lower emissions and pollution, save costs and make more effective use of financial resources,” he said.

He said such initiatives would also enhance a company’s reputation and improve customer loyalty as members of the public are now closely monitoring what companies in their vicinity are doing to the planet.

The audience at the "Turning Sustainability into a Business Imperative" Education Seminar listening intently to the talk by Professor David Hood.

“All these will help a company to reduce its risk and at the same time, increase its revenue which is the most important thing in economics,” he said.