“We started talking about ecology belatedly.” Russian business towards environmental…

“We started talking about ecology late.”

Russian business is now being pushed towards the environmental agenda by economic measures, especially a hidden version of economic pressure (plans to introduce a CO2 tax in the EU). In Russia, the green agenda is an urgent need, because nature cannot restore itself: we started talking about ecology belatedly. This opinion was expressed in her interview with RBC by the head of Rosprirodnadzor Svetlana Radionova.

According to the head of the department, business is still rethinking that the environmental agenda is not a sociable thing of last year, but forever. In vertically integrated oil companies, many managers in the regions believe that as long as the center does not find out about their problems, they will somehow sort it out themselves. Another problem is the company’s internal habits, which are described in one phrase: “we’ve always done it this way,” which should go out of use forever.

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Radionova says that while Rosprirodnadzor does not see real actions from large companies on the path to a “green” future, the most that companies do is release fry. The ESG agenda is limited to the fact that companies appoint people responsible for the environment and develop some policies, but essentially nothing changes. One of the first moves towards ecology so far is that businesses have begun to rank their projects in terms of harm to nature and talk more about “green” investments. The head of the department believes that now it is necessary to push business towards conscious responsibility for the environment. Because of their clumsiness, it is difficult for them to do this, which we generally agree with.

https://www.rbc.ru/interview/business/17/02/2022/620bd3ae9a79479deea0bfe3