Manufacturers talk environment

Our reliance on fossil fuels, the development of cities, the destruction of natural habitat for farmland and the exploitation of the oceans are destroying the earth's ability to sustain life, warns a recent World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report.

The biggest consumers of non-renewable natural resources are the United States, Australia, the UAE, Kuwait and Sweden, who leave the biggest 'ecological footprint,' claims the WWF environmental report.

"We're currently consuming 20% more natural resources than the planet can produce," says Ibtisam Al Faruji, Head of Marketing at the Public Establishment for Industrial Estates (PEIE).

"We're running up an ecological debt which we won't be able to pay off unless we restore the balance between our consumption of natural resources and the earth's ability to renew them. This is the very reason why PEIE's Oman Manufacturing Group (OMG) is holding a Green Manufacturing seminar and dinner at the Muscat Inter-Continental Hotel on 9 June at 7:30pm," comments Al Faruji.

Given the importance of the topic and with high profile speakers from Reem Batteries, Tabreed Oman, Shell, PDO and Five Oceans Environmental Services, Al Faruji expects Monday night's free-of-charge seminar to attract a large audience.

The WWF document suggests that the world's 6.1 billion people leave a collective footprint of 33.36 billion acres, 5.44 acres per person. To allow the Earth to regenerate, the average should be no more than 4.45 acres.

"Let's just consider some of the figures," says PEIE's Head of Marketing. "Between 1961 and 2001 use of fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil increased by almost 700% and the populations of land, freshwater and marine species fell on average by 40%. Moreover, between 1970 and 2000 the earth's forest cover shrank by 12%. These statistics are a wake-up call. We need to reduce our CO2 emissions. If we don't act, annual temperatures could rise by 1.5°C by 2020 and 4.5°C by 2080. It seems things are getting worse faster than experts had expected. We're entering uncharted territory. We hope that Monday night's OMG seminar will go some way to explaining how our manufacturers can reduce the size of their carbon footprint."