Cem Tarık Yüksel, Unilever Regional General Manager, North Africa, Levant and Iraq, highlighted the importance of the word responsibility as only two days are left for the Earth Overshoot Day, coming 8 days earlier than in 2024.
Falling on 24th July this year, Earth Overshooting Day is the day that we consume all the resources that Earth generates in one year, he expounded.
“So, therefore, we have only two days to continue with the resources the Earth can give us. Now, think about the urgency,” he said.
“Every year we are coming a few days back. And now that means that we are consuming 1.8 times faster than Earth provides us. You may say that, okay, we will leave, we will survive. What will happen?”
“We are stealing from the future. That is the point. We are stealing… Let’s face and confront with the reality. We are stealing from the future…Future of ourselves, future of our kids, future of the planet,” he expounded.
He made the remarks during the 7th Forum on Strategies for Transition to Green Economy – commonly dubbed the 7th Green Economy Forum – which kicked off on Tuesday under the theme of “The Transition C-Panel”, with the participation of United Nations Special Envoy for Financing Sustainable Development Mahmoud Mohieldin.
He expounded that “because I think all the companies on the stage and all the institutions are here because they are feeling responsible for the future of planet, people and society. So when we say being responsible, I think it’s quite an important word.”
He explained, however, that although digital technology helps to be more efficient, companies started using ChatGPT instead of Google; ChatGPT is using 10% higher energy compared to the normal search and causes 340 times more carbon dioxide emissions.
“Therefore, we need to get the responsibility to do things, that’s why I said feeling responsible is so much important for us.”
In Unilever, “Globally, we are around 72% less carbon emissions at the moment, getting better energy usage around 40% and for water again about 40%. Those are the figures on usages,” he said.
“Coming to Egypt from that perspective, we have a similar kind of figures, 72% carbon emissions less, and 30% less water and energy usage,” he added.
