The bank of the BRICS and the ecological footprint

Mauricio Andres Ribeiro (*) Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are the BRICS, the five largest emerging countries. Together, these five countries have 40% of the world population and 23% of Earth’s land. In July 2014, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa met in Brazil and signed a treaty creating the bank of the BRICS, which may constitute a unifying project between these five countries. Development banks direct investment resources and channel flows of capital for approved projects. Among them, the World Bank, the Interamerican Development Bank, the Brazilian BNDES have allocated resources to socially needed projects and initiatives. But they have been criticized by civil society organizations, for having funded environmentally destructive or socially questionable projects. Some NGOs have expressed concern that the bank of the BRICS could go in that questionable way. Internationally, the Equator Principles, proposed in 2003 by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), linked to the World Bank, established social and environmental guidelines for banks. In 2003, the Declaration of Collevecchio, supported by civil society organizations, stressed the importance of financial institutions making commitments to sustainability, to the prevention of impacts of activities that they fund, to social and environmental responsibility, transparency of information, accountability to society. They stressed the need to rethink the mission of banks and the urgency that they renounce to business opportunities that are socially or environmentally destructive. In the context of the ecological crisis and global climate a relevant challenge is to control the flow of capital, the strength of which, like that of water, can be highly destructive if left free and without regulating. Development banks need to have policy guidance, mission and mandate clearly defined by those who established them, in order to formulate clear priorities for their operations. When they prioritize certain projects and actions, they stop focusing on others and there are opportunity costs in these decisions. It is desirable that the bank of the BRICS innovate in its conceptions, practices, methods, use of indicators. One of these indicators is the ecological footprint, which estimates the biologically productive area required to provide the natural resources we use in our daily life. It measures the biocapacity, the amount of biologically productive area for agriculture, grazing, forestry and fishing, which is available to meet the needs of humanity. The global hectare per capita (hag / pc) refers to the space needed to sustain the lifestyle of an individual. The global footprint is 2.7 global hectares per capita. An average Brazilian citizen needs 2.9 hectares; a Chinese, 2.2; a Russian, 4.4; a South African, 2.6 hag / pc. The average Indian has an ecological footprint of 0.9 hag / pc. Among the five BRICS, the Russian has a heavy ecological footprint, while the Indian has a light average per capita footprint. The average Indian has a nine times lighter footprint than the U.S. citizen, three times lighter than the footprint of a Brazilian and the global footprint. India has a light per capita footprint because it has a large population with a very light footprint. However, at the same time, it has 200 million middle class people with aspirations and consumerist habits of life. The lightness of the ecological footprint in India results only in part from the deprivation of basic material needs for a decent life, such as food, water, energy, sanitation, housing, education, and health. In part, it relates to the ability of Indian society to meet the material needs with minimal pressure upon the environment. Frugal lifestyles, associated with a decentralized territorial organization in thousands of villages, combined with the ecodesign of extended families and communities are followed by millions of people in India. Such habits significantly reduce the consumption of natural resources and help to explain its light footprint of 0, 9 hag / pc. The average Indian has an ecological credit because he poses little threat to global sustainability. This credit could be applied in infrastructure, solving problems of environmental sanitation and making other improvements to benefit the population deprived of basic things needed for a dignified life without increasing the threats to global sustainability. Should it be used without criterion of social justice, this credit could help to increase the consumption of the wealthiest Indians. Individuals who have a light ecological footprint contribute less to environmental destruction; those who have a heavier footprint threaten sustainability. If we desire a less unjust world, the per capita ecological footprint should be equal for all the inhabitants of the earth. It would be up to banks and institutions that drive capital flows to apply them in projects that equalize the per capita ecological footprints. Thus, for example, the bank of the BRICS could support the Russians in projects aimed at achieving a lighter ecological footprint; assist Indians to have a better quality of life while reducing the inequalities and keeping light their ecological footprint; channel resources to projects that make a lighter per capita ecological footprint of Brazilians, Chinese and South Africans while increasing their welfare. The bank of the BRICS could innovate in the use of sustainability indicators to guide its operations, adopting the indicator of the ecological footprint and directing its actions to equalize the per capita ecological footprints of the inhabitants of the countries that created it. The application of the concept of per capita ecological footprint transform the way we approach the issue of inequality and may point toward a global levelling of consumption patterns. If the bank of the BRICS will act with the goal of equalizing the per capita ecological footprints, it would be valuable to understand the reasons for the different ecological footprints. It would be great that the bank of the BRICS prioritizes their loans and tune with a view of human evolution, in the planetary context of twenty-first century and with the goal of reducing inequities. (*) Author of the books Ecologizar, Treasures of India; and Environment and Human Evolution. Ecologizar.blogspot.com ecologizar@gmail.com