UxP

Sustainability is Queen

Dr. Malika Moussaid, CEO Aleff Group and MENA Region Coordinator for the IAEA knowledge and technology transfer initiative, was invited to speak at the recent conference in Abu Dhabi for Women as Global Leaders. Some 1500 delegates, of whom the majority were women, took part from all over the world. Held on the splendid new Abu Dhabi campus of Zayed University, the theme of the conference was Creating a Sustainable Future for the World.

Dr. Moussaid, took the opportunity to focus on A Triple Bottom Line Approach to Sustainable Development. "As I was preparing both my presentation and the companion paper I started to think about the origins of the concept of sustainability as defined in Gro Harlem Brundtland's seminal report, Our Common Future, produced for the UN in 1987. I asked myself if it needed a woman to see just how important this idea would be for the future of the world and to give it voice. That was true, visionary leadership".

Our Common Future

Both Dr. Malika's presentation and paper started from the way Our Common Future defines the concept: "Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." She argued in general terms that how we define, manage and prevent waste goes to the heart of Brundtland's vision of sustainability.

She pointed to the deep and instinctive connections between the objectives Brundtland outlined and the ways women in general, and Arab women in particular, have always sought to manage their resources. She argued that such women preserve and build resources across generations. "I think the MENA region may be the perfect place for women, but for men too, to show leadership in respect of sustainability. In one sense it is not we who have to learn new skills, but rather to see that our traditional skills and values are actually fully consistent with contemporary requirements. The way we have lived for centuries is an expression of sustainability".

Malika Moussaid in the Concourse of Zayed University Conference Centre, Abu Dhabi

Dr. Moussaid commented that Mrs. Brundtland did not herself use the concept of the Triple Bottom Line; that came a few years later in 1994, in a paper by John Elkington. Elkington showed how business in the future could profit by following the the tenets of sustainability as defined by Brundtland.

Success should be measured by not one but three criteria: financial, social and environmental. When the social and environmental dimensions are added to the traditional concept of profit (the bottom line) you get the "Triple Bottom Line".

"What Elkington was able to show is that far from compromising financial performance by adding these additional criteria, you actually improve it. This is exactly what John Nash had argued in 1952 in his economic theory of the "win/win", that there are situations when either everyone wins or everyone loses. And of course good leadership is about getting everyone to find the winning approach. I argued that to win we have to think ahead, to be strategic. Even if we do not yet know what we want to do with some of the resources we have we should always consider possible future uses. We should only let something go, or call it a waste, when we cannot imagine a future application for it. This is the way responsible men and women think."

"It was wonderful to see the many young women present responding positively to this idea and how easily they connected it with new concepts of leadership. They appreciate that in future we have to improve our ability to connect technical capabilities with policy objectives; and the only way we will achieve this is by sharing knowledge and by building capacity."

Companion paper

In her companion paper, Dr. Moussaid shows how following a policy of resource conservation and comprehensive extraction there could be benefits to managing essential resources, such as phosphates, beyond the immediate impact on crop production. She records that from its beginnings in a joint meeting of IAEA, NEA-OECD and Aleff Group, Paris June 2010, the Expert Working Group looking at sourcing uranium nuclear fuel from phosphates ("UxP") has been built around the guiding principle of sustainability. At its simplest, by following the principles of sustainable development, she argues, the conclusion is inescapable that we should recover the uranium from phosphate fertilisers. We can use uranium as a fuel to produce energy; and the fertilizer no longer carries trace amounts of uranium onto the soil. This is the basis of the "win/win" for both energy and food security. Leaving uranium, and other resources, in the fertilizer breaches Brundtland's principle because the uranium, once in the soil, is no longer recoverable.

"The same applies to why we should use phosphogypsum rather than just stack it. This is a resource, not a waste".

The Auditorium at Zayed University

Stakeholders and shareholders

Dr. Malika concluded that she feels optimistic about the future because sustainability comes naturally to cultures like hers. As an Arab woman she was brought up to manage resources, and to grow them. Talking to women from all over the world, many from the MENA region she has formed the view that women in the region can take a lead in showing how emerging economies have innovative solutions to the challenges of sustainable development, solutions that are rooted in their traditions, beliefs and values.

"I don't think we will achieve sustainable development by appealing to goodwill and altruism. We all have to see something in it for ourselves; we need a stake, even if we do not own a share. We have to feel some sense of belonging."