Economist Gunter Pauli laments absence of sustainability, ethics in businesses

People are buying the instant soup, which provides instant nutrition, he said.Speaking about the importance of flora and fauna around coffee farms, Pauli said that shade-grown coffee is considered the best and that it is necessary to have biodiversity in coffee plantations.According to the economist, 3,000 researchers under him carried out a study and arrived at a conclusion that in order to have biodiversity in coffee plantations, the planter needs a minimum 72 varieties of trees.

Eminent economist and author Prof Gunter Pauli on Tuesday lamented the absence of sustainability and ethics in the businesses.

Speaking on the topic 'Regenerative agricultural approaches – solutions for the coffee sector' during the fifth World Coffee Conference-2023 here, Pauli asked people to ponder upon the philosophy and its implementation.

"Ethics is key because we are not applying ethics today. There's too much greenwashing. Too much blah, blah, blah, blah, too many beautiful pictures and nothing real behind," the economist said.

The author of 'The Blue Economy' said that no other species in nature, other than humans, is capable of producing something no one else wants.

"We are supposed to be the intelligent one and we're actually generating waste. We're generating so much waste that we have to have dedicated companies who do nothing but deal with waste," Pauli said.

"So we need to revisit our intelligence because clearly it is not up to the expectations of what you deserve to be called the living species," the professor said.

In this regard, he emphasised how mushroom can be grown using pruned coffee plants. He said this practice of growing mushroom is necessary to beat malnutrition and hunger in the world.

He said a famous coffee brand had decided 25 years ago that they would not grow mushrooms although they could produce a million tonnes of mushrooms, providing healthy food without cholesterol to millions of people.

Pauli recalled that after he went on a crusade, the firm is now buying mushrooms in Zimbabwe, which enabled 4,000 women to do grow them using coffee waste. The company buys the mushrooms to make a broth. People are buying the instant soup, which provides instant nutrition, he said.

Speaking about the importance of flora and fauna around coffee farms, Pauli said that shade-grown coffee is considered the best and that it is necessary to have biodiversity in coffee plantations.

According to the economist, 3,000 researchers under him carried out a study and arrived at a conclusion that in order to have biodiversity in coffee plantations, the planter needs a minimum 72 varieties of trees. Explaining the importance of having a variety of trees, he said coffee needs to be pollinated and that the pollination depends on bees, which are an integral part of the ecosystem.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)