We Are Preparing For A Green Life Through The Goal Of Zero Carbon By 2050

They say, “Green is the most significant colour in the world, and love is born from its beauty”

They say, “Green is the most significant colour in the world, and love is born from its beauty”. As DEİK, through our 146 Business Councils spread worldwide, we act with the awareness of the importance of the green and strive to carry out our business in a sustainable way by protecting green and nature.

The European Green Deal announced by the European Union in December 2019 will significantly affect the member states and countries that have intense economic and trade relations with the EU, such as our country. In this context, the responsibility for taking concrete and decisive steps in climate change, carbon border adjustment, and sustainable development will belong to the states and the private sector organization. With this awareness, I think we should start the “Supporting the Transition Process of the Industrial Sector of Carbon-Neutral Economy”.

Naturally, at this point, we also need to avoid incurring additional costs by taking an early step or avoid suffering in this process and creating new barriers as a result of being too late.

Of course, I would like to point out that an important issue in the works is the coordination between institutions, especially with our Ministry of Trade. The continuation of our trade relations with the EU with whom we carry out approximately 50% of our total exports within the framework of sustainable production models and with the goal of becoming carbon-neutral, together with the Green Deal adjustments, may bring along important risks for our country’s industry, as well as opportunities in case it can be evaluated.

In this framework, as DEİK, we are in the process of creating a report and checklist so that our industrial organizations can foresee the effects of the innovative regulations that the agreement will impose on our foreign trade on the ways to do business and evaluate the measures that can be taken. The Green Deal is one of Europe’s most important initiatives after the Paris Agreement, and it is an issue that concerns not only Europe but the whole world.

In fact, in a sense, the European Union is beginning to rewrite the rules of “next-generation” trade. From now on, material factors and social, environmental, and even basic human rights issues will be decisive in trade. States and boards of directors of companies will have to be accountable and take on responsibility for these issues.

Through the reform that the EU plans to perform in the field of company law, the boards of directors of companies will be responsible for implementing this on a smaller scale within their own workplaces, just as a government has to ensure social justice in its country, protect the environment and establish basic human rights values.

We aim to perform works and calculations on the extent to which the green transformation will affect our exports of goods, under a few scenarios discussed in business and academic circles.

Accordingly, in the scenario where taxation is applied over the current carbon price in the European Union, it was the first data that our manufacturing industry sectors could face severe additional taxation in a direct or an indirect way. The initial results we have obtained are quite interesting: We are ahead of the rest of the world in emission reduction technologies in energy-intensive sectors such as iron and steel, cement, chemistry, and paper, which the EU emissions trading system focuses on the most. This is a positive result in terms of the sustainability of our success in exports.

As part of our works with the EU, our biggest trading partner, we are preparing to implement the “DEİK Green Transformation” that supports the works of our Ministry of Commerce, in order to protect our companies from the negative effects of the Green Deal and adapt them to changing conditions. We believe that setting a goal of “Zero Carbon by 2050” to the Turkish business world with an approach that we can consider as “Green Life” will be a critical step for our companies to be motivated.

In this month’s issue of our magazine, we have discussed the importance of the European Green Deal and the significance of this Deal for Turkey. We have shared with you the valuable views of Mustafa Tuzcu, Deputy Minister of Commerce of the Republic of Turkey, who took part in our cover interview, on our economy. We are here again with “influencer marketing”, “funds in the new era of EU financial cooperation”, “vaccine passport”, and many more current and interesting contents.

Enjoy your reading and stay safe.

President of DEİK Nail Olpak