Page 125 - The Ethics of ASEAN

Ethics of Sustainability and Biodiversity in ASEAN

his job is to ensure that Pertamina strives to be environmentally
friendly, socially responsible and well-governed. Why would
Pertamina adopt these ethics? Because of a State-Owned
Company’s mission for the nation which is driven by the
“awareness to not compromise the ability of our future
generations to meet their needs”.
Concretely, Pertamina has committed to an authentic
sustainability proposition that ensures energy access for
all populations, develops renewable energy, supports the
national climate transition agenda, and takes responsibility on
addressing climate change issues by managing greenhouse gas Figure 7: Yulius Bulo,
emissions and practicing carbon sequestration. Chief Operating Officer of
Pertamina Foundation and
According to Yulius Bulo, the ethical principle is that it is Chair of the ASEAN Human
“unfair” for a State-Owned Company to exploit natural resources Development Organisation
Indonesia
without being responsible for environmental protection and
conservation. In relation to biodiversity,the company also
has a specific biodiversity action plan to reach a net positive
impact (NPI) on biodiversity. This is done, for example, by
investing in land rehabilitation and ecosystem restoration upon
closure of an oil or gas drilling site. This ethic of preservation
and restoration drives the work of the Pertamina Foundation
which has implemented more than 300 biodiversity protection
programs including mangrove restoration projects, oil spill
clean-ups, and wildlife conservation.
A function of ethics is to ensure that the goal is to actually
make an impact rather than practice “greenwashing” to
communicate a good image that is not really true. Yulius Bulo
says that we must call out corporate sustainability initiatives
that are “driven by ratings” and support those “driven by an
authentic sustainability motive.”
Ethical questions are often challenging and complicated.
This is particularly so for issues of unethical “virtue signalling”
such as greenwashing. Sustainability can easily be turned into
marketing tools such as communicating a green label in one
area to mask non-sustainable practices or unethical practices
elsewhere. That is why Yulius Bulo calls on companies to
embrace authentic sustainability as an ethical commitment.

Ethical Takeaways
The tension between ASEAN’s founding ethic of development
and the emerging ethics of environmental conservation has
become a central ethical issue.
Bianca Lisboa de Camara Brasil represents the global
ethical perspective by pointing out that Southeast Asia

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