In Bangladesh, the youth are too busy to think about the jobs, lifestyle, social media and endless attention they can ask for!
Whereas all the youths are busy with their day-to-day life hurdles and fun have we ever thought about our future? About us? All of us? Have we ever thought about it? All the damage we are doing to our planet will be heavy on us. Already we are facing disasters every single year or, what to say curses, and we have called these upon us.
Floods are more frequent than ever, and the severity of the floods is unfathomable every year. Droughts, heat waves, tornados and rising sea levels are going to sink our lowlands. The nature mother is dumping every disaster on us in every possible way. Nature is leaving bruises on us because nature is wounded!
So what is the cost of living in Bangladesh or this planet? The cost of living is the lives of our newborn babies, old parents, young students, our beloved and us! The cost of living is a bit too much! So insecure, so fragile, so powerless living against nature!
At our younger age, we used to see the less natural disasters. But it has become so frequent that we are used to it. At least I am alive; this thought is lingering thus not making us awaken. And we don’t understand the global impact is having on Bangladesh. But we see thousands of people migrating to new places after a deadly storm. Floods and droughts are destroying crops mile after mile. River erosion is washing lands and making the people homeless, and cattle wash away in the river, never coming back to their owners. Our elders say how they survived the floods and other disasters in their time, like folklore. And now we are living in their folklore! Are we atoning for our sins through living in these natural disasters?
In some contexts, it is true, that we are atoning. Atoning for not taking care the global warming, atoning for not cleaning our messes at the right time, atoning for not being cautious about the consequences.
The worst part is the people from rural areas, the most vulnerable ones are them. Villagers only focus on what is happening the next day, or the next week, and harvesting just enough for their families to get by. Talking about climate in an abstract way rarely has an impact on their lives. They don’t know what will happen or what they are going to do if another wave of water heats them. It is high time to rethink our position to live further.
Observing all these, PriyoShop has started to step up to reduce carbon emissions in Bangladesh. Maybe as a B2B marketplace, the integration is not that major. But we started to think about the carbons, climate-born diseases, plastic pollution, how to reduce power consumption. Things started to feel interesting and intriguing. We have been able to change the mindset of our employees, and we are trying to solve the human-made problem because we don’t want to blame our fates or nature for our suffering.
The impact we can make by reducing carbon emissions through our paddle van, electric van (EV), and using sunlight through solar panels is negligible compared to what the top carbon-emitting businesses are doing. But stepping step by step is giving us a ray of hope. Our actions can create a difference. Right now, our hubs are running with solar panels and directly capturing lights through our innovative systems. Our supplies are delivered to our retailers’ shop through a paddle van without generating toxic gas. We are hiring more people to take care of our logistics while reducing carbon emissions and pollution. It’s small things like this that inspire others to do the same. A little change in our regular lives can have deep impacts in the long run.
We hope that the government, private sector, and academicians all come forward and invest further in green and sustainable energy. Many private sectors like us are doing great things, but we need to do more like using more solar energy, using wind energy, use more renewable energy and resources.
For now, we are still destroying the world for our future generations, knowingly or unknowingly. Bangladesh is still struggling to create concrete plans for ESG but we can still do better for our own sake. We need green jobs, increase local employment opportunities, reduce carbon emissions, restore biodiversity, and help the environment altogether.
Right now we are laser-focused on empowering our MSMEs and helping the environment by involving more and more people in climate action! People who are reading this, mostly young people, learn how to protect nature because your future lives depend on this. You may feel disappointed sometimes thinking why you? Someone has to start somewhere, just like we started somewhere. Take action, please, otherwise action will be taken on us, all of us!