You can read this Eurotec editorial in French and German .
Covid-19 has been on the world stage for weeks and the increasingly alarmist news is bordering on overdose. Yet it is difficult not to talk about it here, if only to evoke the hope, perhaps naive but so necessary, of radical changes in the way we operate.
Before continuing, it is worth making an important clarification: Eurotec did not suddenly become the official organ of some environmental movement. Its vocation is and always has been to support industry. However, this postulate should not obscure reality and bury any critical spirit.
Nonsense that has become the norm
We all know the story of the pair of jeans which, before arriving in our stores, has travelled tens of thousands of kilometres: growing cotton in Uzbekistan, spinning in Turkey, dyeing in Bulgaria, weaving in Taiwan and assembling in Tunisia, before being delivered to us. Not to mention the metals for rivets and zippers, which follow an equally twisted path. Such aberrations are commonplace in consumer goods. Unfortunately, the industry is not immune to this phenomenon. The search for every penny earned pushes turned parts, small sub-assemblies or semi-manufactured products to considerably increase the CO2 emissions resulting from long-distance transport.
It is true that the industry is not responsible for the current pandemic, but rather a victim of it. Nevertheless, the drastic reduction inflicted by this health crisis on world production, which had become totally unbridled, did not take long to show effect. Recently, the people of Beijing were treated to a few days of blue sky, certainly a premiere for ages, as Venetians rediscovered to their astonishment that seawater is usually home to fish.
And now?
So the world seems to be doing much better after only a few weeks of deceleration. Maybe it’s time to ask the right questions. Without embracing the theories of degrowth advocated by some and whose long-term consequences are unknown, a redistribution of manufacturing areas, and therefore of wealth creation, would be an alternative to be studied. The notion of company relocation, which has been banned from marketing strategies for too long, dares to point its finger again. It is tempting to get out of the economic dependence currently limited to a few regions of the world while making a strong gesture for the environment. The price to be paid will certainly be high, but today, our World is clearly showing us that we are on the wrong track.
