Eliezer Batista. (Photo: Antonio Andrade)
“What drives me and gives me great strength is the other. It’s knowing that I can always do something for someone.”, Eliezer Batista, aged 88, in an interview with Trip Magazine, in 2012
The year was 1997, Brazil had recently emerged from Eco 92, and ten years had passed since the concept of sustainable development had first appeared in a UN document, the Brundtland Report – Our Common Future, in 1987. It was becoming increasingly clear and evident to those who were aware of the future of the human species that the speed at which natural resources were being consumed was putting the survival of the planet at risk. Business groups began to organize themselves all over the world, and Brazil was no exception. Led by business leaders, the Brazilian Business Council for Sustainable Development (CEBDS) was founded on March 5, 1997. At the forefront of the project was one of the most respected businessmen in the country: Eliezer Batista, alongside Félix de Bulhões, Erling Lorentzen, Raphael de Almeida Magalhães and Wilberto Lima Júnior.
Known for his strategic vision of the future, always ahead of his time, Eliezer brought to CEBDS concepts with which he had already begun to work in the Carajás Project, when he was still at the helm of Vale. This was when, for the first time in the country, an integrated approach was sought with the three pillars of sustainable development: economic, social and environmental. The concept of sustainable development had not been developed at that time, but experts attribute part of the development of the concept to this experience in Carajás: Swiss businessman Stephan Schmidheiny came to Brazil to coordinate ECO 92, in Rio de Janeiro. At the time, he visited Carajás (PA) and came across the economic, environmental and social aspects applied simultaneously. From the practice observed, Schmidheiny moved on to theory and organized the concept of sustainable development, expanding the postulate of environmental emphasis coined in 1987 in the Brundtland Report, mentioned above.
In fact, Eliezer Batista's contribution to building the idea of sustainability in Brazil is invaluable. Accustomed to running large enterprises, Eliezer was directly involved in environmental issues from an early age. He drafted the 1965 forest code, one of the first, and used to say that in order to achieve the goal of sustainability, scientific knowledge of the regions that will be economically exploited is necessary, above all.
“Today, the only immediate thing you can do to mitigate the effects of the climate is to plant trees. There is nothing else that will have an immediate effect. We will need to use alternative energy sources, but all of this will take a long time. For immediate effects, what we have to do is recover. There is no water without forests. And without water, there is no life. The forest is a way to recover water resources and, therefore, recover life, recover the environment,” he said in an interview with the website O ECO, in 2007, at the age of 84.
Brazilian version of World Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), CEBDS was born with the idea of making sustainable development seen as an instrument to strengthen business and open up new opportunities. The message was quickly understood by national business leaders and in its first year, CEBDS created unique thematic chambers for Environmental Legislation and Eco-efficiency, occupied a seat on the Sustainable Development Policies Commission and another on the National Agenda 21, in addition to producing the first corporate sustainability report published in the country, delivered to President Fernando Henrique Cardoso with over 200 pages.
Eliezer Batista died this Monday (18), at the age of 94, leaving behind an extensive trajectory of success and innovation in favor of sustainability. CEBDS is an important legacy for Brazilian businesspeople, for future generations and for the sustainability of the planet.
