ISLAMABAD: The Swedish embassy on Friday launched the seven-day challenge – Eat, Move and Live Sustainably in Pakistan, together with WWF-Pakistan.

The aim of the campaign is to promote eco-friendly lifestyle choices and create awareness about their impact on the environment.

At a ceremony arranged at the residence of Swedish Ambassador Henrik Persson to mark the launch, participants were informed that as the number of participants grows, the challenge would contribute to a greater public awareness about climate change and reducing individual carbon footprints.

To ensure that the challenge received much needed public attention, climate activists, influencers, and policy makers would participate and actively promote the challenge through their social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Henrik Persson welcomed the participants and said: “Let’s start a more sustainable and smarter lifestyle together today! It can be as simple as saying no to single use of plastic products or using a bicycle whenever you can to reduce your carbon footprint.”

The ambassador said he saw a huge potential for Pakistan and Sweden to collaborate even further in this area, as both countries aspired to fight climate change and lead the green transition.

WWF-Pakistan’s Director General Hammad Naqi Khan said: “We are witnessing the impact of human activities on the environment, including droughts, heat waves and floods. As the world embarks on the UN decade for ecosystem restoration, Pakistan is well-positioned to take advantage of a wide window of opportunities.”

“The government, private sector and non-profit organisations are all aligned towards the preservation of natural resources. Despite this, plastics account for 65pc of the total waste in Pakistan and 36 million tonnes of food go to waste every year. This campaign with the Embassy of Sweden is an effort to create awareness around this issue and address the missing link, by encouraging individuals to step up and make eco-friendly choices for a sustainable future,” Mr Khan said.

In his remarks, Minister for National Food Security and Research Syed Fakhar Imam said contribution Pakistan made to global warming was much less compared with hyper economies such as the US, EU, Japan now China and Brazil, which were real emitters.

He said nature had endowed Pakistan with fauna and flora that few nations had, but the country had witnessed extreme anomalies.

“Heat waves, droughts and floods, slowly but surely temperatures will rise and challenge our scientists, policy makers, leaders, most of all individuals who can bring change in both private and corporate sectors. It is their responsibility to make citizens aware through quality of education and in high tech,” he added.

Chairperson of Senate Standing Committee on Climate Change Senator Seemi Ezdi was also present as a special guest, besides Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed.

During the event a panel of guest speakers, including Swedish company representatives from Tetra Pak Pakistan, Tundra Founder and Hennes and Mauritz (H&M), shared their business strategies to address climate change.

Another panel featured the chairperson of Islamabad Wildlife Management Board and experts from WWF-Pakistan. Saaf Suthra Sheher talked about rethinking lifestyle choices and discussed some of the easiest and most impactful habits on the individual level.

The event was attended by partners of Sweden and WWF-Pakistan from different spheres of the society including high-level officials from government, diplomatic missions, private sector, Swedish alumni, media, and the civil society.

As a Swedish concept, the seven-day challenge has been successfully carried out in Kenya, Brazil, Vietnam, and Indonesia with more countries to join.

Published in Dawn, October 16th, 2021