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How can we make Wangari Maathai Proud

5th Jun, 2017

This year’s World Environmental Day theme is centered on ‘Connecting People with Nature’. The theme urges you to think about how intimately we depend on nature. The idea behind it is for us to find fun and exciting ways to be adventurous and appreciate it all. For instance, when was the last time you took a trip to the National Park? Or planned a picnic at Karura Forest? Think about it.

Kenya has made some headlines regarding environmental treatment; some good, and some bad. Investments in renewable energy is one of the areas we have thrived in our efforts to connect with our environment.

Not only have we broken global records regarding geothermal energy exploitation, but we are sitting on an untapped 7000 Mw of geothermal capacity within the Rift Valley System. The country has invested $1.3 billion in wind, geothermal and biofuel technologies. Overall, 49.7% of our energy production comes from environmentally friendly hydro-power, which implies that it is efficient enough for the population that uses electricity in the country.

What Kenya has never done right, however, is our garbage disposal (especially in the cities). The streets of the Nairobi CBD are littered with garbage while the Dandora landfill is beyond its capacity, and has already outlived its recommended 14 year lifespan. Proactive waste management companies need to compliment disposal efforts over and above what the County does to tackle the 2400 tonnes of daily solid waste we produce. However, measures are currently underway to ban plastic bags in Kenya by August 28th 2017. Plastic bags pose a huge threat to our environment.

With the population expected to rise sharply in the next decade, we have to ask ourselves what kind of environment we are leaving for future Kenyans. We need to make efforts towards a more sustainable lifestyle. For instance, KCB is embedding sustainability in its operations fully by sensitizing the application of the 4Rs (reduce, reuse, recover, recycle). How about we start the same in our households, this way we would definitely be taking a step in the right direction.

On that #KCBISWITHNATURE, are you?

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