What is the role of public relations in sustainable development and environmental protection? This question may have occupied the minds of many of us. To answer it, one should first know what sustainable development based on environmental protection is, then examine the role of public relations in this field.
For a better understanding of sustainable development based on environmental protection, the first issue that attracts our attention is the field of green politics, which is the newest area discussed today in ecological protection and climate change. Green politics emerged as a significant political force in many countries after the mid-1970s, although there are differences between it and environmentalism. Environmentalists have generally accepted the social, economic and innovation structures in the political world, and have tried to improve environmental conditions within these structures. Meanwhile, the field of green politics considers those structures as the main root of ecological crises and claims that these structures should be challenged and taken beyond them.
This is why there are widely spread views regarding green politics; in the field of international relations, Eckersley 1 introduces eco-centeredness as the defining feature of green political theory, which means negating the human-centered worldview and supporting an independent worldview for ecosystems and living organisms. On the other hand, Dobson adds another critical feature as the second axis in the field of green policy, in addition to the cases considered by Eckersley, which is “limitations to growth,” which means that he believes that the increasing economic growth in the past centuries is the root cause of the current environmental crisis.
Environmentalism is not limited to technical issues alone. It has also involved other fields; one of the most important fields is modern political economy. In the past decades, governments and companies have included environmental concerns in their management practices. And even this issue is increasing; although this does not mean improving ecological problems, on the contrary, critical environmental issues such as greenhouse gas emissions, excessive water consumption, soil degradation, etc., have remained unsolved and even increased their volume. Therefore, environmental issues have become more visible in social discourses, in such a way that environmental and social movements try to directly or indirectly influence the decisions of governments and companies and be effective in implementing environmentally friendly choices. Among the environmental activities, we can mention the Green Peace, Friends of the Earth, and the World Wildlife Fund movements, which are established to address the destruction of the ecosystem and increase in pollution resulting from industrial development, and are taking action in two forms: confrontation (through action and protests) and non-confrontational (lobbying and litigation).
Among other issues that have attracted the attention of analysts in the field of modern political economy are trade and environment, which unfortunately was not on the agenda of the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 and should have been paid attention to. Therefore, considering trade disputes related to the environment and the relationship between trade organizations such as the World Trade Organization (W.T.O) and the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA), the link between trade/environment/development was considered. The environmental and social effects of international production chains, export-oriented agricultural and industrial development, etc., were investigated. Therefore, research in the fields of business, innovation and the environment was given attention to. Thus, the way companies deal with environmental and social issues is focused on greening production by increasing energy efficiency and reducing the production of waste and toxic greenhouse gases, redesigning products, and topics such as ecological efficiency, industrial metabolism, greening production chains, and natural capitalism were included in the agenda of research, companies and governments, in this field.
This is why climate changes and agricultural methods, such as Rio meeting, were repeated in the following years, and in this context, we can mention the Kyoto and Copenhagen meetings. But the said meetings did not lead to significant results. From this point of view, perhaps it is necessary to emphasize the meetings related to climate change, i.e., the Paris meeting, which was the 21st meeting of the contracting parties and the 11th meeting of the pledgers of the Kyoto meeting and was held from November 30 to December 11 in Paris, France, to reach a global consensus for combating climate change, and in this context the Paris agreement approved and published at the end of the meeting (by 195 countries). Points for facing climate change, unravelling the dilemma of fighting climate change, and investing n a low-carbon, resilient, flexible and sustainable economy. The Paris Agreement had a clear framework of measures and protections, specifying conditions for least-developed countries and small islands. But perhaps the most influential meetings in the field of limiting climate change and protecting the environment should be considered the 2021 Glasgow meeting, which was held in Glasgow on October 31 of this year, and was the 26th meeting on climate change of the United Nations under the title COP26. The subject of the Glasgow meeting was the concrete implementation of the Paris Agreement, according to which global warming should be reduced to 1.5 degrees if the worldwide warming path is on the way to 2.7 degrees, which is very dangerous.
But the importance of this meeting was for two main reasons. The first reason is that this meeting was held with a long delay due to the Corona pandemic. The second reason is that the Glasgow meeting is the first meeting that reviews the achievements and goals of the Paris Agreement and discusses and criticizes it. Based on this, the current session aims to eliminate the use of coal, st3, gradually. In this meeting, industrialized countries pledged to help developing countries accelerate the reduction of pollutant production, and their respective governments were asked to remove fossil fuel subsidies.
Now the question is, what is the public relations position and role in environmentalism and environmental protection? The answer is: Public relations play the main role in this regard and private managers and public opinion, environmental movements, and even researchers. The mission of public relations is to increase the level of people’s participation, which depends on mechanisms such as fair distribution of information, enlightenment of public opinion, public empowerment and respect for human rights, which are signs of scientific, cultural, economic, and social development of a society.
On the other hand, public relations, with the help of media diplomacy, can play an active role in the field of environmental protection, which means that public relations, by using media diplomacy tools, can communicate with the world’s public opinion and the latest demands, information, innovations and Acquire global capacities for environmental protection and new technologies in this field and provide them to their respective managers for ecological protection planning. On the other hand, public relations can make the public aware of the green programs and methods of the government and its companies, and as a result, take advantage of the high capacity of people for achieving their green ideals and implement them. Therefore, it can be seen that the prominent role of protecting the environment and limiting climate change is on the shoulders of public relations, which is a very active role and is based on the participation of governments and companies in the social arena and public opinion, as well as the development of green technologies.
