How Malaysia Can Achieve Sustainable Development

Dr. Hezri Adnan has written a book looking at Malaysian's eco-journey, trying to answer how vulnerable is Malaysia to droughts and water shortages and how will climate change affect this country? 

The devastating floods that hit Kelantan in December 2014 show that proper environmental
planning is needed. Photo: Bernama

What started out as a paper on environmental policy in Malaysia for a United Nations journal eventually turned into The Sustainability Shift ,  a 192-page book on sustainable development. Although the book took a few years to complete before it saw print, the author has no regrets whatsoever.

It aims to show how, through the reformation of “institutional hardware, software and ‘heartware’, Malaysia can nurture an inclusive, sustainable society and also benefit economically by greening its growth”.

So, how did the idea for the book come about?

“In 2005, I submitted a paper, with a colleague, to a United Nations Journal called Natural Resources Forum. The paper was on the evolution of environmental policy in Malaysia and the cap was 6,000 words, but we ended up writing 12,000 words!” recalled Hezri, when we met for an interview recently.

“The editor then said we actually have enough material for a book. That statement encouraged me to find a sponsor and get this material out in a proper book version,” explained Hezri, who obtained his PhD in Public Policy in 2006 from the Australian National University, where he is also an honorary associate profess.

“It was difficult because sustainable development is kind of an umbrella concept, yet policy prescriptions have got to come from different sectors,” said Hezri, who has co-edited two books, Towards Green Economy (2012) and Facets of Sustainability (2013).

“The key idea is there has to be three shifts – first, the shift away from thinking that sustainable development is just an environmental problem to now dealing with the whole of society and whole of government,” said Hezri, a member of the United Nations’ International Resource Panel since 2015.

The second shift is the need to think institutionally and in a systemic manner to link up all the different factions in society and also in government, he explained.

The third shift, he added, is to move away from just focusing on policy statements to implementation and thinking how to deliver all the promises made.

“It all sounds obvious but it’s not happening. The moment we say sustainability, we still think of the environment department and so on. That’s why we need to think in a broader manner, and that’s the framework of the book, which aims to put a story together so that people can now think of a new policy focus for sustainability,” he emphasised.

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