When sustainability fights against political lobbying
Switzerland is one of those rare countries where people can submit popular initiative for proposing a law at up to federal level. Four times a year, people vote for those initiatives and next weekend they will have to decide on CO2 emissions targets for 2030, quality of water and food and use of pesticides in local agriculture.
Popular initiatives are not rare but this weekend is quite the exception with 3 related to sustainability initiatives “grouped” together.
With the current pandemic and the resulting impact on the environment, topics such as those 3 are absolutely under the radar for people who care about their health and their impact on their direct environment.
Politically speaking, two clear sides emerged: the group to defend the “sustainability” initiatives composed of activists or NGOs such as WWF, Greenpeace, Pro Natura, Acquaviva, Birdlife and on the other side the farmers and the government.
At first sight we could easily imagine that most of the swiss citizen would rally around the NGOs and the initiatives, but we would then forget the power of the lobby of agriculture in Switzerland.
What Started as a clean victory for the 3 initiatives based on the early predictive polls seems to trend toward the refusal of most.
Why?
First communication and reach! Farmers started a marketing communication campaign using their massive fields to expose posters campaigning against the initiatives all around the country and getting traction on people unsure about their vote.
Second, MONEY! The side against the initiatives is claiming that those initiatives would put in danger 300 000 jobs related to food production in Switzerland.
And here comes the interesting dilemma, would you put your family health on the side to support jobs which are potentially at risk? Of course nothing proves that the jobs will really be at risk or that your health will be that impacted.
What started as a way to improve health now is leaning again towards money and jobs. Will one day sustainability win the battle against lobbying? The answer next Sunday at Swiss voting booth!
