CAMAGUEY.- Each day, we focus on interesting headlines: a progress in telephones, factories in advance with the latest technology, a robot will have feelings in 2025, and we forget to ask ourselves about the current state of our planet, for example, what are the dimensions of the ozone layer hole? What are the measures taken to stop the acid rains? Will we notice the damage when it becomes irreversible?

“We need a stronger environmental culture” , answered to these questions the professor Aristides Pellegri Mesa, who has the environmental health as a priority since a decade ago, which has led him to investigate and promote the new economic sustainability challenges for Cuba and Latin America.

This professor of the University of Camaguey Ignacio Agramonte Loynaz (UC), who was the first Cuban to hold the Second Category academic degree in Accounting and Financial Sciences, claims that the insuperable goal so far is to achieve an agreement about the sustainability in Latin America.

“The topic is monopolized by the critical thoughts of other continents’ scholars, mainly from Europe. So we have to take it to the Cuban context and work more on the legal treatment of what we do”. Furthermore, we have to add these elements to the accounting, economic and administrative jargon of professionals and executives of the local governments, we give them the tools but the choices correspond to other people”.

_The interest for concretize the search of policies and measures to protect the nature led to the book La Gestion Ambiental y la sustentabilidad empresarial. How did that idea come out?

_It came out of an agreement between the UC Accounting and Financial Sciences PhD and the one of Development Management and Administrative Sciences from the Mexican University of Veracruz. Both of the programs needed relevant researches and outstanding publications, and this was an important mean to achieve it.

_What is the book about?

_The main topic is the sustainability, so it is emphasized in a very discussed theme, unresolved though within the Administrative Sciences: the Accounting Economic Treatment of the Environmental Parties. In that point, we work with the coffee-growing and touristic sector of Cuba Veracruz, that have similar environmental problems, which we intend to solve from the academy in specific situations of its economists and accountants.

“The book contains 12 articles, six from each center, which belong to masterships and PhD thesis with important scientific contributions and action plans to avoid environmental damages. It also states the points of view of the Las Tunas and Guantanamo universities’ specialists and the Environment Investigation Center’s in Camaguey”.

_Are there factors that block a wider dissemination and study of the economic sustainability in Cuba?

_We are unsatisfied with the study’s plans and programs of our university degrees, because the sustainability topic is focused on the optional subjects, although the Higher Education Ministry wants to turn them in mandatory subjects. Other countries such as: Costa Rica, Mexico and Spain have that kind of system, and we should not lag behind, since we have great results in the academic and investigation matter, but we have to give it preference in the Higher Education.

The Environment is an important resource for the companies and its economy, but its management has to be efficient to benefit not only the institution but also human beings. With the book La Gestion Ambiental y la sustentabilidad empresarial, Cuban and Aztec universities give these sciences a guide to achieve positive impacts from the economic, environmental and social perspective.