The president of the Malta Hotels and Restaurant Association Tony Zahra recently refrained from directly commenting on whether something must change to prevent restaurants and hotels from damaging the environment, as eNGOs claim and, instead, he pointed his finger at the "government to take these decisions".

In an interview with The Malta Independent on Sunday, Zahra was pressed on the negative effects that the so-called "cowboy developers" and hoteliers are having on the environment and Malta's touristic product.

"Doing nothing is also a political decision... and it has its own repercussions," Zahra said on the government.

Pressed on restaurants taking up pedestrian walk-way space with chairs and tables, he reiterated that this is a political decision and the MHRA, as a lobby group, will not comment on whether permission for tables and chairs to be taken outside should be granted or not.

One can look at these remarks from two points of view.

In the first sense, Zahra is of course right that if the government does nothing to preserve the environment, then that is a political decision in and of itself and does have its own repercussions.

It does appear to be the decision - certainly from a legislative perspective - that the government appears to have taken.  True and meaningful changes in order to stop the scourge of concrete that is rising ever higher and spreading ever wider do not appear to be coming, particularly as the government appears content to hide behind local plans drafted and published in 2006 rather than change anything in this sense. This is not to mention the policies introduced over the past few years which environmentalists have long argued should be withdrawn or changed. The take up of green areas and the intensity of development in others where infrastructure cannot keep up are a result of bad government policy decisions.

Maintaining the status quo, which certainly isn't in any way healthy for the environment, and here we include urban environment, is the most convenient option for the government.

However - and this brings us to the second point of view - blaming the status quo is also a very convenient option for the stakeholders who are the ones actually engaging in construction and in taking up public spaces.

The responsibility that Zahra is washing his hands of is the collective environmental responsibility which we all have to preserve and improve our own environment.

While yes, we look towards the government to have a proper environmental vision to follow: at the same time, each person should know what is better and what is worse, and take the initiative to do the former and not the latter.

The man in the street has this collective environmental responsibility theory told to him every other day: make sure you separate your waste, don't use single-use items, turn the light off when you leave the room, don't leave the water running while brushing your teeth, and so on.

These are little things which are not legislated (except for waste separation), but which people are implored to do out of their own initiative in order to improve the environment.

So why shouldn't businesses use their own initiative in order to improve the environment?  Why should they have to be told what is right? 

The collective in collective environmental responsibility doesn't refer to only the general public; it is everyone - from the government to the business community to the tourism community right down to the general public.