Invitation from the Head of the Centre:

The current financial crisis and economic slowdown has left businesses and governments scrambling for solutions to remain afloat, redraw plans, redo strategies, and redirect resources. Together with climate change, terrorism, and poverty-induced threats, the existing designs of institutions that act as guardians, drivers and protectors of human society are being constantly challenged.

Unless businesses and governments innovate to low-carbon and sustainable growth, they will cease to remain competitive. The new form of competitiveness is to derive profitability and efficiency from being sustainable to the core. This entails a new perception of competitiveness that can create the possibility for sustainable development and long-lasting competitiveness.

Difficult economic slowdown periods offer opportunities to improve resource efficiency, reduce fossil-fuel dependency, partner with key stakeholders, reduce costs and make more profits.

Our Centre is assembling leaders and practitioners from businesses, governments, media, and NGOs, to answer a fundamentally universal question:  what should businesses and governments do to remain competitive and emerge stronger towards the end of the current economic and environmental crisis?

The occasion is the Centre's 3rd Sustainability Summit: Asia 2008, 11-12 December 2008.

With this, I am inviting you to join this team of leaders and practitioners to identify ways of emerging stronger out of the current economic slowdown, so as to be able to remain competitive to face sustainability challenges of the future.

Please check this newsletter further for details on how you could participate. Alternatively, you could also check our website: www.sustainabledevelopment.in

I look forward to meeting you at the Summit.

Regards,
Seema Arora

Sustainable Business Trends Update:

While the ongoing economic crisis is most talked about among businesses and governments, a chorus singing the 'green' tune is growing. The chorus is calling for massive public investment in clean, green energy to revive economic growth while fighting climate change.

Backing the "Green New Deal", epitomizing such a call, leaders from the US, Europe and select institutions of global governance argue that industrialised countries can kill two birds with one stone and create millions of "green collar" jobs. While good sense should prevail, but it is certain that the slowdown will affect investments in green tech as well as the EU's proposed legislation to fight climate change.

Chase for the green paper is indeed to save epitomes of capitalism, probably because our world without them is difficult to imagine or perhaps they are still required to galvanise investments and technologies for the "Green New Deal". The priority is certainly to resolve immediate crisis over tackling long-term challenges. According to the New Energy Finance, fresh investment in clean power is estimated to decline by four percent in 2008 compared over previous year due to the crisis. Barack Obama has also sounded that the credit crunch could slow his plans for a $150 billion clean energy program.

However, there is still hope on investments in technologies that help reduce costs and improve resource efficiency. And that will keep the growth in clean investments going though with low momentum. It is estimated that investments in clean power will be $142 billion this year.

Therefore, business and political leaders will need to find new models and technologies in order to elicit solutions to both challenges. If green and inclusive capitalism is the desired future of our world, then balancing investment flows in the two areas should be the current focus.