Participated in parts of Globe Forum 2008 with the theme: "Business Innovation for Sustainable Growth", Wednesday and Thursday. Like most conferences with a focus on global challenges there were quite a few people there with good ideas. The question I have if we will see a new generation of gatherings where people identify opportunities and challenges already before the conferences, pledge to work on certain areas before. Use the conference to explore synergies and revise the pledges. The conference would then become a launching platform for real action.
"Unlike other measures that rank countries according to the environmental performance of their governments, companies and other factors, the Greendex is the first to rank the performance of individual consumers, rather than countries as a whole.
Consumption as measured by the Greendex is determined both by the choices consumers actively make—such as repairing rather than replacing items, using cold water to wash laundry, choosing green products rather than environmentally unfriendly ones—and choices that are controlled more by their circumstances, such as the climate they live in or the availability of green products or public transport. The initiative considered both these factors, with 60 percent of the 65-variable index based on choice or discretionary behavior."
Poor Li Nan had to fight red tape and spend half of the morning to get a visa to Switzerland , but after that adventure we visited NDRC (Institute of Economic Research and Institute of Social Development) to discuss with the experts that will work on the report we are doing to support our project that focus on the 12th five year plan. For the world to better understand the opportunities and make sure we support targets that are crucial for a peaceful development requires us to think ahead, in this case only a few years ahead. Still maybe one of the most crucial times of our time when it comes to economic development of the world and global resource consumption.Will post our folder about the project as soon as it is ready, probably in June.
I spent a good part of the afternoon at the Communication University of China (CUC) with Liu Wanying where we met the teams that have produced the top nine contributions in the “short movie” competition that GlobalFOCUS/WWF here in China has arranged with the aim to provide visions from the future/China related to the challenges that climate change/resource consumption on western levels pose. It is meant to be solution oriented, inspire action and provide a glimpse into how the next generation in China is approaching these issues. 
Had great meeting with China Mobile together with Li Nan where we discussed the structure and focus of our joint project that we just started about the role of ICT to reduce CO2 emissions. It is easy to feel that resources spent by most environmental organizations are less than optimal when it comes to result on invested work when you look at the potential and willingness to engage in a serious way. Our work will link to their new Green Action Plan and is part of our joint work with MOFCOM. 
With Skype strange situations happens. Sitting in Beijing, in Jade Garden Hotel close to the forbidden city, where the increasing food prices are being discussed intensively and so are links to Africa for obvious reasons.Then talking to Penny Davies who participates in an OECD meeting in Kigali about aid, who is living in Hôtel des Mille Collines, the hotel that became “famous” as the building in which more than a thousand people took refuge during the Rwandan Genocide of 1994.
Only 14 years ago… Beijing was a very different place then… The following was world news April 1994 from China:
"Beijing's first public showroom for imported cars opens this week, an important step in turning the car from a tool of privilege into an ordinary commodity."
Now oil, food and China top news, still few are discussing the links and the history that brought us here.
+100 for companies providing services that are reasonable sustainable and have a track record of supporting low carbon legislation/initiatives (not very many on the top 50 list)
+50 for companies that are doing more good than harm through investments and/or lobbying
0 for companies that are neutral (either with a business that is not really pushing in any direction or a company that do as much good as bad)
-50 for companies that are starting to move in a more low carbon direction and/or doing some lobbying in support of a low carbon development. But where the majority of the business is still in a high carbon area and the majority of investments still go in a direction where they lock us into a structure that making reductions more difficult
-100 for companies that still investing in high carbon solutions and either blocking or in other ways trying to stop rules and regulations that support a low carbon future.
Looking at top 50 I get the following list (based on my knowledge on the companies and rather giving a good score than a bad, so in reality we might be a little worse off, but as the rhetoric is carbon friendly in most cases I think we can get a momentum as soon as the biggest obstacles are out of the way) :
2 Companies +100
2 Companies +50
17 Companies 0
17 Companies -50
11 Companies -100
This would result in a 2008 Future/Fossil Power index of: -33
So we still have a long way to go, and I hope to follow-up this next year. Hopefully with a much better score.
Let’s look at the revenues and profit for the top sectors:
Winners Sales in billion dollars
Oil & Gas 3,761
Banking 3,439
Insurance 2,085
Consumer Durables 2,019
Retailing 1,549
Winners Profit in billion dollars
Banking 398
Oil & gas 386
Insurance 150
Minerals 143
Div. financials 135
The first thing that could my interest is that the power shift seems to go faster than most people expected. Obviously institutional structures make the shift visible in everyday life as these new comers do not operate in the same way (or in the same regions) as the old ones.
Winners Gain/Loss in companies 2004 vs. 2008
China 45 (60 if Hong Kong is included)
India 21
Brazil 19
Russia 17
Hong Kong 15
Losers Gain/Loss in companies 2004 vs. 2008
US -153
Japan -57
UK -23
Germany -6
Netherlands -5
Market Value
A good day yesterday when Arne Forstenberg was awarded “outstanding leader for the future” by JCI Sweden. Good luck to Arne and maybe his trip to India can be linked to the World Economic Forum meeting that also will take place in India in November.
Just attended a meeting in Tokyo where the World Economic Forum was partnering with the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications to convene a meeting of its IT and Telecoms Strategic & Government Affairs community in Tokyo on Wed 23rd and Thu 24th April. The meeting brought together senior executives from the IT and Telecoms industries and the Japanese Government.The greatest news was that the government in Japan has taken a global lead and produced a report that, using very conservative estimations, show that Japan can reduce 38 million tonnes CO2. (68 million in savings minus 30 million from the use of ICT). This put Japan at the lead at the exact right time. As Japan will host the G8 summit this summer there is chance that the role of ICT could become part of the international climate agenda. If ICT companies want they could take the lead and show that they can be winners as the world moves toward a low carbon economy.
