Singapore: Over 600 delegates, including those from India, are expected to take part in a business forum on sustainable development to be held here next week, officials said today.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Global Initiatives, will welcome business and sustainability leaders, senior government officials, UN agencies, NGOs from across the globe for the Responsible Business Forum (RBF), which will have a series of conferences and workshops to be held from November 22 to 24.
Among Indian delegates, Anuj Mehra, Managing Director, Mahindra Rural Housing Finance, will address the conference on “End Poverty”, organisers said.
“With 2016 as yet another hottest year on record, it is now urgent to innovate, scale up and increase efficiency to achieve the SDG’s,” said Haoliang Xu, UN Assistant Secretary-General and UNDP Director for Asia-Pacific.
“As we engage the business community here at RBF to break new ground on their existing sustainability commitments, we need to ‘walk the talk’ ourselves in running the event. We also want to get everyone thinking about how much each single plastic cup, plane ride, conference badge actually impacts the earth,” explains Tony Gourlay, CEO, Responsible Business Forum, Global Initiatives.
Key impact issues that RBF faces include carbon emissions created by the high volume of international flights to Singapore for delegates, food waste, stage set production waste, delegates communication materials, catering as well as a high-energy demand for the event, they said.