Business and government must begin taking action to make our economies sustainable, the UK boss of IBM said today.
Speaking at the launch of a nine-day summit on b
usiness and sustainability that kicks off in London on September 8, Stephen Leonard, UK chief executive of
IBM, challenged the view that capitalism and sustainability were incompatible, but said the next decade had to deliver solutions.
"The next 10 years must be about decisions," he said. "There are those who say capitalism and sustainability can’t go together. We fundamentally disagree. This is about applying enlightened self-interest."
Prince of Wales' Start
The summit, which is being held at Lancaster House, is part of the Prince of Wales’ Start initiative, which aims to show people the positive steps that are being taken and which they can take to ensure a sustainable future.
Leonard said businesses shouldn’t view sustainability as something they had to do, but look at what sustainability could do for business. And he said many of the necessary technologies for delivering a sustainable future already existed, though challenges remained to deploying them.
"There are more interconnected intelligent and integrated devices today than there are grains of rice," he said. "That’s staggering, but to unleash those grains of rice there are challenges to overcome."
Delivering recommendations
The summit aims to address some of those challenges. Covering a range of topics and sectors, including
energy,
transport, supply chain,
finance and skills, it has been deliberately designed to engender discussion and come up with recommendations.
It has attracted some big names from industry, including M&S chairman Sir Stuart Rose, Euan Sutherland, ceo of Kingfisher, and Matt Brittan, managing director of Google UK. Transport Secretary Philip Hammond, energy minister Charles Hendry and Baroness Wilcox will also be speaking at the event.
"This summit is genuinely about discussion and debate," said Leonard, who added that "thousands of leaders of business, academics and subject matter experts" were convening on London to take part in the debates.
Running alongside the summit, the Prince’s Start charities will be hosting a 12-day festival in the gardens of Clarence House, Lancaster House and Marlborough House to demonstrate the steps people and organisations can and are making to build a more sustainable future.
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