“Green Thinking” at the 6th SAES

“Green thinking is finally coming to Asia” says Sanith de S. Wijeyeratne, Chief Operating Officer of The Carbon Consulting Company, Sri Lanka, the Sustainability Partner of the 6^th South Asia Economic Summit. IPS, the organizers of the 6^th SAES asked Sanith to write about his reflections on taking the Summit down a greener path.

“We are just starting to see organizations begin to take cognizance of their environmental impact in a meaningful manner. There have been some very clear early adopters – of course – where some organizations have inculcated good sustainability practices into their activities even before ‘green’ became a new ‘corporate buzzword’. But for the most part, many companies still labor under the lack of awareness about climate change and the impacts it is having on human existence.  And still in many board rooms, the subject is relegated to minor departmental functionaries with limited influence and even smaller budgets, to achieve whatever they possibly can in order that the proverbial tick can be placed in the appropriate box.  This is why the upcoming SAES conference is, in my opinion, such a landmark event.  It is the first time that a conference of this magnitude has clearly stepped up to the plate to say that they will be the greenest possible conference they can. It is also the first such conference in Sri Lanka to be Internationally Certified as CarbonNetural® through our partners in the UK – The CarbonNetural Company.  This is the kind of high level advocacy that sustainability needs in order to create a greater level of acceptance. Not only is the conference calculating and offsetting its entire carbon footprint, including emissions from international flights, local travel and hotel accommodation, it is also going out of its way to ensure that many facets of the day to day handling of the conference are carried on in a more environmentally friendly manner.  And in this regard I want to commend the organizers of the conference – the Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, for going out of its way to take these ‘green steps’.  The level of engagement has been a very deep one, and IPS seems committed toward extending this engagement not only to the invitees to the conference, but also to the many visitors who will be in attendance. My hope is that everyone who walks in through the conference doors will take back with them the message of incorporating sustainability into their activities that is advocated by the greenest Asian economic summit to date”.

Find out more about the 6th SAES going CarbonNeutral® here, and read more about Carbon Consulting Company’s activities here.