Indian Companies with Solutions that the World Needs (Report)

Role: Co-author with Sachin Joshi, Seema Arora and  Shirish Sinha

Summary
This report, ‘Indian Companies with the solutions that the World Needs’, builds on the previous report “Indian Companies in the 21st Century” by WWF and explores in a more detailed manner how some companies in India are understanding and responding to changing sustainability trends through innovation and business strategy.1

The five in-depth case studies and two examples in this report include companies from diverse economic sectors that have varied economic, social and environmental concerns and impacts. Nevertheless, they contain some common threads and lessons that can be applied in different contexts. The case studies capture key initiatives and identify important ways in which sustainability has affected the drivers of business competitiveness and success: access to markets, operational efficiency, access to capital or superior reputation, and most importantly innovation.

Recent years have seen a growing range of economic, social, environmental and governance issues push into the mainstream of politics and business. The priorities for action emerging from a range of summit meetings - such as the G8 and the World Economic Forum - tend to share one common characteristic: they all relate to current market failures or dysfunctions.

While most sustainability challenges – such as income disparity, loss of biodiversity and assosiated impacts - are not new; globalisation has directly or indirectly exacerbated many problems to a degree where many of these questions are now dealt with as matters of global and national security, e.g. climate change and food prices. Information technology is propelling increased awareness about the scope of societal needs and the lack of progress to date by governments and traditional non-governmental organisations. Businesses, civil society and governments, once considered strange bed-fellows, are now working together to resolve some of the most chronic problems.

This trend was implicit in the 2008 agenda of the World Economic Forum annual meeting at Davos, which closed with a call by business, government and civil society leaders for a new brand of collaborative and innovative leaders to address the challenges of globalisation, particularly the pressing problems of conflict, terrorism, climate change and water conservation.2

Business, political and civil society leaders at the World Economic Forum’s India Economic Summit 2007, called on India to focus on skills development, improving governance, upgrading of education, forging public- private partnerships in infrastructure and addressing environmental degradation and water scarcity to sustain the high growth the country requires.

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Re-think China's Outward Investment Flows (Report)

Role: Co-author with Baijin Long

Summary
Two hundred years ago, China was the largest economy on earth, and in a few decades, the country will most certainly reclaim that position. There can therefore be little doubt that the future of China will shape the global economy; the question is, in what direction?

This report sets out to examine one of the greatest challenges in the 21st century, namely, how to combine global economic development and a sustainable use of natural resources.

The objective is to encourage a constructive discussion regarding the rapidly increasing outward investment flows from China, from a global sustainability perspective. The report explores the roles of the different actors involved and the manner in which the underlying trends driving this outward investment can be directed to ensure sustainable resource use.

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Arab Companies in the 21st Century (Report)

Role: Co-author with Tareq Emtairah and Suzanne Påhlman

Summary
The study, undertaken in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is inspired by a series of initiatives undertaken by WWF with an intention to identify and to work with various proactive key players in emerging economies of the world like India,

China, Russia, Brazil and South Africa. This study focuses on the scope and potential for companies in the UAE and the rest of the Arab world to emerge as leaders in investment and export of sustainable goods and services, as well as becoming a key international actor in promoting and supporting sustainable development.

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Indian Companies in the 21st Century (Report)

Role: Co-author with Mohmmed Saqib and Rajesh Sehgal

Summary
In a situation where the world requires innovative companies to address
the serious global challenges faced by humanity, including high resource consumption, pollution, population growth, demographic and geopolitical changes, India, with its rapidly changing business environment, may indeed prove to be one of the most important countries on the planet over the next several decades.5

This report shows that there exists significant interest within the Indian business sector in sustainable development and innovative solutions that can be applied to achieve this goal. The approaches utilised in this regard by lead- ers in the Indian corporate sector are well ahead of many of their western counterparts, which are often, and often erroneously, viewed as leaders in the eld of corporate social responsibility (CSR). A number of common denominators exist within the progressive approach of these Indian companies, and these have been collectively referred to by one Indian company as “third generation CSR”.

This third generation CSR is an approach where companies look to ensure that their core businesses deliver sustainable development results. This dif- fers from the rst generation of CSR, that looked at philanthropy as one way of using pro ts, and the second generation that was searching for ways of minimizing the negative impacts of the companies’ operations.

The most important element of the third generation CSR is that it examines the core activities of a company and determines means by which the company can evolve in order to ensure that it contributes to welfare, even if this does not translate into immediate returns. This approach means that environmental and social concerns are the starting point for the business activity, as opposed to being factored in at the end. Rather than compromising on pro t, companies provide information that allows government to proactively change business regulations in order to reward companies which deliver on social and environ- mental objectives, such as reducing the use of natural resources.

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Chinese Companies in the 21st Century (Report)

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Role: Co-author with Peng Lei and Baijin Long

Summary
This report is based on a survey of 182 of the largest and most important Chinese companies. WWF would like to highlight the following summarized results and outline possible steps forward.

1. A significant minority (22%) of Chinese companies say they are going beyond current regulation and some (13%) are even suggesting tougher rules. Many of these companies also have concrete suggestions that could help China become a leader in the provision of sustainable goods and serv- ices, not only in China but also for the rest of the world, and thereby move beyond the existing CSR discussion.

2. While one group of companies takes environmental issues seriously and is proactive, a large group could be described as almost hostile to environ- mental issues and do not even want to engage in discussions. 39% of respondents said “many” or “very many” Chinese companies were breaking the law, and 57% said companies were trying to lower standards.

3. There is a need to develop domestic solutions that support export of prod- ucts and services that help the environment, according to 78% of the com- panies surveyed.

4. 85% think traditional Chinese philosophical concepts like “union of nature and man” could help both Chinese and foreign companies become more environmentally friendly. 96% thought that the “circular economy”, a modern concept used widely in China today, also could be of help.

5. 85% of the companies said there is a need for stronger rules for environ- mental reporting, transparency and monitoring for large companies. Only 2% said there wasn’t and 13% said they didn’t know.

6. 53% said they would be willing to engage with NGOs like WWF in discus- sion about how sustainable development can be promoted, even though NGOs are not yet key actors in China and for many Chinese companies the idea of policy work with NGOs is new.

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