Sustainable development makes good business sense, BASD chief tells UN

New York, 29 January 2002 - Sustainable development can be best achieved within the context of an open market economy, BASD chief Sir Mark Moody Stuart told a United Nations conference here today.

Speaking at a preparatory conference for September's World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, Sir Mark said poverty eradication would become the single most important issue in Johannesburg and that business would be at the vanguard of finding solutions.

"Business remains the most potent force for wealth creation," he told the assembly of more than 500 UN delegates. "Sustainable development is best achieved through open, competitive, rightly-framed international markets that encourage efficiency and innovation.

"Countries with low incidences of poverty have largely achieved this through creating frameworks that encourage business enterprise. These enterprises offer people tools - business opportunities, jobs, wages, investment possibilities, training, and pensions - with which to build secure lives."

Emphasizing the importance of cooperation between the public and private sectors, Sir Mark said that business relied on sovereign governments to create conditions which encourage business entrepreneurship.

"Markets need a proper regulatory framework, a framework which prevents the formation of monopolies, government or private, and which ensures the availability and accuracy of information, so that informed consumer choices can be made," he said.

"Governments that make it hard for business to do business and that try to take the place of business in meeting peoples' needs stand in the way of prosperity."

Sir Mark added that business interest in sustainable development was born of self-interest. He said companies were increasingly beginning to understand that unless they embrace sustainable development policies, "will wither in the marketplace in the long-term."

"Let me emphasize that business is committed to sustainable development because it makes good business sense," he said. "There are many cases that can be made for sustainable development: moral, ethical, religious and environmental, but representatives of global business and industry emphasize the business case. The business case has a "triple bottom line" based on financial, social, and environmental performance. The paradigm is not "either or" but rather "and also"."

In closing, Sir Mark said that if Johannesburg was to be a success, all actors in the process had to recognize the importance of acting in partnership.

"Business, like major groups, wants meaningful dialogue and engagement throughout the process leading up to, and at the Summit itself," he said. "We are all striving to achieve real and lasting , truly sustainable, development. Business is a part of that process and part of the solution. Let us all move forward together."

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• Listen to the speech (Courtesy of IISD)