More than 3,000 delegates from over 80 countries gathered for this year’s Ecosperity Week organised by investment firm Temasek.
With the theme “From Ambition to Action”, attendees discussed ways to speed up and bring about scalable solutions for a low-carbon and resource-efficient future through activities such as roundtable discussions, site visits and an innovation showcase.
Eminent speakers included Ban Ki-moon, president and chair of the Global Green Growth Institute; Masagos Zulkifli, Singapore’s Minister for the Environment and Water Resources; and former United States Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.
Panel discussions covered a wide array of topics including water management, the circular economy and clean energy transition in Southeast Asia.
Held from June 4 to 7, Ecosperity Week featured 10 partner events such as an international forum on China’s fast-moving economy by Business China and a CEO roundtable by Global Compact Network Singapore to discuss the role of corporate sustainability.
Another partner event, The Liveability Challenge, shone a spotlight on the newest ideas to tackle resource constraints and waste. The final showdown, which was organised by Eco-Business, saw plant-based protein company Sophie’s Kitchen beating five other finalists for the grand prize of S$1 million in funding.
One of the speakers, former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Christiana Figueres, posed a simple challenge to attendees: Decide whether to be part of the solution.
Polar explorer Robert Swan had an equally personal message: “One of the biggest problems we face on Earth is that we believe that somebody else is going to sort this problem out. That somebody else is you.”
