Sustainable Economy

“We have a unique but rapidly shrinking window of opportunity to learn lessons and reset ourselves on a more sustainable path”   

Prince Charles at World Economic Forum – 2020

The conventional versus non-conventional, the capitalist versus socialist and the Momentary Economy versus Sustainable Economy – the choice is yours and NOW!

The concept of sustainable economy revolves around the 17 sustainable development goals defined by the United Nations. India is ranked 116 among 157 nations. The score on the SDG index is 58.1, which is behind countries such as Nepal, Iran, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and China.

In order for India to achieve the UN SDG 2030 goals we need a comprehensive approach from the Corporates, NGOs, Government, and most importantly Investors. In recent times, the Investors have played an active role to ensure that Corporates adhere to sustainable practices by investing on the basis of Environment, Social and Governance (ESG). They are aggressively coming up with new tools such as SDG Frameworks, CDP Rating and more to accomplish the 2030 goals.

Rating the companies on sustainability, building an index and thereon creating a sustainable stock exchange which is tradeable is an ideal way to achieve Sustainable Economy.

This would be the contribution from the Financial sector globally but the Government needs to play an active role too. The Government has the maximum number and the maximum budget for social welfare projects to ensure sustainability. The accountability, transparency and impact of these projects are rarely measured. In order, to accomplish an absolute Sustainable Economy, we need to ensure that the processes such as measuring, monitoring and reporting used in the Corporate world should be replicated in the Governance systems. These could be applicable from PM Care, CM Care to various Ministry funding.

An absolute Sustainable Economy consists of apt steps taken for environment, education and healthcare for the community, livelihood generation and other 17 SDGs. The shift towards Sustainable Economy is inevitable and the sooner we begin the smoother the learning would be.