Keynote Presentation - A Vision for Green Business: How Sustainability is Driving Innovation and Profit in the Economic Mainstream

Sustainability is entering the economic mainstream with the current administration making it a key component of the fiscal stimulus plan. CEOs of leading companies are now tackling environmental and social challenges, not as cost constraints but as business opportunities. Based on his new book, Sustainable Value (Stanford University Press, 2008), Dr. Chris Laszlo will discuss sustainability-driven business leadership and emerging management practices. The benefits, pathways and tactics of a profitable mainstream approach to green business will be presented. What are the barriers and key issues to be resolved? What are the resources needed and timing? Who are the stakeholders and what are their expectations? How will risk and innovation be encouraged and rewarded?

Dr. Chris Laszlo

Dr. Laszlo is Managing Partner and co-founder of Sustainable Value Partners, a firm that provides advisory services to senior leaders in some of the world's largest companies to transform societal opportunities and risks into sources of competitive advantage. He has led hundreds of executive seminars and spoken widely on "Sustainability for value and profit" inside companies and at leading business schools including Case Weatherhead School of Management and the European business school INSEAD. For nearly ten years, he was an executive at Lafarge, a world leader in building materials, holding positions as head of strategy, general manager of a manufacturing subsidiary, and vice president of business development. Prior to that he spent five years with Deloitte Touche, where he consulted on strategy to global industry leaders.