August 5 /CSRwire/ - In today's global market economy corporations have more business opportunities and challenges than ever before. As the private sector's influence has grown, sustainable development has become an increasing business expectation. Companies must stimulate innovation and economic development and ensure an improved quality of life for their employees, customers and communities. Singapore's location as a global hub for the electronics, financial, petro-chemical, shipping and other key business sectors create a natural laboratory to examine strategies for successfully implementing sustainable development and obtaining business value from its adoption across the value chain.

Through a unique partnership, the World Environment Center, headquartered in Washington, D.C., and the Singapore Environment Council have organized this roundtable to stimulate innovative thinking and demonstrate practical business solutions to major societal challenges. The roundtable has four major objectives:

• Enabling sustainable development leaders from global corporations, government and other organizations to build additional competencies and perspectives in comparing their current business practices with those of other global leaders.
  
• Understanding the challenges and opportunities of designing and implementing leading edge sustainable development strategies.
  
• Creating value through innovative process and product design, and building long-term partnerships.
  
• Challenging the Singapore business community to aspire to greater levels of commitment to advancing sustainable development in their own business strategies and operations.

This roundtable is part of an ongoing series of collaborations between SEC and WEC to lend support to the rapidly strengthening corporate environmental movement in Singapore. WEC's global environmental expertise is a significant contribution to business sustainability efforts in Singapore.

Said Dr. Terry F. Yosie, President and CEO of WEC, "Sustainable development is one of the greatest challenges facing contemporary society. The Roundtable will examine the strategies and practices of leading global companies and seek opportunities to apply sustainable development in Singapore to enable business, government and citizens to create an improved quality of life, now and in the future."

The roundtable is structured to provide an interactive forum of discussion among business, government and other sustainable development leaders in Singapore and across the world. It highlights successful initiatives for implementing sustainability through strategic thinking, business process innovation, product development, supply chain management and other aspects of enterprise management.

Said Howard Shaw, Executive Director of SEC, "It is encouraging to see that businesses still maintain an interest in sustainable development despite the economic downturn. During the eventual economic resurgence and rapid business growth that will accompany it, companies will need to adopt new ways of thinking that integrate sustainability principles throughout the business value chain, to ensure their long-term success."

Speakers at the session include:

• Terry F. Yosie, President & CEO, World Environment Center
  
• Rich Lechner, Vice President, Energy & Environment, IBM Global Technology Services
  
• Vincent Lim, Managing Director (CEO), Ricoh Singapore PTE Ltd.
  
• Ms.Teresa Au, Head of Corporate Sustainability Asia Pacific Region, HSBC
  
• Dr. Song Bin, Head Sustainability and Technology assessment Section, Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology
  
• Mr. Tiew Chew Meng, General Manager, Lighting Sector, Philips Electronics Singapore
  
• Mr Lauw Kok Keen, Director of e-Supply Chain Management Council (eSCM) , Singapore
  
• Mr. Howard Shaw, Executive Director SEC

About World Environment Center:
Founded in 1974, the World Environment Center is an independent, global non-profit, non-advocacy organization that advances sustainable development through the business practices of member companies and in partnership with governments, multi-lateral organizations, non-governmental organizations, universities and other stakeholders. WEC's mission is to promote business and societal value by advancing solutions to sustainable development-related problems; foster leading edge ideas about economic development, environmental protection and social responsibility through roundtables and other forums that engage the leadership of a diverse number of organizations and recognize performance excellence by companies that advance sustainable development.

For more information, please visit:
SEC: www.sec.org.sg
WEC: www.wec.org

World Environment Center

World Environment Center

The World Environment Center advances sustainable development through corporate business practices. Headquartered in Washington, D.C. with offices in Europe and Latin America, WEC creates business solutions through Executive Roundtables on key sustainability challenges, builds capacity of small enterprises in emerging markets, and honors industry excellence through its annual Gold Medal Award. WEC is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organization. For more information, please visit www.wec.org.

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