Topic: Sustainable Development

Juan Manuel Santos

Recognized as one of the most influential leaders in the world, Juan Manuel Santos was the President of Colombia, from 2010 to 2018, where he ushered in a new era of prosperity, peace, equity, and education throughout Colombia during his two-term tenure.

He was one of the initial promoters of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that became the world agenda in 2015 (he officially proposed them in the Rio+20 Summit in 2012). He also led the process to convene a special session of the General Assembly of the United Nations (UNGASS 2016) to discuss more effective ways to face the world drug problem. He was one of the founders and architects of the Pacific Alliance, the most successful economic integration process in Latin America.

He was the sole recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016 for “his resolute efforts to bring the country’s more than 50-year-long civil war to an end”, according to the Norwegian Nobel Committee. He was also awarded the Lamp of Assisi by the Catholic Church and the Tipperary International Peace Award in Ireland for his efforts to bring peace to his country and the region.

For his aggressive environmental policies to protect his country’s biodiversity and fight climate change, he was awarded the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew International Medal and the Wildlife Conservation Society Theodore Roosevelt Award for Conservation Leadership. In addition, the National Geographic Society honored him for his for unwavering commitment to conservation and Conservation International awarded him the Global Visionary Award.

His innovative and successful policies to fight poverty and inequality earned him the appointment as co-founder of the Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network (MPPN) by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), along with his former professor and inspirer of his policies, Economics Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen.

Before being President, he was Minister of Foreign Trade (April 1991) responsible for inserting his country in the global economy. At that time, he was also elected by Congress as the equivalent of Vice-president (Presidential Designate) of the country. He was later Minister of Finance (February 2000) in charge of lifting his country out of the worst recession Colombia had experienced in 80 years, which he did. He was also Minister of Defense (July 2006 – May 2009) where he was able to inflict the severest blows to the FARC guerrillas in their 50 years of existence and bring them to the negotiating table.

In 2005, Santos founded a new political party (The U Party). Just one year after its foundation, it obtained the largest majority in the legislative elections putting an end to one hundred and fifty-seven years of bipartisan dominance of the Congress by the Liberal and the Conservative parties.

He worked in London for nine years as the Chief of the Colombian Delegation to the International Coffee Organization. Before going into public life, he was a deputy publisher and editorial writer for eight years in the newspaper El Tiempo. He won the King of Spain Prize for Journalism for a series of chronicles that exposed the corruption of the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua. He has always been a staunch defender of the freedom of the press.

Santos graduated with honors from the Colombian Naval Academy in Cartagena. He holds a Business and Economics degree from the University of Kansas (1969) and did post-graduate studies in the London School of Economics (1973-1974), in the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and in Harvard University as a Fulbright fellow, where he obtained a Master’s in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government (1981). He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard (1987- 1988) and after his presidency, he was named as the Angelopoulos Global Public Leaders Fellow also at Harvard (2018-2019). He has been awarded honorary doctorate degrees in various universities, including La Sorbonne and the London School of Economics.

The World Economic Forum distinguished him as Young Global Leader and years later presented him with an exceptional Global Statesman Award in recognition of his leadership and contribution to peace.

Santos was awarded the Chatham House Prize in 2017 in recognition of his role in formally ratifying a peace agreement with the FARC rebel group and bringing an end to the armed conflict in Colombia.

He was on the cover of Time Magazine and appeared twice on the list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

He has written several books: one of them with British Prime Minister Tony Blair on “The Third Way”; “The Battle for Peace” on the peace process with the Farc; “An optimistic message for a world in crisis” which shows the progress Colombia has made over the past 30 years; and most recently “An outstanding conversation” with Ingrid Betancourt.

Santos is currently the Chairman of the Board of Compaz Foundation, which he created to promote peace, protect the environment and fight poverty, mainly through grassroot leadership. He is Chairman of The Elders and the Global Commission on Drug Policy, as well as a member of the board of the International Crisis Group and the Wildlife Conservation Society. He is a visiting professor at Oxford University. In addition, he is a member of the Rockefeller Foundation Board of Trustees, and he was Conservation International’s Arnhold Distinguished Fellow for three years.

Sought-out to speak everywhere from Harvard University to the World Economic Forum, in his compelling keynotes Santos shares his reflections on the challenges of leadership, revealing what allowed him to change Colombia's history and make the impossible, possible. He delivers a message of unity and humanity that is inspiring, refreshing and necessary amid these turbulent political times. Santos also offers shrewd insights and analysis on issues such as the global economic outlook, global security, and foreign affairs.

Santos is married and has two sons, one daughter, one granddaughter and one grandson.

Helen Clark

Helen Clark is widely known for her tenure as the 37th Prime Minister of New Zealand. Making history as the second female Prime Minister of the country, Helen left her mark with her passions for gender equality, diversity and inclusion. She was also fondly known for her pledge to make New Zealand the first ecologically sustainable nation and is now booked as a sustainability speaker for corporate events.

Elected to her position of Prime Minister in 1999, Helen has a long and decorated history in politics. She has formerly been the Leader of the Opposition and the Shadow Spokesperson for Health and Labour. She has also been the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party in New Zealand and the former Minister of Health. She has also acted as the Minister of Foreign Affairs and outside of politics has acted as the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme. She is also the Patron of the Helen Clark Foundation, an organisation set up to create a more inclusive and sustainable society.

Continually striving for equality in positions of power, Helen is widely remembered for appointing women in senior positions such as Governor-General and Chief of Justice. She also strived to make sure that New Zealand had sustainability and the best interests of the environment at the forefront of their agenda. Her commitment to such interests saw Helen claim countless awards, most notably the Peace Prize of the Danish Peace Foundation, the United Nations Champions of the Earth Award and the Nuclear-Free Future Award. Most recently, she has taken on the role of the Co-Chair of the Panel reviewing WHO’s Covid-19 response.

With a successful political career behind her, Helen is now often booked as a speaker on sustainability and has formerly delivered the TEDx talk Yes She Can. When she is booked as a speaker, Helen shares her wisdom on topics such as sustainable development, sustainable practices, gender equality and inclusion. Also a member of the Council of Women World Leaders, Helen is passionate to create a fairer and more sustainable future for all and is the perfect sustainability speaker for events.

Jeffrey Sachs

Jeffrey D. Sachs is a world-renowned economist, bestselling author, innovative educator, and global leader in sustainable development. He is widely recognized for bold and effective strategies to address complex challenges including the escape from extreme poverty, the global battle against human-induced climate change, international debt and financial crises, national economic reforms, and the control of pandemic and epidemic diseases.

Sachs serves as the Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he holds the rank of University Professor, the university’s highest academic rank. Sachs held the position of Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University from 2002 to 2016. He is President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Chair of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission, Co-Chair of the UN Council of Engineers for the Energy Transition, Commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development, Tan Sri Jeffrey Cheah Honorary Distinguished Professor of Sustainable Development at Sunway University, academician of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences at the Vatican, and an SDG Advocate for UN Secretary General António Guterres. From 2001-18, Sachs served as Special Advisor to UN Secretaries-General Kofi Annan (2001-7), Ban Ki-moon (2008-16), and António Guterres (2017-18).

Sachs has authored and edited numerous books, including three New York Times bestsellers: The End of Poverty (2005), Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet (2008), and The Price of Civilization (2011). Other books include To Move the World: JFK’s Quest for
Peace (2013), The Age of Sustainable Development (2015), Building the New American Economy: Smart, Fair & Sustainable (2017), A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism (2018), and most recently, The Ages of Globalization: Geography, Technology, and Institutions (2020).

Sachs was the co-recipient of the 2015 Blue Planet Prize, the leading global prize for environmental leadership. He was twice named among Time magazine’s 100 most influential world leaders. Sachs has received 38 honorary doctorates. In 2021, Sachs received the TÜBA Academy Prize from the Turkish Academy of Sciences, the Legion of Honor by decree of the President of the Republic of France, and the Order of the Cross from Estonia, and honorary doctorates from Amrita University, Kerala, India, Macau University of Science and Technology, and the University of Siena, Italy.

Prior to joining Columbia, Sachs spent over twenty years as a professor at Harvard University, most recently as the Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade. A native of Detroit, Michigan, Sachs received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees at Harvard.

William McDonough

William McDonough is leading us into the Next Industrial Revolution—an Earth-friendly, economically-robust new stage of human industry. He has changed the way we think about the design and construction of everything, from books to buildings to entire cities, showing us that total sustainability and economic success are one and the same.

Chosen for Vanity Fair's list of 100 most influential people in "the new establishment", Mcdonough designed the city-sized Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan, where he installed the world's largest green roof, saving the company millions a year in utility costs alone. It's a perfect example of his work: large-scale ingenuity that is greening business, in the last place you'd expect—in this case, the American rust belt. In 2013, the Ford plant celebrated its 10th anniversary with the living roof thriving and all original plant species surviving. He is also the master planner behind seven new, entirely green cities in China. In his practical-minded, nature-inspired projects—for companies like Nike—he employs sustainable principles that are both beautiful and cost-effective.

McDonough has defined these principles of the sustainability movement through his companies: McDonough Innovation, William McDonough + Partners and MBDC. William McDonough is co-creator of the Cradle to Cradle® design framework and also contributed to the founding of the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute. He serves on the International Board of Trustees for Sustainability at Arizona State University and is on the Sustainability Leadership Council at the University of Cambridge. Most recently in 2014, the World Economic Forum appointed him as Chair to the Meta-Council on the Circular Economy.

McDonough's project principles have seemingly caught on worldwide. In his fascinating talks, delivered with eloquence and a very dry sense of humor, he draws on his stunning body of work to provide you with strategies toward absolute sustainability in all industries. He also explains his influential cradle to cradle design process, in which products can be used, recycled, and used again without losing any material quality—and the subject of his fascinating book, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things.

Written with his colleague, Michael Braungart, Cradle to Cradle is a manifesto calling for the transformation of human industry through ecologically intelligent design. Their second book, The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability—Designing for Abundance, was released in 2013.

McDonough is a contributing writer to The Guardian and The Huffington Post and is frequently featured on GreenBiz.com as part of The McDonough Conversations.

Mohan Munasinghe

Mohan Munasinghe is a Sri Lankan physicist, academic and economist with a focus on energy, water resources, sustainable development and climate change.

As Vice-Chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Professor Mohan Munasinghe shared the 2007 Nobel Prize for Peace, for work on global warming and sustainable development. More recently, he received the 2021 Blue Planet Prize, also called the "Environmental Nobel Prize". The Heads of five countries, including Bangladesh, Brazil, Dominican Republic, France, and Sri Lanka, have presented highest national awards to him.

Currently, he is Chairman of the Munasinghe Institue of Development, Colombo; Director-General of the Sustainable Consumption Institute (SCI) and Distinguished Professor at the University of Manchester; and Honorary Senior Advisor to the Sri Lanka Government.

Professor Munasinghe has earned post-graduate degrees in engineering, physics and development economics from Cambridge University (UK), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA), and McGill University and Concordia University (Canada). During 35 years of distinguished public service, he has served as Senior Energy Advisor to the President of Sri Lanka, Advisor to the United States Presidents Council on Environmental Quality, and Senior Advisor to the World Bank.

He has taught as Visiting Professor at a number of universities world-wide, and has won many international prizes and medals for his research and its applications.

He has authored over 90 books and several hundred technical papers on the environment.

Professor Munasinghe has made numerous keynote speeches at gatherings ranging from high level international conferences to community meetings. He has organised and conducted international training seminars on climate change, sustainable development, environment, economics, energy, transport, water resources, and information technology, in various parts of the world, for thousands of senior officials and corporations.

He is a Fellow of several international Academies of Science, and serves on the editorial boards of a dozen academic journals.