By ELLEN READ
Businesses in New Zealand and worldwide must take a stand with their governments to help the developing world fight poverty, says Stephen Tindall.
The Warehouse founder has just returned from a World Business Council for Sustainable Development meeting in Washington, where World Bank President James Wolfensohn made the call to arms.
Returning inspired, Tindall, who chairs the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development, has issued the challenge to local members.
He said they must show stronger leadership with government, business contemporaries and society to drive the agenda of sustainable development.
"We cannot afford to let this slip and must really take a lead," he said.
Tindall said businesses must lead by example and when governments made a commitment, business should hold them to it.
At the Washington meeting Wolfensohn set the challenge for business to have a voice with government, as politicians often made environmental decisions for political reasons, Tindall said.
"[He] observed that the world will not be sustainable if developed countries don't start sorting out their foreign policy."
Wolfensohn used the example of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who promised when the UK invested £30 billion ($80 billion) in the Iraqi war that there would be no sacrifice of sustainable development, particularly in developing countries.
An £18 million grant for rainforest development in the Amazon had already been cancelled, Tindall reported, and Wolfensohn challenged Sir Philip Watts, the chairman of Dutch Royal Shell in London, to call Blair and ask him to reverse the decision.
"He then challenged each of us to look at similar actions in our own countries and within our own companies to continue to accelerate ways of assisting the developing world to fight poverty," Tindall said.
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