NEWS

ReSource 2012 business forum attracts Clinton and Avatar's Cameron

Film director and adventurer James Cameron, the creator of Titanic and Avatar, and Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen will join former US president Bill Clinton at a ground-breaking business forum.

Hosted by Oxford University on July 12-13, the ReSource 2012 event will focus on resource scarcity and volatility– ensuring continued access to food, energy and water as demographics rapidly change.  

James Cameron will provide a special presentation at the university’s Ashmolean Museum while Bill Clinton will give the closing keynote address.

The primarily investor audience will hear about the financial advantages for businesses that seize the opportunities generated by a shift towards greater efficiency.

They will be joined by other leading figures from business, finance, national security, politics and academia, including John Brock, CEO and chairman of Coca-Cola Enterprises, Peter Brabeck, chairman of Nestlé, and Jeremy Grantham, founder of one of the world’s largest investment funds, GMO.

Amory Lovins, named by Time magazine as one of the world’s 100 most influential people, will also be part of the event, alongside MP and former UK foreign secretary David Miliband; the UN’s special representative on food security and nutrition David Nabarro; former CEO of Tesco, Sir Terry Leahy; plus Lord Browne of Madingley, partner at Riverstone.

Other participants include award-winning journalists Jonathan Dimbleby, James Harding, editor of the Times, and John Micklethwait, editor of the Economist.

Business leaders such as Jean-Marc Huet, CFO of Unilever, will explain why they are actively decoupling profitability from resource use. For businesses that are counting on profits coming from emerging economies, demographic changes such as increasing population, growth of a global middle class and rising living standards offer opportunities, but only so long as they increase resource efficiency in those regions.

Participants will also discuss investment in infrastructure and disruptive technological innovations and will look at how a longer-term investment horizon can lead to gaining a competitive advantage.

ReSource 2012 is a joint initiative hosted by Oxford University and its Smith School of Enterprise and Environment in co-operation with The Rothschild Foundation.

Sir David King, co-director of the event and former chief scientific advisor to the government, said: "There is no doubt that our current model of growth is unsustainable – and these pressures are only set to deepen in future years.

"CEOs and investors must realise now more than ever that profitability need not rely on increased resource use.

"The international financial community has the power to enact huge change to the current global system. Companies need to address these issues head-on and understand that resource efficiency and longer term thinking are potent drivers of shareholder value."

ReSource 2012 hopes to spark change by presenting a compelling financial case for solving these issues, exploring viable, commercial and proven solutions towards a sustainable future.

Sir David continued: "The way in which business leaders respond to these issues will shape the competitive landscape over the next 20 years and beyond. Through ReSource 2012 we are hoping to move away from the scaremongering and negative perceptions of the past and instead generate new ways of thinking about these critical global issues."