Dr. John Wiebe: An Exclusive Justmeans Q&A

Leading up to the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), aka Rio+20, which plans to set the global sustainability agenda for the next decade, was last month's UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) Global Roundtable, an international high-level summit held in Washington, DC. Focusing on the role that the financial sector should play in that agenda, the roundtable carried the theme of "The Tipping Point: Sustained stability in the next economy."

In attendance was Dr. John Wiebe, a member of UNEP FI's Expert Group on Responsible Investment and President & CEO of the Vancouver-based GLOBE Foundation, a not-for-profit private business foundation established in 1993 to promote the advancement of sustainable development throughout the private sector. The GLOBE Foundation is the organizer of the biennial GLOBE Conference & Trade Fair on Business and the Environment, taking place March 14-16 in Vancouver, Canada. I had a chance to ask Dr. Wiebe what he thought about the UNEP FI roundtable, the effect of a proactive private sector and what the sustainable "next economy" might look like.

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Reynard is a Justmeans staff writer for Sustainable Finance and Corporate Social Responsibility. A former media executive with 15 years experience in the private and non-profit sectors, Reynard is the co-founder of MomenTech, a New York-based experimental production studio that explores transnational progressivism, neo-nomadism, post-humanism and futurism. He is also author of the blog 13.7 Billion Years, covering cosmology, biodiversity, animal welfare, conservation and ethical consumption. He is currently developing the Underground Desert Living Unit (UDLU), a sustainable single-family dwelling envisioned as a potential adaptation response to the future loss of human habitat due to the effects of anthropogenic climate change.