It will not have escaped many of your attention that I have been vocal of late about the importance of good governance. Indeed this is my second speech on the topic for our hosts today in the space of a week!So whilst I make a small apology to those who may be experiencing a slight feeling of déjà vu at this point, I make no apology for reiterating the point. Well-run companies are founded on sound governance. If the global banking crisis has taught us anything, it is that poor decisions were made. Decisions went unchallenged.Decisions were allowed to stand.Good decision-making requires three things.It requires excellent judgement to identify opportunities and spot emerging risks.It requires robust governance to ensure that those judgements are in the long-term interest of the company, and to ensure that when judgement fails, there is a back-stop.And it requires owners to care. It requires shareholders and those who act on behalf of shareholders to take an active role in holding...

 Climate change is anthropogenic—the product of billions of acts of daily consumption. That solutions need to be anthropogenic too is well accepted. Yet, suggested solutions are normally cast in the realms of finance and technology, often neglecting the primal root of the problem: individual behavior. An emerging body of  social-psychology scholarship has examined the barriers and drivers of individual behavior in relation to both adaptation and mitigation. This paper reviews some of its conclusions, and suggests policy areas that should be considered. This is a Policy Research working paper and has been writen by Andrea Liverani on behalf of the World Bank.

A presentation given in Mumbai, on 17th November 2007 by Pavan Sukhdev, a Managing Director in the Global Markets division of Deutsche Bank AG and member of Green Indian States Trust, about the measurement of sustainability. For more information visit www.gistindia.org