Frans van Houten Quotes

Green growth is one vehicle through which technology, globalisation and environmental challenges can be turned from obstacles to solutions for problems related to growth, jobs and competitiveness.

The growth that we want is one that brings real benefits to the people, raises quality and efficiency of development, and contributes to energy conservation and environmental protection.

I'm a technological optimist in that I do believe that technology will provide solutions that will allow the world in 2050 to support 9 billion people at an acceptable standard of living. But I'm a political pessimist in that I am concerned about whether the science will be appropriately applied.

Economic development is what's going to make mountaintop removal palatable.

I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth, environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.

In the 21st century, I think the heroes will be the people who will improve the quality of life, fight poverty and introduce more sustainability.

If you look around the world, the countries with the best environmental practices are the wealthiest. There's a reason for that. If you're worried about where your next meal is going to come from or shelter over your head, your focus is on those things.

It is essential to ensure that the Fourth Industrial Revolution is a sustainable one for people and planet. It could even drive greater innovation, not only for short-term benefits and solutions for human wealth but also long-term solutions that benefit all and enable planetary stability.

I think history shows that countries have to have some kind of a threshold level of economic success before they begin to have the means and the will to focus on the environment.

It is through technological innovation and the pursuit of sustainable social, economic, and ecological development that we can chart the country's path to progress and power a greener tomorrow.

The Government needs to recognise that we live on a planet with finite resources - and start measuring our progress as a society by the quality of our lives, not the expansion of our GDP.

If we put our policies in the right order, we have a sustainable society without lowering but even increasing our levels of wellbeing.

Nobody in the developing world is going to take, as an answer to their aspirations, the developed world's reply: 'Sorry, you can't; we've already used it all up.' To earn the right to look the developing world in the eye and start this conversation, we need a reassessment of how we live and what we want.

Sustainable South Bronx advocates for environmental justice through sustainable environmental and economic development projects.

We can choose to address the twin issues of population and consumption to rebalance the use of resources to a more egalitarian pattern of consumption.

We have reached a new milestone as a human family. With seven billion of us now inhabiting our planet, it is time to ask some fundamental questions. How can we provide a dignified life for ourselves and future generations while preserving and protecting the global commons - the atmosphere, the oceans and the ecosystems that support us?

Really, the proper study of economics is fulfilment, not consumption... It doesn't even matter if it's a green product or a green house... It's still consumption. What matters in this world is the fulfilment of people's needs and the fulfilment of their aspirations.

We are working with the communities in building institutional relationships with local governments and businesses to create ways to get value from the Amazonian area in order to keep the forest as the forest. This makes sense for us from the perspective of climate change and of poverty.

We don't know yet how to build a society which is environmentally sustainable, which is shareable with everybody on the planet, which promotes stability and democracy and human rights, and which is achievable in the time-frame necessary to make it through the challenges we face.

A sustainable world means working together to create prosperity for all.

If managed well, urbanization can create enormous opportunities: allowing innovation and new ideas to emerge, saving energy, land and natural resources, managing climate and the risk of disasters.

Sustainable development is a fundamental break that's going to reshuffle the entire deck. There are companies today that are going to dominate in the future simply because they understand that.

I believe the accepted model of capitalism that demands endless growth deserves the blame for the destruction of nature, and it should be displaced. Failing that, I try to work with those companies and help them change the way they think about our resources.

We have six-and-a-half-billion people on the planet, going rapidly towards seven. We're going to need a lot of inventiveness about how we use water and grow crops.

Our traditional oil and gas philosophy does not have conservation as a crucial component, and we can ill afford to continue to spend billions of dollars which are not reflected in the improved human capital of our country.