Founded | 1995 |
---|---|
Founder | Stephan Schmidheiny |
Focus | Sustainable Development |
Location | |
Area served | Global |
Key people | Peter Bakker (CEO & President) |
Employees | 51–300 |
Website | www |
The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) is a CEO-led organization of over 225 international companies.[1] The council is also connected to 60 national and regional business councils and partner organizations.[2]
Its origins date back to the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit of 1992,[3] when Stephan Schmidheiny, a Swiss business entrepreneur, was appointed chief adviser for business and industry to the secretary general of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED).[4] He created a forum called "Business Council for Sustainable Development", which went on to become Changing Course, a book that coined the concept of eco-efficiency.[5]
The WBCSD was created in 1995 as a merger of the Business Council for Sustainable Development and the World Industry Council for the Environment[6] and is based at the Maison de la paix in Geneva, Switzerland,[7] with offices in New York and New Delhi.