The conference also included case study based activities, informative videos as well as interactive sessions to discuss new approaches for holistic reporting. The conference began with inspiring and thought provoking keynote speeches by Darryl D’Monte and Bittu Sahgal, Founder-Editor of Sanctuary Asia, highlighting the need for immediate action to transition into a more sustainable world. The sessions and discussions following that revolved around a myriad of topics like the need for evolving into a society that values not only economic growth but also environmental stability and social wellbeing and the role of media in bringing about this change.

 

Pavan Sukhdev, UNEP Goodwill Ambassador & Founding Trustee of GIST, discussed the present state of our planet and how planetary boundaries are being exceeded due to the current course of business activity. This led to an interesting discussion about how media can help create public awareness about pressing environmental issues which in turn eventually would lead to policy changes.

 

Participants analysed, over the course of a case-study based session, how environmental issues have been reported in the past and discussed additional parameters, data or information that could have positively augmented the newsworthiness of environmental stories.

 

New concepts in the field of sustainability such as the green accounting methods, new reporting standards, concepts of fair trade etc. were introduced to the journalists. The conference concluded with an interesting discussion of all the topics.