SEAMEO BIOTROP Director Dr Bambang Purwantara was one of the panelists at SEAMEO INNOTECH’s  13th International Conference on “Educating for the Future We Want: A Green Southeast Asia”  held on 11-12 December 2012 at EDSA Shangrila Hotel, Philippines.

At the special session highlighting the involvements of SEAMEO Centres in promoting Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in the region, Dr Bambang shared the Centre’s experiences on collaborating with the private sector in Indonesia on mainstreaming the concepts of ESD in their corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities towards a  Green Southeast Asia.  He joined representatives from other SEAMEO Centres, namely: RECSAM, SEARCA, SPAFA, and SEAMOLEC.

Through  mutually-benefitting collaborative arrangements, the Centre has helped design, implement, and maintain natural learning sites as part of the CSR programs of several industrial parks and single companies towards sustainable development in the  communities where they operate. Such effort is also a part of the Centre’s attempt to generate good practices that could be replicated in other countries in the region  and thus eventually contribute to establishing a Green Southeast Asia.  The Centre’s experiences reveal three success factors in involving the private sector to support ESD, namely: (1) full understanding and commitment  of company management on the concepts of sustainable development, (2) having a clear program and targets, and (3) support and active involvement from multi-stakeholders.