ISLAMABAD: The 6th edition of Islamabad Business Summit concluded in the capital on Friday with multiple sessions, addresses, and panel discussions. Nutshell Conferences Group and Martin Dow Group in a strategic partnership with Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Unity Foods Limited organised the summit with a theme of ‘The Big Rethink’. The second day witnessed 4 sessions, which comprised 11 addresses, 2 conversations and 2 panel discussions; topics varied from the digital future to the landscape of education, and from shaping narratives to climate change.
Senator Sherry Rehman, Federal Minister for Climate Change, spoke about going green for safety and survival. “Pakistan produces plastic trash equivalent to the might of two K2 mountains annually, and having signed the plastic treaty in Paris recently, I would request at least the big hotels to get rid of the plastic bottles that they’re serving water in,” she said.Rehman pushed the local pollution agenda as strongly as the international one, stating that Pakistan’s adaptive capacity for compliance with United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was in question. Despite being a low emitter, Pakistan is a frontline state for climate change. She defined corporate CSR as too limited for the required effect.
Gen Zubair Mahmood Hayat, N.I. (Rtd), Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (2016- 2019), spoke on the power of narratives and raised pertinent questions about how, as a nation, Pakistanis needed to build a narrative for a better future. “We are required to think deeply around our political, social, and economic aspects. We need to come out of our comfort zones and take up bigger ideas instead of taking baby steps,” he urged.Leaders in Islamabad Business Summit 2023 brought together more than 50 speakers from national and international organisations from a variety of sectors. At the end of the summit, Muhammad Azfar Ahsan, founder and CEO, Nutshell Group, announced the dates for the 7th edition of the summit as March 6 and 7, 2024.
