Reshaping International Operations for a Carbon-Neutral Future – Keynote Speech

© 2022 Farok J. Contractor, Distinguished Professor, Rutgers Business School, and 2022 President, AIB

I was asked to give the keynote speech (on June 9, 2022 in the US, June 10 in China) at the 2022 ECUST-USF International Conference organized by the East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST), the University of San Francisco (USF), and the University of Nottingham. The conference theme, “Reshaping International Operations for Carbon Neutrality in Turbulent Times,” is a topic on which the future of humanity hangs.

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Dr. Xiaohua Yang, Professor of International Business and Founding Director of the China Business Studies Initiative, School of Management, University of San Francisco; co-organizer of the conference. Photo courtesy of East China University of Sciences and Technology,

Dr. Lei Li, Professor of International Business, Nottingham University Business School, Ningbo Campus, China, and AIB Country Director for Mainland China; co-organizer of the conference. Photo courtesy of Nottingham University Business School, China.

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From my perspective as both a professor and an ongoing student of International Business, I addressed the role of multinational companies that possess the resources, talent, and market reach (or scalability) to solve the looming crisis presented by global warming.

Professor Farok J. Contractor (Start at Time 3:53)

The accompanying video and slide presentation (see below for PowerPoint slides) cover these topics:

• Which countries are the biggest carbon emitters?
• As the world gets richer and more populations join the middle class
  • How much more carbon will be emitted per capita? OR …
  • With further affluence and education, could per capita emissions actually reduce?
• What percentage of companies are actively engaged?
• Coming regulations and reporting requirements from
  • The European Union
  • The US Securities and Exchange Commission
• How companies will comply with the rules and the costs of compliance
• Assessing the needed capital expenditures in the current turbulent and risky environment
• Long-term company and industry goals
• Carbon mitigation technologies
  • How to judge and assess various technologies
  • Physics, engineering, and scalability criteria
  • Economic viability
  • Mitigation methods that require considerable intergovernmental cooperation
  • Material and resource shortages that impact mitigation technologies
  • Examples of what companies have done and propose to do

The full conference video is available here (my address begins at time 27:58).

Also see the downloadable PowerPoint Presentation: © Copyrighted Material 2022 – usable free of charge only after receiving written permission from the author. Contact Me for more information.