The interview summarizes the first Al Gore Sustainable Technology Venture Competition being organized by the Foundation for a Sustainable Future and the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade. The competition aims to encourage business students to develop profitable ventures that enhance sustainability. It is being held in India to promote representation from the country, as the previous competition was won by a Chinese team. The founder of the Foundation hopes the competition will expose students to opportunities in sustainable technologies and funnel the best teams to compete internationally each year. He views youth as important to impact and believes market-based approaches coupled with government support and advocacy can help achieve global sustainability.

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‘The bigger the problem,
the bigger the opportunity’
INTERVIEW WITH SAROSH D KUMANA
Posted online: Sunday February 03, 2008 at 2346 hrs IST
It may be the first of its kind, but it promises to be a trendsetter. The forthcoming Al Gore
Sustainable Technology Venture Competition is already generating buzz in academic and
venture capital circuits in India. The event is being organized by San Francisco-based
Foundation for a Sustainable Future (FSF) and the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) in
New Delhi on February 11-12. FSF founder Sarosh D Kumana is quite upbeat about the event
and his expectations. Excerpts from an email interview with FE’s Rajiv Tikoo:
What is the first Al Gore Sustainable Technology Venture Competition all about?
At the core, the competition provides practical proof that being green can be profitable. It seeks
to encourage the best young business minds to pursue profits through ventures that also enhance
global sustainability.
Why is it branded?
We wanted to honor Nobel Laureate Al Gore for bringing the issue of climate change into the
global public conversation. It is the starting point for most people to realize that human impact
on our finite planet is causing changes that may be irreversible. If we want succeeding
generations to have a life worth living, we have to rethink the way humans conduct themselves.
Our planning time horizon must become multiple decades and centuries, not just a few years.
Humans are consuming nature’s capital account rather than living off the interest. Our
foundation is dedicated to spurring the process of arriving at a global economic system that
“lives off the interest”, and is sustainable for the indefinite future.
What is driving you to hold it in India? How does it feedinto your global sustainable
business plan competition?
We partnered with some progressive leaders at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, my
alma mater, to hold the first sustainable technology venture competition in the year 2007. The
competition was won by a team from China. India was not even represented. As an Indian from

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Mumbai, I wanted to make sure that this year, we were well-represented. When Oopali Operajita,
a former distinguished faculty fellow at the Carnegie-Mellon University, suggested that we
organize an exclusive all-India competition, I was only too willing. She has since joined us as
chair, India Projects.
What prompted you to select IIFT as a partner?
Oopali initiated the partnership with the institute because its director KT Chacko is already
committed to leadership in India’s greentech revolution.
What do you aim to achieve out of the competition?
We are expanding the competition to other countries and continents so that the best teams funnel
up to compete in Pittsburgh every year. We want to expose bright young business students
worldwide to the opportunities in greentech, help them get in touch with the venture community,
and then let them scale up and replicate these projects so that we can move towards a sustainable
global equilibrium sooner than later.
You have taken the route of educational institutions for your sustainability initiative. Is
there any particular reason for it?
Young minds are not as wedded to the status quo. Moreover, they are the inheritors of the world.
So, they have a direct vested interest in the future. We want to impact youth while their direction
in life is more open-ended by helping them access information and concepts that could inspire
them to leadership. We have a very long-term orientation, following the native American
concept of evaluating every decision based on a seven-generation time horizon. All of us have to
ask ourselves whether we have been responsible and farsighted stewards of our grandchildrens’
inheritance, based on that criterion.
How big is the business opportunity worldwide and in India?
It’s not that hard to extrapolate the available trends. These trends will intersect in the next few
decades, certainly within the lifetime of most of us middle-aged folks. As you know, the bigger
the problem, the bigger the opportunity. The venture capital community understands this, if you
go by the rapidly increasing investment in sustainable technologies. It’s about $4 billion in the
US alone. It is the fastest growing sector in the venture world, with an astonishing 625% increase
since 2001 in Europe and North America, much of it focused on energy solutions, and
accelerating at 30-40% per year. The biggest opportunity is in clean, cheap and renewable
energy. If that problem can be solved today, then we will have a period of time to sort out our
other problems. There is also a big opportunity in the transition to new paradigms, particularly in
resource recycling. For example, scrap steel is one of the largest exports for the US today.
Do you think market-based approaches will help achieve global sustainability? Don’t we
need the creation of an enabling environment by the government and advocacy by civil
society in the first place?

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We need to harness the power of the profit motive towards collective objectives. When business
is seen as an integral and necessary part of the solution to global problems, a productive
partnership is possible with enlightened governments and an informed and involved citizenry.
No one can do it alone. This is an opportunity for businesses to step in, be part of the solution,
and make money too.
Is the foundation involved in any other initiative?
We have many initiatives in the pipeline, including prizes for innovative public policy,
recognition of business leaders whose projects are contributing to sustainability, technology
transfer, and development of a 21st century economic theory that incorporates cost
externalization, resource constraints and boundary conditions, appropriate discount rates for
valuing the future environment, etc.
How do you fund the activities of your foundation?
I have been funding the foundation programs from my real estate investments for the last 15-plus
years. I hope the foundation will eventually have so many projects in place that it outgrows my
own resources, and we will then partner with forward-looking organizations and institutions to
co-sponsor the programs that will eventually result in sustainability for the global ecosystem.
What is the link between your property management business in the US and the worldwide
sustainability initiative?
The connection is that we are all living on this small blue planet in a cold, inhospitable universe,
and it’s all we have!
And what kind of sustainability measures have you integrated in your property business.
Does it make business sense?
In my property management business we have invested in insulation, recycling, low-flow water
fixtures, fluorescent lighting and other similar measures, which have paid off for us, especially
since energy, water and hauling costs have all risen.