Trinidad and To­ba­go busi­ness­es are be­ing urged to take more ini­tia­tive on en­vi­ron­men­tal, so­cial and gov­er­nance plans.

The call was made by Min­is­ter of Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and De­vel­op­ment Kennedy Swarats­ingh at the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of AM­CHAM T&T’s 3rd An­nu­al En­vi­ron­men­tal, So­cial and Gov­er­nance (ESG) Con­fer­ence, ti­tled From In­ten­tion to Im­pact!, at the Asa Wright Na­ture Cen­tre, Ari­ma, on Tues­day.

“In ad­vanc­ing this na­tion­al con­ver­sa­tion on ESG, it is vi­tal that this is not just a one-off event but sus­tained, strate­gic and in­clu­sive ini­tia­tive. So ku­dos to you and your de­ci­sion to evolve the ESG agen­da in the nec­es­sary three-part event se­ries, tak­ing the is­sue we face to­day in­to con­sid­er­a­tion, just cli­mate change, eco­nom­ic in­equal­i­ty, so­cial in­sta­bil­i­ty and gov­er­nance chal­lenges, we re­quire more than just words. Over­com­ing these chal­lenges de­mands year-round col­lab­o­ra­tion, prac­ti­cal ac­tion and vi­sion­ary lead­er­ship across all sec­tors and of all so­ci­ety,” Swarats­ingh said.

This mes­sage was echoed by AM­CHAM pres­i­dent Stu­art Fran­co dur­ing his ad­dress.

“To­day’s theme, From In­ten­tion to Im­pact, is not just a slo­gan. It’s a call to ac­tion. It chal­lenges us to ask: What are we re­al­ly do­ing with our good in­ten­tions? Are we build­ing any­thing with them, or are they sim­ply left on pa­per, in board­rooms, or in pol­i­cy drafts gath­er­ing dust?” asked Fran­co.

“If we want to see re­al im­pact, then we must act, and act to­geth­er. Trinidad and To­ba­go has what it takes to lead. But we can­not af­ford to stay neu­tral. ESG—En­vi­ron­men­tal, So­cial and Gov­er­nance—is not a check­box. It must be the foun­da­tion of how we do busi­ness, how we gov­ern, how we ed­u­cate, and how we grow.”

Fran­co ex­plained that the event was host­ed at the ASA Wright Na­ture Cen­tre due to its sym­bol­ic con­nec­tion to sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment.

He said, “The cen­tre was cre­at­ed to pro­tect a por­tion of the Ari­ma Val­ley in its nat­ur­al state, fos­ter­ing con­ser­va­tion, re­search, and en­vi­ron­men­tal ed­u­ca­tion. Over the decades, it has be­come a bea­con of sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment, bal­anc­ing eco­log­i­cal preser­va­tion with com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment and sci­en­tif­ic in­quiry. By gath­er­ing here, we im­merse our­selves in a liv­ing ex­am­ple of sus­tain­abil­i­ty in ac­tion – a place where en­vi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship and com­mu­ni­ty in­volve­ment have co­ex­ist­ed har­mo­nious­ly for gen­er­a­tions.”

Min­is­ter Swarats­ingh al­so not­ed that the re­vival of the cen­tre al­so served as a re­minder to the pri­vate sec­tor of its im­por­tance in main­tain­ing and up­lift­ing T&T.

The cen­tre was closed in 2020 dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic be­fore be­ing pur­chased, ren­o­vat­ed and re­opened by the HAD­CO Group in 2022.