ERIA | Programme Management Unit for Competitiveness’s Jeong Hyop Lee Talks about Sustainable Trend

The global disruption caused by Covid-19 impacted economic growth as well as affected the environment and climate change. Today, increasing environmental risk has called for greater actions and solutions that aim at a structural change towards social development and environmental sustainability, as well as economic viability. Across ASEAN, countries are advancing green and inclusive business, tech for good, as well as social & environmental entrepreneurship to contribute to a sustainable approach to the economy (‘green economy’). Entrepreneurs, who focus on sustainability and climate change, are now defined as change agents who launch new ventures to address urgent environmental challenges. Whilst their work can provide a catalyst to combat environmental crises and achieve the 2030 Agenda goals, challenges remain, including the need for increased engagement by the public and private sectors to build solutions, innovations, and policies that are oriented towards the present and future sustainability, especially in the post-pandemic recovery world.

The 9th episode of ERIA’s Entrepreneurship, Start-Up, and Innovation (E-S-I) webinar series with the theme ‘Sustainability and Entrepreneurship: Past-Present-Future was held on 21 October 2021 and attracted more than 150 participants from the Asia-Pacific region.

Mr Jeong Hyop Lee, Senior Advisor, Deep Science and Tech Programme Management Unit for Competitiveness, Thailand talked about the region’s sustainable development trends and the emerging ‘tech for good’ movement. While technology has great potential to solve social and environmental problems, he elaborated that there are still structural problems such as low market affordability, lack of local capabilities to absorb new technologies, and dependency on foreign technologies. He shared plausible ways to address these issues such as developing new business models, leveraging regional markets, and building up local capabilities by enhancing international strategic partnerships. He also shared his insights on how public-private stakeholders’ cooperation between Korea and ASEAN could build an innovative sustainability ecosystem in the region.