An Interview with José María Figueres
José María Figueres, former president of Costa Rica and a leading expert on sustainability, shares his ideas on how the private and public sectors must work together to bolster the triple bottom line of social, environmental and economic development. He calls for a deepening relationship between economic prosperity and environmental stewardship, which will create a future where companies and countries can climb up the ladder of competitiveness.
For two decades, José María Figueres has been a noted authority and passionate advocate for sustainable development, first within Costa Rica and then on the world stage. In 1998, just after the Kyoto Protocol was announced, then-President Figueres and U.S. Vice President Al Gore signed the first-ever Joint Implementation Treaty between two countries under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol.
Mr. Figueres has been a prophetic voice and an ardent believer in the Earth’s bottom line being as important as the corporate bottom line. As president of Costa Rica, he implemented an overall policy based on the principles of sustainability as a way to become more competitive in the process of economic globalization. By strategically combining sound macroeconomic indicators, social investment in human development and an active alliance with nature, he left the country better prepared to face the challenges of a highly competitive global economy. By the end of his four-year term, the economy was growing at a rate of 8 percent per year, and direct foreign investment surpassed 5 percent of GNP.
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