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9 billion people from today, means a new city of a million people
every week for the next 30 years.
One of the huge challenges here is that there's no one individual group,
company, industry in control of where these intersect.
So they cross country boundaries, they cross industry boundaries,
private, public.
The focus of this years Energy Summit, is the nexus of energy, water and food
And any one of those would be worth a conference in its own right
but in fact, it's the intersection of these three things that's so important.
I mean, it takes, for example, both energy and water to produce food
but it also takes water to produce energy and energy to produce water.
That's not been a discussion that has been at the forefront
of certainly the companies that I work with
They tend to look at energy as a separate issue
It's very important that we put it in a holistic context.
We can't think about this in silos anymore.
That's sort of the harsh reality. So, how do we all sort of play together
essentially, is the only way we're going to solve some of these challenges.
It might be the biggest problem we have to deal with in our lifetimes.
What we want to do, is look at that connection and understand the stress
and the tension between those and try to address that proactively.
Having the energy sector think about and talk about water issues
and food issues is fairly radical. So bringing that dialogue to the table
in itself has enormous value.
In the past, in was largely non-profit organisations, consumer advocates
and so on that were pushing many of these issues
but here, you know, we have the private sector heavily involved
and actually in some areas being leaders on this
which is a very good sign.
There's a rising expectation now for companies to perform
in a sustainable way.
And it's becoming an opportunity for differentiated value in the market.
It's becoming an expectation,
it's becoming a social responsibility for real.
I think we have a great capacity to innovate.
Not just on the technology side but in terms of partnerships,
new products, new services and so on.
So, I remain hopeful because we're having these discussions.
It speaks to the fact that we're a lot more than just an energy company.
We're a company that touches almost everything that's happening in the world.
and we want to take that role seriously and play a role
in getting the right answers.