Cheah Ui-Hoon, Business Times - 04 Jan 2008
But being a capitalist, he understands that the forest is also the means to a livelihood. 'We can't deny local communities that depend on the economy of the forest. We can't stop progress. Poverty must be eradicated, there must be a growing middle class for society to be stable. An environment which sustains itself - that's a critical part of what a capitalist needs,'
VINOD Sekhar, chief executive of the Malaysian Petra Group, wouldn't be a familiar corporate name in Singapore if not for the fact that he created a buzz by bringing in Hollywood producer and actor Mel Gibson for the Forbes Asia conference in September.
Mr Gibson is a shareholder in Green Rubber Global, Mr Sekhar's company which recycles rubber and is slated for a London listing next year.
Making the grant to the Royal Society's South East Asia Rainforest Research Programme (SEARRP) - witnessed by Mr Gibson - is yet another commitment towards ecological concerns that his father had instilled in him, declares Mr Sekhar.
His father, Dr BC Sekhar, was the first Asian director of the Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia and is regarded as the father of the country's modern rubber industry.
In a candid phone interview, Mr Sekhar, 38, points out that for all his environmental concerns, he is ultimately a pragmatic capitalist. 'I'm a realist, so it's about finding a balance and ways of getting there, such as creating technologies to help solve the problems we're facing,' he says.
We see climate change right at our doorstep these days, he points out. 'We're dealing with it and our children will be directly affected.'
But being a capitalist, he understands that the forest is also the means to a livelihood. 'We can't deny local communities that depend on the economy of the forest. We can't stop progress. Poverty must be eradicated, there must be a growing middle class for society to be stable. An environment which sustains itself - that's a critical part of what a capitalist needs,' he notes.
With this in mind, it made sense to become partners with the Royal Society and the Sabah Foundation and fund their research programme - one of the longest-running research programmes in the world, thanks to the infrastructure put in by the Sabah Foundation.
'We're not just sponsors, but partners. We want to eventually expand it into other reserves like the Maliau Basin (which is about the size of Singapore, incidentally) and Imbak Canyon, and to find commercial applications for the research there,' he says.
'We've got to walk the talk,' he stresses, referring to corporates, while describing the Petra Foundation's support as 'the boring stuff' because it's about research. 'It's not sexy because we're not just saying 'save the trees'; we're looking for a long-term, permanent solution.'
As to how he managed to get such stellar Hollywood connections, Mr Sekhar said he first got to know Bruce Davey, chairman of Icon Productions, Mr Gibson's partner, at a previous Forbes conference. 'We quickly became friends and I first got involved with them in an excavation project in Guatemala,' he explains briefly.
Subsequently, Mr Gibson invested in Green Rubber Global, and has also thrown in his support for the SEARRP.
What Mr Sekhar hopes to do is to encourage other companies to participate in funding research. 'There are commercial angles to this, and it's a great opportunity to get involved because we get first right of refusal to the scientific results that come out,' he adds.
'It is easy to get depressed about climate change and the carnage we are inflicting on the planet,' Mr Sekhar wrote in a comment piece in the UK newspaper The Independent on Sunday last month. But instead of just wringing its hands, companies like The Petra Group are doing something about it and in its own backyard, so to speak.
