UBDSBE plans to organise the 4th International Conference on Business, Economics and Finance (ICBEF) from 18-20 September 2023. The conference theme for this year is Sustainable Green Future. The main objective of organising the 4th ICBEF 2023 is to provide a forum for all researchers and practitioners to discuss and deliberate the issue and challenges, share experiences and suggest possible solutions in the area of a sustainable green future.
The debate for a change in traditional economic and business models for development started in the early 2000s but received more attention in the aftermath of the 2007-08 global financial crisis. This need for new economic and business models was to address and accommodate the challenges of environmental concerns such as climate change, carbon emission, biodiversity losses, water scarcity, etc. while focusing on the key social and economic issues. This need was further reinforced through the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted worldwide in 2015. With strategies outlined to address economic, social and environmental issues and challenges, the SDGs provide a link between the economic and ecological systems. This approach is deemed necessary to transition towards a green economy and achieve sustainable and inclusive development. The European Union is working on its own agenda for a transition towards environmentally sustainable lifestyles, while the aim of the Paris Agreement to achieve net zero emission in 2050 suggests opportunities for a change across economic sectors.
The Green Economy offers an alternative vision for sustainable development and inclusive growth with the aim of generating improvements in the standards of living of all citizens. It is also important to note that the transition towards a green economy can only be achieved by pursuing sustainable technological change. Equally important is that the issues and challenges involved in such transition, possible solutions and the mechanism to achieve specific goals must be adequately understood by all stakeholders, including professionals, practitioners, businesses and policymakers. This requires a good understanding of new business models, the need for infrastructure development, regulatory restructuring and distributional effects to help design appropriate policies. Defining the role of state is extremely important in this debate, where the state needs to be efficient and transparent in formulating and implementing a legal framework and related policies. Policymakers should also fully understand and address the distributional effects of a transition to the green economy. Such distributional effects should be looked at in the context of regional dimensions with the need for reskilling and upskilling of the workforce to reduce the risk of rising unemployment, poverty and inequality.
With this background, the main objective of the 4th ICBEF is to provide a platform to discuss and deliberate these issues and suggest ways to plan for green future under the theme: Sustainable Green Future. The 4th ICBEF is proposed to be held during 18-20 September 2023. This 3-day conference will provide a forum for experts, academics and practitioners, both local and foreign, to share their experience and discuss strategies for a sustainable green economy.
Although the main theme of this conference is about ‘Sustainable Green Future’, we expect papers in other related area (sub-themes) within the field of business, economics, finance, entrepreneurship, accounting, finance and knowledge management.