Thank you very much for to mark the inauguration of the Shell Center for Sustainabilty

SHELL CENTER FOR SUSTAINABILITY
INAUGURAL CONFERENCE

MARCH 12-13, 2003
RICE UNIVERSITY, HOUSTON, TEXAS

Opening Remarks
Christian R. Holmes, Executive Director,
Shell Center for Sustainability, Rice University

It is indeed a privilege and an honor to welcome all of you today to celebrate the inauguration of the Shell Center for Sustainability. This is an exciting day and the start of a great adventure, and I hope that you all will stay with us over the years as we go through this adventure. Today is not only an opportunity to celebrate the creation the Center. It is also an important opportunity -- given the wide number of experts and supporters in the field of sustainability in this room -- to develop a plan of action as we go forward.

One thing that struck us as we prepared for this conference was our objective to attract as many participants as possible. Over 500 people have registered for the conference, and that explains why there has been a shift in venue. We are pleased to have this wonderful facility, the Shell Oil Company Foundation Auditorium at Rice University.

Of those 500 registrants, they represent ten different countries from around the world, twelve states, and within Texas alone, twenty-three cities. Our representatives come from Armenia, France, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Oman, Paraguay, Poland, the United Kingdom and the United States. This is about as eclectic a group as you can get, and we want to thank you all for your interest and participation.

I should note that one our plenary speakers, Mr. Watanabe from Toyota, has come all the way from Japan today. After he delivers his plenary address, he will turn around and fly back to Japan. Mr. Watanabe, we very much appreciate this and we think that your commitment to be here at this conference is a reflection of the passion we all feel for sustainable development.

We are also fortunate to have individuals representing so many sectors: academia, business, and non-governmental organizations. All of these individuals have made significant impacts in the core elements of sustainable development --environmental protection, the care of our communities, economic growth. And they have succeeded in integrating these three objectives at the same time.

In this regard, we would also very much like to express our gratitude to two individuals for the critical roles they have played in establishing the Center. One is Malcolm Gillis, President of Rice University. Dr. Gillis is also a distinguished scholar in the field of international economic development and sustainable development.

The other is Sir Philip Watts. Sir Philip is the Chairman of the Board of Managing Directors of the Royal/Dutch Shell Group. He is also Chairman of the World Business Council on Sustainable Development. We would like to congratulate him on recently being knighted in recognition of his services to British business, as well as for his services to the entire field of sustainable development.

We have many other guests here today and we are very pleased to welcome Mr. George Mitchell and his son Todd, Chairman of the Houston Advanced Research Center. Mr. Mitchell is a legend in sustainability. His contributions range from having been the seminal force behind probably the leading U.S. study on sustainability, known as "Our Common Future," which was produced by the National Research Council. For myself, his book has increasingly become a bible. He has also endowed the George and Cynthia Mitchell Chair in Sustainable Development at Rice. Thank you very much.

There are many others here today who have contributed significantly to this conference and to the Center. These individuals include representatives from Rice University’s James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, and the Environmental and Energy Systems Institute. We would also like to thank representatives of the Shell Oil Foundation who are here today, and who have so generously endowed a great piece of the Shell Center. Finally, our friends from France have also played a key role in supporting this effort. Welcome.

As I turn ahead as the executive director of the Shell Center, the one pronoun I tend not to want to use is the word "I" because this happens to be a collective effort in order to make the Center succeed -- there is absolutely no doubt about that. So let me give you a sense about what I hope that we will achieve together over the next few years.

I hope very much that this Center will be extremely focused. I hope that the Center will be targeted. And I hope the Center will produce objectives which are measurable.

I hope that we will focus on the great issues of air quality, sustainability in urban areas, the treatment and provision of water, and the development of new sources of energy. I hope that as we go along, we will be able to tap into the extraordinary resources here at Rice University, both in terms of the students, as well as their teachers and administrators.

In my short ten weeks here, I have found this university to be a treasure trove of expertise, and all of this expertise neatly matches against these key areas of water, air, energy, and sustainable development. I hope that as we move ahead, we will be able to link these different disciplines together into an interdisciplinary approach to sustainable development, that we will succeed at that, and that we will become a model for other institutions of higher education.

Most importantly, I hope that we will be able to ignite the passion of the students at Rice and elsewhere around sustainable development. I hope that they will see sustainability as a guiding value as they move ahead with their lives. I hope that they will learn that sustainability -- no matter what profession they choose throughout their life times -- is a tool that will enable them to have positive impact on the environment, their communities, and economic growth. And finally, I hope that the Center will continue to learn and learn and learn.

In that regard, I would like to introduce one of the teachers from whom I've learned a great deal in my brief time here, and that is Dr. Malcolm Gillis. Dr. Gillis received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Florida and his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. He has had distinguished academic careers and experiences at Duke University as well as Harvard. He came to Rice University in 1993 to become President. Dr. Gillis has co-authored, edited or written some 70 articles and eight books, and before assuming his administrative responsibilities at Rice, he was engaged in a wide range of consulting and providing advice to governments throughout the world, most notably Columbia, Bolivia, Peru, and Indonesia, as well as consulting for the United States government, Canadian government, and the World Bank.

It is a pleasure to welcome Dr. Gillis.

Thank you.