Emerging markets are hardest hit by many of the problems of sustainability and are also least prepared to deal with them. At the same time, they are the great hope for growth for a banking community that has seen its profits in developed markets wiped out by the credit crisis.

“Humanity is on a collision course with the finite limits of the planet,” says Jennifer Morgan, sustainable business manager at WWF-UK. “We are eating into the natural capital of the planet’s resources and no longer living off the interest,” she adds.