The challenge, she believes, is to ramp up the public and private sectors' progress.
This model ― in which resources serve a constant purpose through reuse, repurposing and recycling ― is already taking hold, Gawel said, but the challenge is to ramp up the public and private sectors' progress.
Public policy is transitory, private-sector progress less so.
Foster also added that "systematic changes in behaviour need to extend to the private sector" if progress is to be achieved.
If governments really want to harness the power of the private sector, and track progress, then universal reporting – at least by all large companies – is required.
And without policy signals that spell out the rules of the game, it's going to be hard for the private sector to make progress, said Swickard.
The governing ideology of this country is that it is the entrepreneurial private sector that drives human progress.
Moreover, we deeply regret that he was unable to report the real story, which is that the government and the private sector are making significant progress in efforts to improve the lives and the labour conditions of guest workers in Qatar".
Laughably, Qatar's head of communications, Saif al-Thani, said: "We deeply regret that he [Lobel] was unable to report the real story, which is that the government and the private sector are making significant progress in efforts to improve the lives and the labour conditions of guest workers in Qatar".
But the government is securing its websites faster than the private sector, according to a progress report by the U.S. digital services agency 18F.
And governments' top-down signals and pressures on the private sector should enable rapid progress in low-carbon technologies.
