The Discovery Invest Leadership Summit took place in Sandton, Johannesburg on Wednesday 21 September 2011. Former US Vice President and prominent social activist for climate change, Al Gore, was the Keynote Speaker at the event. During Gore’s passionate address, which centered around sustainable investment, special mention was given to Jeunesse Park, a Non-Executive Director of environmental consultancy Global Carbon Exchange (GCX) and founder of the environmental enterprise, Food & Trees for Africa (FTFA) and the Climate Change Leadership Awards and Carbon Protocol.

The leadership summit serves as a platform for key international speakers to share their leadership strategies and insights into global financial, economic and management issues. During his address, Gore singled-out Park for her ongoing commitment to environmental issues and told the audience to contact her for presentations. This is however not the first time that Gore has placed Park in the spotlight. On Thursday 15 September, Park was also one of 24 presenters in Al Gore’s 24 Hours of Reality, a worldwide event and presentation authored by Gore himself and livestreamed to over 8 million. When asked about the experience, Park concluded, ‘It has been thrilling to work with, meet and then be given special mention by such a passionate climate change activist and leader such as Al Gore. It is encouraging that South Africa is playing a significant part in terms of thought leadership regarding global climate concerns.’

Apart from Park and GCX CEO Kevin James attending the summit, Global Carbon Exchange was also involved in ensuring that the event’s carbon footprint is calculated so that it may be off-set. ‘We will continue to ensure that environmental issues take precedence and become more mainstream’, says GCX CEO Kevin James. In this regard, GCX, in association with FTFA, announced the launch of ‘Green Day’ on 30 September 2011. Green Day aims to take environmental awareness issues more mainstream. ‘From an environmental point of view, we find that we are often preaching to the converted. These issues need to enter the public domain so more people become aware of the role they can play to ensure a sustainable future,’ says Park. Green Day aims to raise consciousness of green issues such as climate change, water, waste and energy management, natural resource depletion and sustainability in general.

All individuals and companies are invited to support the cause by wearing green on 30 September 2011. The call is also to support or make a donation to an environmental cause, spread the green word as far as possible and use emedia creatively such as changing profile pictures on Facebook to green to show their support.