Quick Facts
Biography
Chandran Nair is a Malaysian businessman and founder of The Global Institute for Tomorrow, an independent think-tank based in Hong Kong.He is also Project Director for The Other Hundred, an international photography competition and photo-book project.
Background
Nair was born in Malaysia, the seventh of eight children. His parents were immigrants to Malaysia from India, and not well off, with all the children sharing a room. He studied chemical engineering in the UK, where he then worked for a few years. At 28, he joined the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, building sanitation and water systems by day on a stipend and playing the saxophone in his free time in a band. He later earned a masters in environmental engineering from Bangkok.
Activities
Nair is a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council for Sustainability and has argued at numerous forums including the WEF, APECand OECDabout the need for radical reform of the current economic model and strict limits on consumption.
Nair was previously Chairman of Environmental Resources Management (ERM), building the company to be the leading environmental consultancy in Asia Pacific. He left in March 2004.
Nair is a frequent contributor to media outlets including The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Huffington Postand The New York Times. He is the author of Consumptionomics: Asia's role in reshaping capitalism and saving the planet, named one of the top ten books of 2011 by The Globalist.
