Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), Kanagawa, Japan

Established in 1998, the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) is an independent, not for profit think tank, based in Japan, that goes beyond research to provide practical ways to protect the earth's environment and to realize greater sustainability and equity in the global community. While the outlook of IGES is global, the principal geographical scope of its activities is Asia and the Pacific region, an area which is experiencing rapid economic development and which will affect the global environment through its population growth, urban environmental problems and other environmental issues. The IGES mission is to move human society to become more environmentally and socio-economically sustainable. In order to realize sustainable development, our current socio-economic activities themselves should be reviewed and redirected. Thus, the ultimate goal of IGES is to create a new paradigm for the global community so that the unsustainable production and consumption patterns currently observed can be changed into sustainable ones.