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Chandran Nair is the founder and Chief-Executive-Officer 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.

Career

Nair is a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council for Sustainability and has argued at numerous forums including the WEF, APEC and OECD about 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 various media outlets including The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Huffington Post ,The New York Times. and South China Morning Post. 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. In 2018 he published The Sustainable State: The Future of Government, Economy, and Society.

Publications

Consumptionomics

In 2012, Nair published his first book, Consumptionomics. In Consumptionomics, he advocates that the Western model of consumption-led economic growth cannot be replicated in Asia, that current and future leaders must find alternatives to safeguard our future. He argues that resource constraints will require a realignment of economic policy to avoid catastrophic outcomes arising from the relentless promotion of a consumption-led growth model in the world’s most populous regions. He calls for curbs on some forms of consumption and for resources to be re-priced to reflect the true costs to society. He offers a new paradigm for governments, business leaders and academics to consider.

The Sustainable State: The Future of Government, Economy, and Society

Niar's second book, The Sustainable State: The Future of Government, Economy, and Society, was published in 2018, by Berrett-Koehler. In the Sustainable State, he shows that the market-dominated model followed by the industrialized West is simply not scalable. The United States alone, with less than 5 percent of the world's population, consumes nearly a quarter of its resources. If countries in Asia, where 60 percent of the world's population lives, try to follow the Western lead, the results will be calamitous.

Instead, he argues that development must be directed by a state that is willing and able to intervene in the economy. Corporations, which by design demand ever-expanding consumption, need to be directed toward meeting societal needs or otherwise restrained, not unleashed. Development has to be oriented toward the greatest good--clean drinking water for the many has to take precedence over swimming pools for the few. Nair provides three compelling case studies demonstrating the benefits of such strong state governance and the failings of weak state governance.

This will mean rethinking the meaning of concepts like "prosperity," "freedom," and "rights" and whether democracy is always the best way to ensure responsive government--as he writes, "A democracy that cannot work to improve the life of its citizens is not better than a nondemocracy that can actually improve quality of life." Many people will find these to be challenging ideas, but what he offers is a model suited to the realities of the developing world, not the assumptions of the dominant culture.

Dismantling Global White Privilege: Equity for a Post-Western World

Nair's upcoming book, Dismantling Global White Privilege: Equity for a Post-Western World argues that white privilege is the best way to understand how oppression and dominance by Western cultures operates. Touching on history, business, environment, entertainment, media fashion, education, and more, he analyzes how it has shaped, repressed, and destroyed local cultures to seek and preserve white economic power.

Nair identifies white privilege as the driving force behind globalization, being constantly upheld and reproduced by a global superstructure that perpetuates widespread white economic and military dominance. This book provides a middle ground between brief media mentions and the dense rhetoric of racial politics so readers can develop a new worldview around dismantling white privilege at the global scale.

References

1. Romann, Alfred. "A GIFTed man". China Daily. China Daily. Retrieved 25 April 2014.
2. "'The Other Hundred' - World's untold photo stories". CNN. October 14, 2013. Retrieved 23 April 2014.
3. Nair, Chandran. "The Other Hundred: The Non-Rich, Non-Celebrity List". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 23 April 2014.
4. Up close & personal with Founder of Gift and author Chandran Nair, The Star (Malaysia), 21 May 2011
5. "Global Agenda Council for Sustainability 2012-2014". World Economic Forum. Retrieved 25 April 2014.
6. "National Center for APEC". APEC. Archived from the original on 26 April 2014. Retrieved 25 April 2014.
7. "Speakers - OECD". OECD. Retrieved 25 April 2014.
8. "Global Economic Symposium". Interview with Chandran Nair. Global Economic Symposium. Retrieved 25 April 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
9. "Chandran Nair" (PDF). Retrieved 23 April 2014.
10. Nair, Chandran. "We should stop talking of an Asian century". The Financial Times. Retrieved 23 April 2014.
11. Nair, Chandran. "Why is the west seen as the greatest threat? From Asia, the answer's clear". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 April 2014.
12. Nair, Chandran. "If Asia wants to prosper, don't listen to the IMF". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 23 April 2014.
13. Nair, Chandran. "Focusing Science on the Damage". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 April 2014.
14. "Chandran Nair". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 2021-11-30.
15. "The Globalist's Top Books of 2011 - The Globalist". 22 December 2011.
16. "The Sustainable State". 9 October 2018.
17. Nair, Chandran (2011). Consumptionomics : Asia's Role in Reshaping Capitalism and Saving the Planet. Oxford: Infinite Ideas Limited. ISBN 1-906821-49-6. OCLC 768443526.
18. Nair, Chandran (2018). The sustainable state : the future of government, economy, and society (First edition ed.). Oakland, CA. ISBN 978-1-5230-9518-6. OCLC 1057309672. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
19. Google, retrieved 2021-12-20
20. Nair, Chandran (2022). Dismantling global white privilege : equity for a post-Western world (First edition ed.). Oakland, CA. ISBN 978-1-5230-0002-9. OCLC 1262668860. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

• Living people
• Malaysian businesspeople