On the morning of 22 May 2026, as the world observed International Biodiversity Day, a room full of leaders from industry, civil society and academia chose to do more than just observe. Development Alternatives (DA), in partnership with Great Lakes Institute of Management (GLIM) and Pierag as Knowledge Partner, brought together an invite-only gathering for a Strategic Roundtable on "ESG at the Crossroads: From Compliance to Competitive Advantage," a conversation designed to be honest, grounded and consequential.

Dr. Ashok Khosla, Founder and Chairman, DA Group, opened with a call that would set the tone for everything that followed. Samaj, Sarkar, Bazaar, he said, must work together and not in silos, because sustainable development is not philanthropy; it is a systems imperative. As climate risk graduates into operational risk, CSOs become indispensable to business, not as bystanders but as early warning systems, behavioural interpreters and last-mile executors that no corporate can replicate from a boardroom. Building on this, Prof. Dr. Jones Mathew, Principal of GLIM Gurgaon, made the case that honest dialogue between corporates and civil society is not a nicety but a structural necessity, and that academic institutions carry a distinct responsibility in this equation; to produce the next generation of sustainability professionals who arrive not just with business acumen, but with a genuine understanding of the world that business must now answer to.

What followed was six sessions of rigorous, facilitated exchange led by Sarika Gosain, Partner and Leader for ESG and Sustainability at Pierag. The conversations moved across ESG as strategic risk and opportunity, decarbonisation pathways, the unlisted and MSME frontier, corporate-civil society dialogue on climate, rethinking compliance frameworks, and emerging frontiers in nature, AI and ESG assurance. Each session moved from topic to pulse check to synthesis and the room moved with it.

Three things became undeniably clear: the compliance-to-conviction gap is real; the Corporate-Civil Society divide is not inevitable but a construct ready to be dismantled; and the unlisted, family-owned and MSME frontier cannot remain an afterthought. Bridging these gaps demands more than frameworks; it demands Niyat, the intent to do good embedded in action, and Taqneek, the tools to make it real. When intent and capability align, change becomes not just possible but inevitable.

The roundtable also marked the launch of a joint Management Development Programme between DA and GLIM, grounded in practice, anchored in ground realities, and designed to build genuine ESG literacy within organisations across Circularity, Entrepreneurship and Business Resilience amidst climate change. Because closing the intent-to-action gap requires not just dialogue, but capability.

The closing remarks by Dr. Sanghamitra Bhattacharya and Brig. Yogesh Kapoor (VSM), Retd., brought the day to a close with conviction rather than conclusion. A White Paper is being brought out, carrying the clarity this conversation produced, to be imbued into policy, at the boardrooms and transcending beyond.

India's rise is undeniable. How we rise is the question history is asking of us today. Together.