Prince Charles is on a mission to improve the world for his grandchildren. On Wednesday, the Prince of Wales launched The Great Reset through his Sustainable Markets Initiative and the World Economic Forum. The new global initiative aims to reset, reimagine, rebuild, redesign, reinvigorate and rebalance our world in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. “Everything I have tried to do, and urge, over the past 50 years has been done with our children and grandchildren in mind,” Charles said during a roundtable (via People magazine). “So, I can only encourage us all to think big and act now.”
© Getty Images/Prince HarryThe environmental activist added, “I can only hope that as this current crisis passes we are able to reflect on, and shape, the type of world we want for ourselves and for future generations.” For over half a century, the 71-year-old Prince, who is a grandfather to Prince George , Princess Charlotte , Prince Louis and Archie Harrison , has promoted “action for a sustainable future to ensure that natural assets can endure” for years to come.
At the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos earlier this year, Charles launched his Sustainable Markets Initiative, which calls on communities, businesses, investors and consumers to take steps required to transition to more sustainable practices. The Prince’s Great Reset was designed to ensure businesses and communities “build back better” by implementing sustainable business practices as they begin to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Charles noted during the recent roundtable that climate change has the potential to be worse than the current health crisis. He said, “The threats posed by this dreadful pandemic came upon us suddenly and with very little warning. The threat of climate change has been more gradual, but it is a devastating reality for many people and their livelihoods around the world and its ever-greater potential to disrupt surpasses even that of COVID-19.”
Charles came out of self-isolation in March after testing positive for COVID-19. The future King recently spoke to Sky News about his experience with the novel coronavirus. “It makes me even more determined to push and shout and prod. I was lucky in my case and got away with it quite lightly,” he shared. “But I‘ve had it, and I can so understand what other people have gone through.”
Princes William and Harry ’s father continued, “I feel particularly for those who have lost their loved ones and have been unable to be with them at the time. That, to me, is the most ghastly thing. But in order to prevent this happening to so many more people, I’m so determined to find a way out of this.”
