Watch: Prince Charles to tell Davos sustainability should be 'cheaper'

Prince Charles in April 2018
Prince Charles in April 2018 Copyright AP Photo/Dita Alangkara, fileDita Alangkara
By Alice Tidey
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The British heir to the throne has been championing environmentally friendly policies for decades.

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Britain's Prince Charles told global leaders at Davos on Wednesday that sustainability "cannot only be for those who can afford it", warning that "we simply cannot waste any more time".

The heir to the British throne is a keen environmentalist and has championed action to tackle climate change for decades.

You can watch his address in the player above.

In his address to global political and business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Prince Charles unveiled a new Sustainable Markets Initiative as well as a 10-point plan to make the global economy more sustainable and tackle climate change.

He stressed that "as consumers increasingly demand sustainable products, they deserve to be told more about product lifecycles, supply chains and production methods".

"For a transition to take place, being socially and environmentally conscious cannot only be for those who can afford it," he added.

He called for changes to "taxes, policies, and regulations" to boost sustainable markets and said "perverse subsidies" should be dismantled while incentives should be improved.

He also stressed that the private sector has a big role to play, citing the trillions of dollars of assets owned by sovereign wealth funds, hedge funds and pensions funds which could be used to invest in green solutions, arguing that they usually offer a better return than "traditional portfolios".

He also praised nature and urged business leaders to think of it as a "new asset class", saying that "nature is in fact the lifeblood of our financial market and as such we must rapidly realign our own economy to mimic nature's economy and work in harmony with it."

On a more positive note, he told the congregation that "we are in fact far further ahead that we might think" and announced that he'll be convening round tables with stakeholders across a wide variety of sectors including aviation, water, cement, steel, forestry, fisheries, and shipping to name a few.

"At the end of which I should probably be dead," he joked.

"Do we want to go down in history as the people who did nothing to bring the world back from the brink in time to restore the balance?" he continued, stressing that we "all have a seat at the table".

"We simply cannot waste any more time. The only limit is our willingness to act and the time to act is now," he concluded.

While at the gathering, he will also mee with Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg, Clarence House has confirmed.

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