KEY POINTS:
A rapport with former US President Bill Clinton has won a New Zealand clothing company chief the chance to tell world leaders about her vision of sustainability.
Untouched World founder Peri Drysdale has been asked to address several hundred Asian leaders at the Clinton Global Initiative's Hong Kong conference this December.
"I got a little note from Bill saying,'We'd love it if you could join us this year'," said Drysdale, who has met Clinton several times on his visits to New Zealand.
"I replied and said I couldn't go at first because of other commitments. They came back to me and said, if we change the date, will you come?"
This year's conference will focus on three things - education, energy and climate change, and public health.
Drysdale, who has yet to confirm her attendance but says she will "probably" go, plans to talk about the first two topics.
She would talk about the challenges of getting education, conservation and business speaking the same language - a problem she has encountered with her young adult education charity the Untouched World Foundation.
Drysdale first met Clinton when she supplied luxury clothes for the then-United States President and other Apec leaders in 1999.
Unlike the other leaders, Clinton braved driving Auckland rain without a jacket to show off the Untouched World logo on his shirt.
"He got up on the podium and said: 'This is the smartest outfit I've worn in all my years as President'. I just wanted to hug him," said Drysdale.
She had approached Clinton at a function, and he promised he would one day go to her shop. He was famously photographed honouring that promise by shopping at Untouched World's Auckland store in 2002.
Drysdale said she was asked to address the conference because of her company's integrated approach to sustainability.
It won't be her first big speaking engagement - in May, she addressed the United Nations about corporate education for sustainability.
"Sustainability is in our DNA," she said yesterday. "We started in 1981 and we've gradually ratcheted up the focus on what we think is good and acceptable business."
"We're a business organisation working at a grass roots level in a philosophical way, and I think that's what makes us different."
Untouched World is owned by Christchurch-based company Snowy Peak.
