Manila  - Asian environmental and business officials gathered in the Philippines Wednesday for the start of a three-day conference aimed at greening industry and slowing climate change.

Philippines Environment Secretary Jose Atienza said the International Conference on Green Industry in Asia would discuss how to create jobs and make business processes more efficient while protecting the environment.

"We need to popularize green industry for a resource-efficient and low-carbon future," he said in a statement. "Right now green industries are among the fastest-growing in the global economy."

Atienza said advanced biofuels, sustainable agriculture, solar energy, wind energy and geothermal energy are among the greenest industries.

"But the impetus must spread beyond these to encompass all industries that have an impact on the environment," he said.

The conference is being hosted by the Philippines in coordination with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization.

The organization's director general, Kandeh Yumkella, told the conference that industrial development must proceed along a low-carbon and resource-efficient path so as to preserve the environment while sustaining economic development and competitiveness.

And while rapid economic growth in Asia had lifted 300 million people out of poverty in the past three decades, Yumkella warned that population growth, urbanization and industrialization have caused environmental degradation and the loss of natural resources.

"The current growth model based on ever-increasing consumption of resources by a growing population is no longer tenable in today's resource-constrained world," he said.

"At risk are the social and economic gains made by Asian countries over the past decades," he added.

Yumkella said he hopes the conference would encourage more countries to follow a sustainable pattern of industrial development and take advantage of new opportunities being created by the shift toward clean energy.

Attendees on Friday were expected to endorse an action plan that would seek to regularly review progress made toward resource-efficient and low-carbon industries.(dpa)