The concept of green economy has been raising hope to different stakeholders to address economic environmental and social crises facing currently the global community. It is one of the two thematic focuses at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development to be held in 2012, 20 years after the Rio Earth Summit. This concept is particularly important for mountain regions, particularly those of the developing economies - where millions of people live in fragile environment and depend mainly on natural resources for their livelihoods and well-being. Moreover, mountain systems are critical to sustain national, regional and global environment and economy and promoting green economy. About half of the world’s population depends on mountains for fresh water, clean energy, irrigation water, minerals, forest products, recreation, and genetic resources. Likewise, half of the global biodiversity hotspots (17 of the 34) and one third of all the protected areas are in the mountains. However, there are high economic and social costs for generating these public goods and services for the global humanity. From the mountains point of view, the key question are: what are the opportunity costs in providing essential ecosystem services to the broader society? How to provide incentive to mountain communities so that they play active role in strengthening ecosystem functions and resilience including sequestering carbon produced elsewhere. The conference brought together about 150 participants representing science, policy, government, and private sector from the world’s mountain regions including the Hindu Kush‐Himalayas, Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, Latin America, North America and Europe. Dr Ram Baran Yadav, President of Republic of Nepal inaugurated the conference and Dr RK Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), delivered a keynote speech. This paper briefly describes the structure, process, key messages and outcome of the three‐day conference. The broad objective of the conference was to develop compelling argument to put forward a mountain agenda at Rio+20 with a view to generate global action for the conservation of mountain ecosystems. The specific objectives were to: a. Develop a sound basis and argument for common understanding among mountain stakeholders on the role of mountains in the green conomy; and b. Create a platform and build a constituency in raising the mountain agenda in global debates, including Rio+20, to generate action by the global community