Page 13 - THE SOUTH CHINA BUSINESS JOURNAL
P. 13
You have received many awards A I simply grew up in a family that
for business leadership related believed strongly in respect for
to sustainable development, everybody and that nobody should
which include the 2015 Oslo be left behind. Coming out of WWII
Business for Peace Award. the benefits of peace, education and
inc,union were well understood.
Over the course of your career
when did “sustainable However many of the issues we are facing now, such
as planetary boundaries, income inequality etc where
development” become your focus? Why? difficult to several decades ago.
In 2014, I was fortunate enough to be asked by then-UN
Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, to be on the high-
level panel that helped design the SDGs as successor to
the MDG’s.
This was an enormous learning process. As we dived
more into the issues – from slavery, to poverty, to
climate change, to youth unemployment, to income
inequality - the more I realized how much business
can contribute to finding the solutions, but also how
big a business opportunity it was. Since then I have
been proud to serve as an ambassador for the SDGs
at the Secretary General’s request.
Companies are part of society and have a duty to
make a contribution. Business must play its role
along with other stakeholders - and I’m personally
fully committed to this approach.
Q A “Businessworthy” means first
understanding that there is no
The Business for business strategy in runaway
Peace Foundation climate change, growing
has coined the word inequality and extreme poverty.
“businessworthy”. But then more importantly
What does it mean to you taking responsibility of our
and, perhaps, Unilever? In
what way do you think the total footprint to ensure we are making a positive
concept will impact the contribution. Not only economically but also
society and the future?
environmentally and socially. It requires acting with
the highest level of integrity and transparency in all
we do and ensuring that we put ourselves first and
foremost to the service of society.
More than ever before it is critical that leaders
are held to account in delivering positive and
measurable change in driving to a more sustainable
and equitable world, increasingly easier as the cost of
not acting is becoming higher than the cost of action.
Fortunately, there is a growing and powerful
coalition of the willing from across society who
are joining forces to tackle these complex and
interconnected issues. In doing so, we are using
the SDGs as a framework for how we organize our
individual and collective contributions.
South China Business Journal 9
for business leadership related believed strongly in respect for
to sustainable development, everybody and that nobody should
which include the 2015 Oslo be left behind. Coming out of WWII
Business for Peace Award. the benefits of peace, education and
inc,union were well understood.
Over the course of your career
when did “sustainable However many of the issues we are facing now, such
as planetary boundaries, income inequality etc where
development” become your focus? Why? difficult to several decades ago.
In 2014, I was fortunate enough to be asked by then-UN
Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, to be on the high-
level panel that helped design the SDGs as successor to
the MDG’s.
This was an enormous learning process. As we dived
more into the issues – from slavery, to poverty, to
climate change, to youth unemployment, to income
inequality - the more I realized how much business
can contribute to finding the solutions, but also how
big a business opportunity it was. Since then I have
been proud to serve as an ambassador for the SDGs
at the Secretary General’s request.
Companies are part of society and have a duty to
make a contribution. Business must play its role
along with other stakeholders - and I’m personally
fully committed to this approach.
Q A “Businessworthy” means first
understanding that there is no
The Business for business strategy in runaway
Peace Foundation climate change, growing
has coined the word inequality and extreme poverty.
“businessworthy”. But then more importantly
What does it mean to you taking responsibility of our
and, perhaps, Unilever? In
what way do you think the total footprint to ensure we are making a positive
concept will impact the contribution. Not only economically but also
society and the future?
environmentally and socially. It requires acting with
the highest level of integrity and transparency in all
we do and ensuring that we put ourselves first and
foremost to the service of society.
More than ever before it is critical that leaders
are held to account in delivering positive and
measurable change in driving to a more sustainable
and equitable world, increasingly easier as the cost of
not acting is becoming higher than the cost of action.
Fortunately, there is a growing and powerful
coalition of the willing from across society who
are joining forces to tackle these complex and
interconnected issues. In doing so, we are using
the SDGs as a framework for how we organize our
individual and collective contributions.
South China Business Journal 9
