Corporate Sustainability Movement Urged to Become Transformative Force

(Copenhagen, 11 October 2012) – While corporate sustainability is now a global movement, urgent action is needed to make it a transformative force for change. This was the message delivered by UN Global Compact Executive Director Georg Kell during the Sustainia Action Forum, a meeting of international leaders hosted by the Sustainia initiative to discuss action strategies for implementing the world’s top sustainable solutions.

Speaking to a high-level group of business, Government and civil society representatives ahead of the inaugural Sustainia Award ceremony, Mr. Kell enlisted support for enhancing the private sector’s role in realizing a more equitable, prosperous and sustainable future.

“In the face of historic challenges, I fear that leadership for the long-term collective good is in a deep freeze,” said Kell. While expressing concern about the fractured political state and lack of incentive structures that reward good performance, he added that “business increasingly is willing to step up and push forward…Business has shown that it is possible to move ahead”.

Companies are increasingly putting corporate sustainability on their agenda – seeing that responsible conduct, sustainable development and long-term business success are mutually reinforcing. For example, over 7,000 companies from 140 countries are committed to the UN Global Compact and to embed sustainability principles into their operations. However, only a small fraction of an estimated 80,000 multinationals and millions of smaller enterprises are taking up this movement.

“The most urgent task now is to scale up, to look for inspiring solutions, to deepen engagement in this agenda – in order to ensure that corporate sustainability is a driving force for organizational change,” he said. “This must become transformative.”

As the world’s main source of economic activity, business is at the heart of innovation and improvements in living standards. Business innovation sets the pace in supercharging human productivity, defeating disease, computing and drawing nutrients from the soil, for example. By doing business in a responsible and sustainable way, companies have the power to underpin economies with core values that are essential for building trust in markets, driving growth and spurring development.

One of the key bottlenecks to scaling up sustainability is communicating effectively with consumers and other decision makers, an issue that Sustainia is actively working to change. Sustainia “holds all the ingredients of being a catalytic force to accelerate, inspire and bring to scale the many efforts that are already taking place,” said Kell.

Sustainia provides a new approach to sustainable living and communicating about sustainability. This global alliance of international organizations and companies – which includes the UN Global Compact, Nobel Sustainability Trust, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s initiative Regions20 and IFHP – aims to inspire business leaders to offer more sustainable solutions and consumers to desire a more sustainable lifestyle.

Sustainia’s Executive Director Laura Storm stated: “Sustainia can get across the message that if existing solutions were implemented at large scale, we could make real sustainable societies. We will work for bottom-up change by informing industries, sectors, decision makers, CEOs and civil societies about the many sustainable alternatives.”

Among the group’s activities is the nomination of 100 sustainable solutions from around the world, culminating in the Sustainia Award, a new global award announced today honoring innovative, sustainable solutions and ideas. The Sustainia100 represent 10 sectors and range from sustainable supermarkets and green container ships, to clean cooking technologies and solar home systems in Africa.

• Read Sustainia Action Forum Roundtable Opening Remarks by Georg Kell, UN Global Compact Executive Director
• Schwarzenegger Presents Sustainia Award to Off-Grid Solar Innovation

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Kristen Coco
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UN Global Compact
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