The Purpose Agents founder and CEO, Anna Forster, went to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in May 2022 and attended the sessions at the #SDG Tent, the place for business with purpose.
Some insights from her conference diary below:
"I was excited to be at the World Economic Forum event again after the Covid hiatus.
My highlights from Day 1 at the SDG Tent:
"Delivering Equitable, Net Zero and Nature Positive Business in a Volatile World"
There is a need for combined action on the climate, nature and social agendas within the context of increasing global change and disruption.
Set goals need to go hand in hand, one cannot curb carbon emissions without reversing nature loss or paying a living wage in the supply chain.
A key focus now should be to set a clear and measurable goal for nature similar to the net zero goal for climate and to do this in a science-based way.
“Redefining Value to Transform Decision-Making”
Businesses need to account for the values of all capitals, e.g., social and natural capital in decision-making. There is a plethora of values-based accounting methodologies and organizations are overwhelmed. Key leaders such as Business for Nature, Capitals Coalition, Science Based Targets initiative, Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), WBCSD – World Business Council for Sustainable Development, World Economic Forum and the World Wildlife Fund have come together and proposed to simplify existing methods within a clear framework for action: “Assess, commit, transform, disclose.”
They also emphasize once more that collaboration is key to drive the systemic change we need.
Highlight from Day 2:
“Renewable Energy, Scarcity and Circularity: A Path to Net Zero”
The path to #netzero heavily relies on a successful transition to renewable energy and electrification. But scaling up technologies to achieve this largely depends on critical materials that are scarce on our planet. A low-carbon world will be a resource-heavy one with intensified competition for resource access, and the threat that mining more rare earths and minerals poses on ecosystems and biodiversity. So our only option is #circularity! This will require collaboration between different fields (energy, recycling, design, public sector) and heavy rapid investment into localized infrastructure. Subsidies will be needed to achieve the pace of change needed with an obvious step being to divert subsidies from fossil fuels.
A personal highlight for me was also to be able to attend the #naturepositive dinner mid week.
Linked below is a snippet of the unbelievably inspiring speech given by Vice President Al Gore summarising the key sustainability themes for me at the #wef22. #Algore emphasised that #climate, natural and social challenges are interdependent and need to be solved collaboratively and with the UTMOST urgency.
With our world on fire, flooded, in drought and a multi-breadbasket failure reinforced by a war on the horizon, he was rightfully angry and concluded we are failing both people and planet."