Business leaders mobilize for sustainability
Thursday, 18 May 2017 13:55
40 executives from the Norwegian business sector, recently in China, have given promise to work to meet the UN’s sustainability goals in recent days.
Last year, the Oslo-based foundation, Business for Peace went on to ensure that business leaders across the world promised to lead their companies so that sustainability goals could be met.
During the roundtable conference at Business for Peace on May 16th, Prime Minister Erna Solberg emphasized that business is the “muscle” in the cooperation to achieve the UN’s sustainability goals.
Prime Minister Erna Solberg leads the UN’s Advocates group to promote sustainability goals. The targets will be redeemed by 2030.
Famous names
The Virgin boss Richard Branson and the top manager of Unilever Paul Polman declared their promise in 2016 and in the past year several hundred new leaders, both international and Norwegian, have followed up. Among them are Statoil Eldar Sætre, Egil Hogna in Sapa and Svein Tore Holsether in Yara.
The business leaders who have signed up to now represent companies that have a total turnover of over NOK 5700 billion, with more than 2 201 000 employees.
China Support
Following Erna Solberg’s visit to China, along with a large business delegation, last week, alongside with Head of Innovation Norway, Anita Krohn-Traaseth, took an initiative to gather support for the sustainability promise from the around 300 leaders who participated on the trip. So far, 40 leaders have given the promise.
Gro speak
In her speech at the opening of the Business for Peace Round Table Conference, Erna Solberg highlighted the Brundtland Commission’s report “Our Common Future”, which celebrates 30 years in 2017. The theme of this year’s conference is the Brundtland report. Gro Harlem Brundtland helds the speech “State of the Union between Business and Society” at Oslo Business for Peace Award Ceremony in Oslo City Hall. This year’s prize winners are Elon Musk, Durreen Shahnaz, Harley Seyedin and Murad Al-Katib. The award winners are selected by an independent committee of Nobel winners in both peace and economics.