More than ever before, healthcare needs women leaders. The pandemic has put the spotlight on how effective women leaders are — now it’s time to unlock this energy. This is precisely what Unlocking Eve, an ambitious women-led movement for
women healthcare leaders, is doing. Unlocking Eve sets out to boost well-being, strengthen leadership, magnify women’s influence, transform healthcare, and pave the path to healing the world. Our cocktail launch invited participants to co-create an inaugural art piece and open the door to the Unlocking Eve movement.
The outcome
Human-centered, family-friendly, society-supportive policies and frameworks are urgently required for more women to access positions in healthcare leadership and decision-making. Unlocking Eve and its solution-centred work will leverage insights from sessions on positive models, identify positive actions,
and envisage a future where these policies and frameworks are translated into reality. Co-founders Eva McLellan and Kaye Vitug are excited to set up partnerships with individuals and organizations committed to closing these gaps. Connect with the community at www.unlockingeve.org to find out more.
Attendees: 80 people
DELIVERING RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS EDUCATION AS THE NEW NORM
About the Event
Hot on the heels of the recent Financial Times and InTent webinar The growing case for responsible business education, InTent chaired a discussion with leading schools, businesses and essential networks to identify
the key levers that will make responsible business education the new norm.
The outcome
The mere presence of so many decision-makers reflects a growing interest in the social purpose of business education. Top level professors, companies and non-profits all came together to pool their expertise in the panel discussion and interactive workshop. Sustainability and diversity, including gender diversity and other under-represented groups, garnered significant interest. Some warnings were also sounded, for instance Gemma D’Auria from McKinsey mentioned that recruitment is increasingly set to take place beyond leading universities. The aim is to scout out the best potential and ensure future leaders bring on board hard and soft skills as well as a multiplicity of approaches to problem- solving. In future, people’s eyes are going to turn to start-ups and other sources to find the next top talent.
As a whole, generation Z is keen to ensure business swiftly undergoes a major paradigm shift and starts putting social concerns at the core. To achieve this, clearer metrics are required to understand the wider impact of business schools’ activities locally and globally (including the UK’s REF), interdisciplinary and collaborative work between faculties and business schools, and SDG-related research.Several individuals suggested making the SDGs a mandatory part of business schools’ curriculum, rather than relegating them to optional modules, as is often the case.
Attendees: 80 people
THE ROLE OF SWISS BOARDS IN DRIVING SUSTAINABILITY
CEOs and board members are increasingly expected to lead the change towards a more sustainable economy. This exclusive breakfast reserved for Swiss CEOs and Board Members addressed the reality of an accelerated sustainable transition aligned with Switzerland’s 2030 Sustainable Development Strategy (2030 SDS).
To support this transition, B Lab Switzerland and InTent launched the Swiss Boards for Agenda 2030 (SBA2030), an alliance of Board Members and CEOs of leading Swiss companies committed to achieving high-level board accountability and the SDGs.
The outcome
Switzerland has an opportunity to forge a better form of capitalism: over 90 leaders, board members, CEOs, government representatives and economic umbrella organizations joined the inaugural launch event of the Swiss Boards for Agenda 2030 alliance. Alliance Members are bringing the broader interests of society and the environment to the table, not just shareholders’ interests. They are committed to embedding sustainability into their core strategy and board agenda. There’s no time to waste if we want to address the world’s most pressing challenges.
B Lab Switzerland and InTent developed a set of tools within the framework of the Economic Business Council co-chaired by André Hoffmann and Jonathan Normand. These tools, which include a one-day sustainability masterclass developed with IMD Business School, will underpin SDG implementation and measurement to unleash Swiss companies’ full potential.
SBA2030 Alliance Members committed their boards to action, making precise, roadmapped pledges to contribute to the SDGs. In several cases company bylaws have even been amended to ensure decisions reflect the needs of all stakeholders.
SBA2030 Alliance Members expressed the need for a new regulations and incentives system that requires informed regulators and helps build transparent institutions. The Alliance is uniquely positioned to deliver as it brings multi-sectoral representation aligned with the SDGs and Agenda 2030.
Swiss government representatives welcomed the SBA2030 alliance and recognised the role it can play in helping achieve the SDGs. There was general agreement that we are not yet on track to achieve the SDGs but it’s not too late. SBA2030 can help us turn the corner and get back on track. We can make the SDGs a reality.
Participants agreed it was time to act. To help them take action, we unveiled the SBA2030 Playbook which guides boards through the key steps in developing a positive impact strategy — from integrating purpose and the SDGs into their strategy, to building the right leadership and going beyond competition to embrace collaboration. Full details here.
The media welcomed the alliance and its pragmatic approach, as it balances the usual WEF-week outcome with more tangible actions. In terms of coverage, this year our activities led to three national broadcast radio interviews, and +320k online views via social media.
About the Event Two years ago in the SDG tent, we set up the Capitals framework, tools and resources that were being used by leading businesses and governments. So much has changed since then: the G7 has set up an Impact Taskforce, the disclosure standards have been consolidated, the evaluation and monitoring methods are being standardised, and financial markets are getting to grips with value accounting.
In this session, leading businesses and key players updated you on the latest progress. Through curated roundtables, we explored what this meant for you and your business and set out clear steps for how value accounting can enhance your decision-making.
The outcome This event provided an essential update on the main progress over the last couple of years. As well as launching actions for business on nature (and people) across many leading initiatives, making it easier for business to access the tools and frameworks, the event also set out the intention to create a value commission to consistently measure added value and provide an open-access database for everyone around the world.
Attendees: 120 people
"Nature loss is not only a moral issue. It is an issue affecting the economy, social stability, health, well being. It is a security issue as dangerous as climate change, in fact, interconnected."
ACCELERATING NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS IN BUSINESS
About the Event Businesses that embrace nature- positive policies, practices and investments stand to gain in the medium to long-term. According to the WEF’s estimations, a nature-positive economy can generate over US$10 trillion in new annual business value and create up to 395 million jobs by 2030.
This shift in direction is inevitable and already occurring. Early- mover companies still have an opportunity to seize competitive advantages, while those who lag behind may struggle to adapt as nature-positive quickly becomes expected business practice.
This session explored the opportunities that lay ahead for businesses in a nature-positive economy. The panel also explored how to mainstream investments into nature-based solutions and how to incorporate them within business operations.
The outcome Nature must be treated differently to carbon. We can’t force the nature agenda into the climate agenda. Nature- based solutions require approaching nature with a new mindset. We have to change how we value and account for all essential goods and services nature provides for our wellbeing and that of future generations. This feeds into ongoing post-Covid debate about acknowledging that wellbeing and health are inextricable, rather than considering well-being an optional afterthought.
Data and Transparency matter but Governance is key. Data collection and analysis have a massive impact on how we understand and respond to issues as they arise. Data is vital to ensuring transparency, which is also key to accelerating nature- based solutions. And yet risk, data and disclosure are woefully insufficient and much more needs to be done in governing nature- related markets.
Nature Based Solutions are Case by Case. There is no One Fits All. It’s important not to be bogged down by regulations. A roots- up, proactive nature based approach must be incorporated from day one to ensure your future business is in tune with the world around us. Nature based solutions must take into account local requirements, be it the rights and knowledge of indigenous peoples, protected ecosystems or specific climate phenomena.
Attendees: 65 people
UNLOCKING LEADERSHIP IN HEALTHCARE AND HEALING THE WORLD
The Unlocking Eve panel brought together leaders from politics and industry to explore why some countries have achieved more representative systems while others still lag behind, and what this means for the way healthcare systems are designed and solutions are delivered.
Countries with more representative political systems and more women in key leadership positions succeeded in saving more lives during the pandemic. As we face increasing existential threats, we have an opportunity to embrace a shift towards new values, behaviours, and leadership. We can draw up a roadmap for a new system that supports diverse perspectives, drives new discussions, includes new decision-makers at the table, and delivers better health outcomes for all.
The outcome
For more women to access positions in healthcare leadership and decision-making, we need human-centered, family-friendly, and society-supportive policies and frameworks. Unlocking Eve and its solution-centred work will leverage insights from sessions on positive models, identify positive actions, and envisage a future where these policies and frameworks are translated into reality. Co-founders Eva McLellan and Kaye Vitug are excited to set up partnerships with individuals and organizations committed to closing these gaps. Connect with the community at www.unlockingeve.org to find out more.
The Davos Annual Meeting brought together the world’s most influential people. The Collaboration Conversation at the SDG Tent Cafe embraced this by encouraging open, challenging conversations slicing through sectors and backgrounds.
It created a space for people to engage in unlikely collaborations by enabling individuals to meet people outside of their bubble in order to expand their perception of the opportunities and challenges facing the world. The Collaboration Conversation forged a non-traditional space for exchange, learning and collaboration.
The outcome
The Collaboration Conversation harnessed the tangible desire to propel the achievement of the SDGs. Wolfgang Fengler, the World Bank’s Lead Economist for Southern Africa, kicked off the discussion with upbeat statistics on global poverty trends. While considering the bigger picture, participants were encouraged to consider the role they can play as individuals in building a better world. Our social media reach experiment showed that from just 50 people we could reach an audience of 3.129 million in a few clicks, which just goes to show the responsibility on the shoulders of each and every participant.
Attendees: 60 people
"We are in a worse situation than we were 30 years ago. And yet every year actions have been taken. We need to ask ourselves what we're doing wrong and what we're going to change starting tomorrow."
ACHIEVING HEALTH FOR ALL: THE NEW ERA OF COLLABORATION AND INNOVATION
Today, less than a decade away from the deadline to deliver the 2030 promise outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), universal access to quality healthcare and medical innovation remains a global challenge, as far too many people either have no access to healthcare at all or access to only very basic healthcare.
Moreover, the world is now facing unprecedented challenges to access essential medicines and other health commodities, with the Russian war in Ukraine threatening decades of achievements, further delaying the world from meeting the targets outlined in SDG 3 and, in particular, Universal Health Coverage (UHC). However, lessons can be learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, especially when it comes to the use of digital technologies and the role of digitalization in high-, middle-, and low- income countries.
This session dug into how the global health community can widen access to healthcare and life-saving medicines for the most underserved populations. It also questioned the role innovation plays in this process and how it can help achieve Health for All.
The outcome
The speakers highlighted the lessons on access that can be learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, including the use of digital technologies as well as the role of digitalization in health and telemedicine.
The panel also delved into issues such as the One Health approach and the role of cities on health, women’s leadership, innovation, civil society, and multi-stakeholder collaborations in achieving Health for All. In future we will include this in designing and implementing our strategies as well as external stakeholder management.
In order to deliver on our company’s vision, we need to redesign sustainable and innovative public-private partnerships and set out concrete outcomes for these partnerships and the role of all stakeholders.
Attendees: 50 people
WHERE THERE’S A WILL THERE’S A WAY: A CONVERSATION ON BUILDING ENTERPRISES FOR SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL OUTCOMES.
About the Event
The global recovery and adaptation to climate change requires investment. However, traditional forms of funding have failed to deliver systemic change in business outcomes.
This panel explored the opportunities for hybrid and innovative funding structures for businesses that generate social and environmental outcomes.
It sought to provide participants with the awareness that opportunities exist to value diversity and to fund the recovery, opportunities that replace the need for homogenous scale traditional innovation finance.
The outcome
From the conversation on building organisations for social and environmental outcomes, our first take-home is that there is great enthusiasm for this topic. Our lively audience showed that the intentions companies are built with ultimately drive and shape their impact. Tensions between entrepreneurs’ instinct and intentions and the strict demands of regulators or investors put the spotlight on the hurdles reporting throws up. Trust and scale were identified as two key terms that deserve a contemporary definition in the ongoing discussion. A desire for ‘role-models’, such as success stories on the entrepreneurial and funder side, emerged as a common desire.
Attendees: 70 people
RENEWABLE ENERGY, SCARCITY AND CIRCULARITY: A PATH TO NET ZERO
The path to Net Zero relies heavily on a successful transition to renewable energy. Yet scaling up renewables to achieve this goal depends on critical materials that are scarce. This scarcity of these materials not only limits the adoption potential of these technologies, but also implies intensified competition in the near future. These problems can be fixed by keeping critical materials in circulation in the economy they serve, and away from leakage into the environment or competing economies. This requires connecting renewable energy experts, circularity proponents and governments to create actionable plans for sustainable futures.
This panel looked at the role of scarce materials in the renewable energy transition towards the Net Zero objective while also considering how to overcome resource limitations within and across industries. It also examined the role of an industrial circular economy transition and to what extent governments and policymakers can enable these changes.
The outcome
The path to NetZero requires strategic thinking on the transition to renewable energy today. It is urgent.
This strategic thinking entails identifying the potential obstacles and enablers. We need to avoid potential material scarcity impediments as well as geopolitical challenges, and invest in circular technologies and infrastructures as soon as possible.
A circular economy is the ideal approach to prepare for this transition. However, it is not just about enabling local material conservation but also rethinking consumption, focusing on resource efficiency, and doing more with less.
As Klaus Schwab forecasted, “In the new world, it is not the big fish which eats the small fish, it’s the fast fish which eats the slow fish” — family businesses, given their unique characteristics, are best placed to respond swiftly and with agility to our changing new world.
Throughout this dialogue panellists focused on how family businesses can be a driving force for good, how they can translate good intentions into practical actions for the progress of society and the planet.
Panellists investigated how family businesses can transform themselves and become catalysts for change to drive business as a force for good, serving not only business prosperity but also people and the planet.
Commitment is the fundamental fuel that drives family businesses towards purpose for greater good. There was one underlying question throughout — how can family businesses build their ‘journey from aspirations to actions’ and translate the vision and the agenda of doing good into a clear roadmap and deliverable actions for positive impact?
The outcome
Family business has a strong potential to shape and lead responsible business. Through its long-term vision, values and loyalty, the family firm can take leadership on a broader business agenda. However, the lack of governance structures and the reliance on key individuals pose a risk when family firms do not have a holistic and inclusive agenda that seeks to grasp not only the bigger picture, but the complex realities within which it operates.
Above and beyond knowing how to spend and pledge money via philanthropic activities, family businesses must be responsible when it comes to how they generate their money. Becoming a responsible business requires a three-step procedure. First, families need to grasp the social impact of their business. Second, they must commit to a purposeful business that benefits financial, environmental, social and human capital. Third, they must execute their value-based mission.
2022 provides an unmissable opportunity to change course by securing an ambitious global agreement to reverse the loss of nature. The UN biodiversity negotiations provided a unique space to shore up our ambition and to agree on a nature, climate, and people-positive Global Biodiversity Framework that will guide our relationship with nature for the next decade. There is an ever-greater need for leadership that integrates our development, climate, and nature agendas, and that is committed to a sustainable society.
This high-level dinner brought together business, government, international organisations, and civil society leaders. We sought to accelerate progress towards securing a nature positive world, while deepening our individual and collective commitments as nature champions and advocates.
The outcome
At the Nature Positive Dinner, speakers were loud and clear about the need to account for nature in business and political decisions. Former US Vice President Al Gore — already a climate champion — explained that the connection between nature positive and net-zero emissions is the essential algorithm of our time. The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosure is establishing a framework which will help redirect trillions of dollars to nature-positive outcomes, as explained by co-chair David Craig. H&M CEO Helena Helmersson described how the Science-Based Targets Network will help her company contribute to a nature positive world.
People and nature’s resources remain front and centre, as noted by Hindou Ibrahim, Coordinator of the Association of Peul Women and Autochthonous Peoples of Chad, UN Secretary General Special Ocean Envoy Peter Thompson and Yara CEO Svein Tore Holsether both commented (respectively) that being nature positive and investing in nature means investing in people, that we must think about nature and the ocean in the same breath and that fixing the food system is paramount to achieving this goal.
2022 must be the Super Year for Nature, according to Danish Environment Minister Lea Wermelin. As for the Colombian Environment Minister Carlos Correa, he isn’t even waiting for a Global Biodiversity Framework: he called for action now, and confirmed that Colombia will not wait until 2030 to protect 30% of its land and sea — it will do so in July 2022.
This is incredible progress, from the idea that there could be more nature in the world, to every sector and key nature champions exploring how to turn this into an on-the-ground reality. As Business for Nature CEO Eva Zabey pointed out, while the momentum is strong we need to build on it and make it exponential. With a room full of champions revved up and convincing their peers at Davos and beyond, turning the corner on nature loss is beginning to feel possible. “
Attendees: 170 people
AN SDG TARGET WE CAN REACH: FINANCING VIRAL HEPATITIS ELIMINATION
The 75th World Health Assembly held from 22-28 May 2022 called for the elimination of viral hepatitis as a public health threat by 2030. Despite this, most countries are not on track and no major philanthropic funders have committed to this goal despite the 1.5 million deaths annually which could be averted and a strong cost-benefit argument.
Existing investments from global partners have proven to catalyze development and scale up national programs. However, innovative financing and blended finance mechanisms have been vastly underutilized especially when compared to their use for other major disease areas such as malaria, TB, and NCDs.
A more public funding drive and innovative funding mechanisms can help us achieve this SDG target that is undoubtedly within reach. We can provide access to life-saving testing and treatment for those in need and put an end to this scourge which leaves millions of people at risk of a slow progression to chronic liver disease, cancer, and ultimately death. The WHA’s calls cannot go unheard, nor can viral hepatitis sufferers wait any longer.
The outcome
There is a tremendous opportunity to eliminate viral hepatitis. It is in our hands. But governments, donors and investors need to join together now to avert 1.5 million deaths worldwide. This is all the more pressing given that many countries are currently experiencing limited fiscal space. To date, no major philanthropic funder has committed to the global goal of elimination.
Public leadership and civil society engagement are critical factors to attract the necessary resources and help stamp out viral hepatitis once and for all.
In practical terms, screening is an obstacle that must be addressed. We also need to examine the integration of HCV with other diseases such as NCDs. Egypt, for example, shows how this can be put to use on at a country-level.
New investment urgently requires strong backing across the field: by governments, philanthropists, development banks and other financing institutions.
What does the future hold? The Hepatitis Fund recently set up a new partnership with the Muslim League and there’s a forthcoming pledging event in Q4 2022. Let’s watch this space and see who will step up.
Attendees: 40 people
In total, 1040 people attended our events during the SDG Tent in Davos. And these events and conversations had a large ripple effect on the Linkedin page of InTent, fuelling conversations beyond Davos.
