Quick Takes on the Forum:

• This innovative event will bring corporate and thought leaders together in a unique setting to combine theory with practice as a means of developing actionable next steps for businesses seeking to respond to social issues like the environment, health and poverty while also making a profit.

• Instead of one-way speaking, the Forum will be different from other conferences because it will allow participants to spend the majority of their time in intimate dialogue. Innovative processes which foster participative and interactive dialogue, such as Appreciative Inquiry, will allow participants to explore the business case for corporate social responsibility while developing solutions for implementing socially responsible activities.

• 400 delegates and over 1,000 virtual participants will convene at the Global Forum to challenge the current state of corporate citizenship, envision possibilities for the future, and map out strategies for leveraging corporate citizenship activities.

Business can be the most powerful force in achieving the world’s Millennium Development Goals. However, businesses need to focus on the bottom line for individual companies, and the economy as a whole, to thrive.   Until recently, in the thinking of many people, a trade-off illusion existed; they believed that addressing societal problems meant giving away of money. Today, leading businesses realize that all of the world’s problems can become business opportunities—perhaps the business opportunities of the 21st century.

Businesses increasingly realize that corporate citizenship is not a peripheral activity but rather a core element of their business strategy. Global corporate citizenship is the future of business. Business leaders and scholars who attend this Forum are not people who need to be sold on the business case. Many, however, have more questions than answers. They want to learn how corporate citizenship can be leveraged strategically in their business.

Therefore the Forum will seek to (1) answer some of those questions and (2) more importantly create learning laboratories and action groups around the questions so that follow-up work after the Forum can be done to continuously answer those questions. The main reason scholars and business practitioners are coming together in this unique Forum is to combine the strengths of each sector to create a living, learning action network.

Action and learning networks will specifically be formed around groups that deal with the transformation of management practice, research and education.

This state-of-the-art Forum challenges ‘the great tradeoff illusion’ – the belief that firms must sacrifice outstanding financial performance if they choose, strategically, to address societal challenges.
Georg Kell, Executive Head, UN Global Compact