The GRLI, represented by John North, participated in GOLDEN’s Annual Workshop held in partnership with Research Centre for Society and Organizations (SnO) at HEC Paris on May 26th and 27th in Paris, France.
The workshop provided a platform for in-depth business-academia-institutions dialogues on topics related to sustainability. The first day of the workshop was devoted to highlighting and bridging the different views and needs of managers and academics. The second day presented the positions of organizations with vital interests in different aspects of sustainability.
This was the first time GOLDEN co-organised a workshop with the Center for Research on Society and Organization. The event attracted about 90 participants who engaged in discussions about the process of moving business towards sustainable enterprise models.
DAY 1
The first day of the workshop was centred around business and academia dialogues and group discussions.
The dialogue was started by Agata Ramallo, Global Sustainability CoE, of NIKE Inc. who spoke about the integration of sustainability in strategic decision making processes at Nike. She was joined in the conversation by Lucca Berchicci from Erasmus University Rotterdam and Maurizio Zollo — Dean’s Professor in Strategy and Sustainability at Bocconi University and Managing Director at GOLDEN. Other speakers included Jean-Christophe Laugee, Director Ecosystem Fund from DANONE, Frederic Dalsace from HEC Paris, Ralph Pfitzner, VP Sustainability, SIEMENS AG and Tomasz Obloj from HEC Paris, Tamera Campbell From Yellowwoods, South Africa, Patrick d’Humières, Institut RSE, France and Paolo Perego, Erasmus University Rotterdam.
The dialogue sessions were accompanied by group discussion about how to develop a common agenda between business and academia to engrain sustainability in business as well as the topic of HR, employment, integrated reporting and resulting actions from these dialogues.
DAY 2
The second day of the workshop provided two panel discussions on the sustainability issue of renewable energy and the integration of the work of international institution, national governments, business and academia.
The first panel discussion was called The Challenges to 100% Renewable Energy — Realistic Target or Just Wishful Thinking. Its focus was on the technological solutions development, renewables in a traditional energy company and efforts that are made to provide access to electricity through solar power in Africa.
Speakers included: Andrea Masini, HEC Paris, Fabio Mondini de Focatiis, Senior VP Solar Business, SOITEC, Julien Perez, Project Director, Climate/Energy at TOTAL and Christophe Poline, Energy Access Capital Fund, SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC.
The second discussion panel The Collaboration Among Business, Academia and Institutions Towards the Realization of the Sustainable Development Goals came to a conclusion that businesses should engage more with academia, especially with regards to measurements and developing sustainable business case in the landscape of currently existing support for sustainable business in developing countries.
Speakers included: Betrand Quelin, HEC Paris, the Italian Ambassador to France, Giandomenico Magliano and the French Ambassador-at-large for Bioethics and CSR, Marine de Carné-Trécesson, UNEP (Elisa Tonda, Sustainable Lifestyles, Cities and Industry Branch), OECD (Hilkka Komulainen, Investment Division), and the French Treasury Ministry (Frederic Bobay, Private-Public Partnerships), Mustapha Mokass, Founder, BEYA CAPITAL.
