Transcripts For DW Business 20240714

Sustainability inequality and Climate Change what will it take to redesign todays business todays economic models in order to provide for that sort of long term value and ultimately a more sustainable and a more Inclusive Society to discuss we have a very distinguished panel the c. E. O. And chairman of the Management Board and royal d. S. M. Is joining us if i can see this my Senior Advisor to the World Economic forum and also the interim merican Development Bank caroline n. C. And we have the cofounder of byebye plastic bags and also one of the cochairs at this years summit lotty wise and we have the Prime Minister of stand up joining us from there alan tatham thank you so much to all of you for being here today and please lets give our panel a very warm welcome thank you and mike id like to begin with you because you have a company youre helping to run a company that wasnt always sustainable youve been around for more than a century you started lining to chemicals now you are a leader in nutrition and Food Ingredients and i found it quite interesting ive heard you claim before that you can both make a profit and improve the worlds so youve cracked the code. And i believe that the role of thesis is to make the world a better place and we are not a Charity Foundation to we need to make money. But we need to make the world a better place so why our business is doing well we changed our portfolio we changed our Business Models and will Say Something more maybe later on about that about how to change the markets because sometimes its hard when we went into different businesses we now make wolf sustainability our living. We make green we use and wished for energy we make food bowls here we make cows cleaner in terms of their emissions. We make our money with that now at this moment and i will share price did very well in the company did very well so knew versus say ok per the is possible to make the world a better place and to make money and i said to those investors you know what come back in 1015 years those 2 sinks an old exclusive like you said 10 years ago. Those things cannot go hand in hand to get a way to say today those 2 things have to will go hand in and to get out in 10 years from now on a waste of minutes dont want to work for your company any more day dont buy a product youve got to build to project when you. Wake up in and ive made where you lost your license to operate i believe in the business model. It was only it didnt went automatically its supposed to they were proud along the way there is still this gap were talking about transitioning the markets toward sustainability caroline id like to bring in your experience because you bring a very interesting view to this panel youve worked in the Public Sector in the private sector how leadership positions over the past decade the world bank u. B. S. Where do you see the biggest gaps right now and the ones that we have potentials to close i think the good news and following on from 5 key is that things are changing. The bad news is im not sure theyre changing fast enough and there are a lot of pitfalls. Its true that recently weve had some Good Progress weve seen the business round table share move away from shareholder primacy say the stakeholders we must think now about stakeholders and today i sort of bump a stick up which said no more. Shared value shared value which was a nice little nice little slogan the bad news is that a lot of companies are still thinking about Corporate Social Responsibility theyre not running it through the business through the strategy theyre not really putting it into the plumbing and without any Global Metrics consumers and investors and others really dont know who is sustainable and who is doing greenwashing so i think we need Global Metrics and they need to be mandatory and Companies Need to show. How theyre running the business in line with people and planet and this broad group of stakeholders that the Business Roundtable took so out and we need to be able to compact companies and they need to be a 3rd party and regulations need to hold them to account for that i think we also need to look at how we use product labeling so that consumers consumers control about 60 percent of global g. D. P. They they make choices every day using their pocketbook say wallets it with proper labeling and disclosure weve seen it with Food Labeling but also with product. A product Production Supply chains consumers can make that choice but its very important that consumers dont have to pay more for doing the right things mr Prime Minister id like to turn to you now because i think he would underscore the urgency for that change youre on the problem lines of the Climate Emergency youre a small island but you most certainly have a big voice and youre here in new york this week on a mission arent you what what needs to happen right now for your country well most of the small and developing states are facing 2 things extinction. And being viable and unfortunately the extinction extinction part comes 1st so we have had now several years we are there is absolute evidence of the Climate Change its numbers that are uncomprehensible so for instance dominique to hurricanes the 2nd one maria 200 percent of your g. D. P. I mean can we fathom that. That all of a sudden life as you knew it on an island is completely destroyed that the people who are staying there really the ones that were self employed that were on the farms and teachers doctors nurses leave do they ever come back and so bahamas and if i can just take you for a moment to be in a house in which the sea level rose more than 15 feet and that youre hanging on to the rafters of your roof to breathe because the waters underneath you and that instead of the wind blowing off the roof the water basically took the roof off with it and that you were there for 36 hours and then another 24 to 48 hours afterwards there was still sufficient when they did not allow planes or helicopters to come in so for 5 days you were literally by yourself and then when the water subsides what do you have you have an island that had 25000. 00 people that has nothing so for the next year and a half to 2 years while the island is being rebuilt whos thought of the logistics of where those people are going to go whos thought of the logistics of who is going to support those people and i was just saying when they left they left with just the clothes that they had no idea. No job so i imagine we have to now get their i. D. s to be able to get into their Bank Accounts whos paying their mortgage whats going to happen and so these are the logistics that we have to start thinking of when i talk about being extinct the final nail in the coffin for us is that weve become now uninsurable so i mean you need action not only from the private sector you also need policy changes and you need Public Sector action as well i want to get to that just a 2nd but you know you mentioned the micro level now were going to the Grassroots Level a lot of. Your generation. Theyre out on the streets theyre demanding action on Climate Change europe actually been taking action yourself at the age of 12 you started this organization in order to tackle an issue in your own country of bali. That was the the use of single use plastic items that were being disposed of and polluting your water is there. A better way for a 12 year old to take at the time i mean none of that make you feel surely you must have felt a sense of anger i mean where were the adults in the room why was this problem not being handled i think you. Know i mean im not 12 years old anymore but i at times im 18 now and i like to say that im a full time change maker you know dedicating my life entirely since i was 12 where growing up on the island of bali definitely there was this deep frustration as to why nothing was happening in this in the situation of plastic drowning our island home and you know we learned that 40 other countries around the world banned plastic bags so you can imagine at the age of 10 and 12 my sister was 10 i was 12 we looked at each other and said 40 other countries we can do it too and so i was a simple as that you know was no Business Plan no agenda no strategy that we pulled together it was just this it came from this pure intention and this vision to make our island home of bali plastic bag free now 6 years ago you know and with our and joba plastic bags weve really managed to mobilize the masses on the island weve gone into classrooms weve gone into conferences weve also gone into government meetings and i think this is where you see the integration of what needs to happen on a Society Level how we have to mobilize how we have to collaborate to really get change happening now it shouldnt have taken a 6 years but i can now say finally with a smile on my face that as of 2. Or 3 months ago this summer we finally saw the implementation of the ban come in place for plastic bags straws and styrofoam on the island of bali. Thank you very much i really resonated with what you said earlier that things are happening and i see that again and again entering these sort of spaces learning from so many different people from all around the world things are happening but theyre not happening fast enough and you know one of the bad the forefront questions of this panel is you know how do we create markets that people actually want and through my work with bags through my work with meeting other young change makers in the discussions we have our answer to that question would be to involve people in the planning for those markets involve the young people take our ideas as crazy as they might be we have things to offer we are smart we are passionate we are motivated and we are ready to be part of those opening markets and you feel like your voices are being heard now. I think i think were going were demanding pass just being heard we dont want to just be heard its not enough for us anymore we expect a seat at the table we expect to be invited to these high level discussions we expect to be involved in political meetings because i think that we grew up with a reality so extreme that no other generation has ever experienced our childhood was completely taken away from us and so in order to have a say with what happens in our future in our lifetime. We not only expect to be heard but we expect to be a part of the decisions that are being made today. And one of the decisions i mean were seeing at least potentially a shift in the worlds of business right now we have the Business Roundtable come out about a month ago with this commitment essentially to you know benefit all stakeholders not just shareholders the issue of shareholder privacy they say is not going to be so predominant doing business something that caroline just mentioned we actually polled everyone through the worlds Economic Forum on twitter to ask whether people believe it and we ask the following question Business Leaders say they want to be more sustainable do you believe them i can imagine that you might imagine how people answered so 23 percent of people said yes 22 percent of people said im not sure 55 percent of people said no i do not believe them so i mean there is clearly a distrust out there. You know if i felt turn to you essentially people saying c. E. O. s or yourself your greenwashing. This is the state the score of course and thats what. We do i mean. What is the essence of bases it is a simple mole in which we have a distribution of competence is your bet and this im better than this is you do does i do it is and then we exchange at the end of the day and would leave all it had to be he had to get it it is no more more complicated than that pieces in the last detail its we salt of making money is not a tool but theres a goal it is not the goal i mean making money is a tool to exchange to live a bit to goods and to live have been all together if you look to her business and what you have done its now days called show short and to price of a social and to preserve i dont like that word although i admire what you do i think all ends of british all basically there should be shows youre into banerjee you should go to jail if you are not so one because obese issued sure of society c. S. R. My caroline also said its out you need to do it in the mainstream a few of your bases that is which we need if i mean you you you dont like the score right but even if he were limited to it i mean did is there a point there and what in your view separates a sustainably run business for one lets just greenwashing and what are you seeing what are you seeing more of out there right now are you think people really doing the work or is it just like karen and saying all invoke it is to change into world is changing and thats the pulse of the news and companies are changing their new generation is coming at the helm and want to do things in a different way. I see myself also wish a new generation may be compared youve sold laugh im. Ones who do it in a different way and that means that he is sorry to see how q. Do in the mainstream a few businesses something good for the world and it goes for his resistance of shareholders to the goals which greenwashing of some of the people who do it on the side demetri should be at central ok lets talk about how we can make that it happen caroline turning to you because i want to get concrete steps actually what would you need to see from c. E. O. s and from Business Leaders to make you believe that they are serious that this isnt just a piece of paper or that theyve all thigh and to make themselves feel a little bit better at the end of the day i think the Biggest Issue behind the lack of trust is how many different systems they rock to measure these sustainability and even to define what sustainability is i was just in a meeting earlier where i heard there are 600 different types of metrics. Not talking to each other not necessarily compatible to say whether a company is running itself sustainably and many of those just focus on the immediate footprint of the company theyre not actually looking at is the Company Creating long term value for the society so we have a Financial System a regulatory system some might say its too onerous we have a client system that asked companies and banks to conform to a whole host of issues we need to extending that to conforming to a clear set of metrics about how is environment social governance whatever it may be is integrated in your business one set of metrics so that people can see and people can make comparisons across companies i Mean Companies love competition lets have some competition so can i. Still to best thing you can do to get for me or to every c. E. O. What well about i know i want to take that challenge i think america for every c. E. O. Would be good but but even with america i think some might turn out to be rather shortsighted you know when they need to do something which to me are to look into it and to answer the question where did they go to do send their companies a contributing something meaningful to society and if not then you can maybe call you companies should but you missed the point why we have an economy. But a lot i just want to ask you for your Quick Reaction how do you feel do you trust business i mean youve had the experience of partner actually with this is what you learn in your experience what is sent to by using that. And just generally speaking how does your generation see the business world. As a step to getting to where it is we want to go with sustainability i think were seeing a lot of commitments come out but again i think that it we know that. I think were just expecting a lot more and with the timelines that are sent place with the budget that we know companies have behind them theyre investing in 70 percent when they could be investing in the 100 percent solution and i think that were living in a time where were waiting for this leap frog to happen and thats where i think young people play a huge role and i think the biggest mistake that any company can make is to look at us and put and invite us to you know meetings or lectures as an inspirational part i think we are beyond just an inspiration and i think that a lot of us young people. We want to really give voice to how what matters for us and i think that with the changing markets were already creating a bigger push and a bigger direction of where we want to see it go and thats also the consumers role as us individuals we do our homework we go above and beyond and you know we have phones and the 1st side on my phone on me all right handy but you know we have our phones on us at all times and especially as kids we go on social media we check out what the Company Stands for what the reports are and if we cant find it we start questioning and its those big hard questions that were asking and when we dont get an answer that sits right with us when we feel and of greenwashing thats when we decide as consumers where we want to use our pocket or where we want to use our wallet for thats where we can make the decision mr Prime Minister you weigh in here what do you want to see from business. I think the challenging. Point but thats no news to everybody. The question really becomes the disrupters so caroline is right were not pricing our products out properly right so. The idea that you would transport a tomato to st lucia which is a small Tropical Island because the economies of scale suggested its cheaper to produce its image right. How does a small farmer in solutia survive if in fact the product that hes producing which may have substantially less Carbon Emissions but he cannot produce the volume of that tomato to be able to sell it at the price thats currently on the market so imagine if a country of 180000. 00 people can find the solutions to be sustainable and viable. And that you now go the way that were thinking were seeing lettuce. I had to write it down again think small and acts smart. Right because its about being small no all of a sudden were the big part was the economies of scale but it wasnt being priced in because you have the transportation to bring Everything Else to the district in the world basis whereas i go to a restaurant in an island bali i want to get Fresh Produce from delhi and now people are saying thats what they want they dont want they can choose to come from somewhere else or can joost it really is the same prototype of the same kind of juice that they couldnt get anywhere else in the world and how much of that cost and how much to do screw up so we have a sting in england i think its called free trade in terms of that were trying to figure out what products were produced how would they produce what were their employment strategies and once you start now imposing these new rules whether we call them rules or requirements then all of a sudden the Distribution Process is going to start to change quite dramatically and we start becoming a bit more sustainable i do want to talk about you know the actions that can be taken and turn to you with that one perhaps you can give us some Lessons Learned from your company there its transformation and ones which can be extrapolated and perhaps used by other Business Leaders for example Going Forward and i just want to remind us also of the central question that were asking today how can we move beyond growth to create greater alignment between the chair peoples choices and economy. For me its still stark choice to mirah and your own belief and your own moral feelings and opinions if you dont have to feeling like your contribution should be then it goes wrong if you have an impact if you have power as a c. E. O. Or a company you need to take the rest going to get it we said its not enough its not the only thing i will build but then its time to eat a lot see what lessons do you think we need to learn i mean youve talked a lot about the role of the individual for example. Or you can tell. So you know how you might see the possibility to scale so here initiatives. I truly believe that we dont need more mirrors so we need to look more at each other and i think that we need to build a such a Treat Community where we can build trust and where we can have that authenticity that we tap into because we have only each other to depend on and how we get rid of that greenwashing is not by holding up a nerve but by looking at each other and by honestly calling out each other for when we feel like we are wrong and when we know there is another way caroline id like to give you the final word now take us one year from now were at the next Sustainable Development impacts summit what action would you like to see in the next here on this particular issue well i would like to see something on metrics i would like to finally see something on redefining growth so its not just Gross Domestic Product but about how resilient are your communities how integrated are your old people do your young people have jobs we measure what we measure we do and we measure it in the wrong way but i think there is on the horizon a very interesting Pincer Movement and i think it looks like this i think it looks like more companies recognizing that their long term value means they have to be sustainable and the more that show that they can be sustainable and still deliver. To their shareholders the more it will spiral Accountability Council to how do we build a lark it that people want one that is more inclusive one that is more sustainable we thank you so much to all of you for being here for this story to vela debate at the World Economic forum Sustainable Development impact summit and especially a very special thanks to our panelists. The odd. To find decent accommodation. Number about which comes from flying from a mummy. Ranch up to 100 euros christmas music. The last month of may show me 100 percent. Secure and Affordable Housing if you come a scarce commodity my. Major in germany. What keeps us in shape what makes us sick and tired to mistake. My name is dr carson because i talk to medical experts. Watch them at work. And they discuss what you can do to keep your head. Stay choose and lets all try to stay in good shape. T w. Whats the connection between bread found and the European Union so he knows gill bottom d. W. Correspondent at the bakery can stretch this back in line with the rules of sex by the dean of. Cuts in. Spending recipes for success strategies that make a difference. Baking bread on d. W. The World Population is increasing the climate is changing its getting warmer and there are going to be more and more places where you cannot grow traditional products we have to fix that some the way to do that is to use the modern genetics modification methods to make better crawl it is a gulag site for the anything weve done by traditional to that ignore the face that you take one to need you know exactly what it is you put it into another plant to come out exactly where its gone i think we will be able to provide enough food for people by 2050 if we can make crops that will grow under 70 arid conditions this will achieve a much greater stability in the food supply that we have at the moment. Play. This is d w news live from berlin impeachment looms over President Donald Trump u. S. Speaker nancy pelosi announced congress will start an official inquiry into a legit high crimes and misdemeanors. The actions of the trump president can reveal a dishonorable fact of the president s betrayal of his oath of office. Of our national security