The first virtual Davos Agenda closed today after calls from more than 24 heads of state and government and more than 1,700 participants from business and civil society to address the crucial challenges we all face.
The tone of the meeting was the discussions on stakeholder capitalism, in which companies seek long-term value creation taking into account the needs of all their stakeholders, including society in general. This was fed into more than 140 sessions, which considered the need for greater collaboration, placing sustainability and a green agenda at the heart of the economic recovery, and how to use technology to help achieve it.
“We need to move from a world that is based simply on material goals, to one that is much more aware of people’s well-being” said Professor Klaus Schwab, founder and CEO of the World Economic Forum. He added that “we are witnessing a mindset shift from short-term profit maximization to” a world characterized much more by stakeholder responsibility”.
Schwab said the pandemic has shown that companies that engage in stakeholder capitalism perform much better because they invest in the long-term viability of the company.
Sustainability and support for the vulnerable were emphasized. Special speeches and active participation from heads of state, government and international organizations discussed the importance of containing COVID-19 and working quickly to mitigate further fractures in society. Business leaders echoed these calls, urging cooperation and innovation to address crucial economic, social and environmental challenges in the coming year.
World Economic Forum President Børge Brende said: “Recovering from the pandemic and shaping our future in a more equitable, sustainable and resilient way can only happen if stakeholders work together.” He noted that “The most urgent problems we face do not recognize borders. But deep and meaningful global cooperation is not always a given. It requires deliberate action, one that focuses on people, the planet and prosperity, and where collaboration will be the defining element”.
Below is a selection of results, project milestones, and new analyzes from Davos Agenda week.
Design Cohesive, Sustainable and Resilient Economic Systems
· A global coalition of 54 organizations representing 13 industries and 6.5 million employees committed to building fairer and fairer workplaces. The Partnering for Racial Justice in Business initiative provides a platform for businesses to collectively advocate for inclusive policy change and set new global standards for racial equity. Each company is committed to making a tangible policy change, a board discussion and a new long-term strategy.
· At the end of its first year, the New Skills Revolution initiative announced that more than 50 million people in total have been supported to develop new skills. The initiative will continue to expand its training activities in its second year, while expanding its work in education, job creation and labor standards, as well as setting new inclusion goals.
· National Closing the Skills Gap Accelerators are developing and implementing national recycling and upgrading strategies. The accelerators, reaching 47 million people, are active in 10 countries, and Georgia, Greece and Turkey have recently established accelerators, with another six under discussion by 2021.
· The Preparing for the Future of Work industry accelerators are estimated to have reached nearly 8 million employees to equip them with future-oriented skills. The hiring manager community has reached another 4 million employees, bringing together leaders to share best practices and mobilize action to provide better jobs.
The Valuable 500, a global community of CEOs transforming disability inclusion through business leadership, announced that more than 400 companies have joined the initiative since its launch at the 2019 Annual Meeting in Davos-Klosters. Each company commits to tangible action for inclusion and board discussion for longer-term reforms.
· A new global taxonomy for skills was launched in partnership with the Skills Consortium, which represents more than 200 million students online. Over the next year, businesses, government and educational institutions will adopt the taxonomy to create a common language and comparability between workforce skills.
Upgrading Skills for Shared Prosperity Reveals Skills Upgrading Has the Potential to Boost GDP by $ 6.5 Trillion and Create 5.3 Million Jobs by 2030 and Should Be a Central Part of the Next Wave of fiscal stimulus from governments to combat the negative effects of the pandemic.
· The Lighthouse Projects Initiative on Social Justice and Sustainability will bring together leaders who integrate social justice into their sustainability strategies. A comprehensive analysis and best practices will be produced later this year.
· Global Shapers and Impactscool created Courageous Conversations, an interactive game that offers individuals and organizations the opportunity to dig beneath the surface of the future workplace, involving various stakeholders multigenerational dialogue on nine critical factors in shaping the future of the educational and labor systems.
Driving responsible industry growth and transformation
More than 60 business leaders, including members of the World Economic Forum and its International Business Council (IBC), have committed to a set of stakeholder capitalism metrics: universal disclosures and Comparable people-centric, planet, prosperity and governance that companies can inform. on regardless of industry or region.
· The Forum’s COVID Action Platform now has more than 40 projects in process and 1,800 members from business, government and civil society. Sessions during the Davos Agenda brought together key leaders to discuss the launch of vaccines and mitigating the secondary impact of the global pandemic.
· Although health systems have been affected by COVID-19, diseases such as dementia continue and will affect 150 million families by 2050. Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative (DAC) is the first global multi-stakeholder effort of its kind to accelerate the discovery, testing, and implementation of precision interventions for Alzheimer’s disease.
· Experts call for public-private collaboration to reduce preventable deaths from lung cancer. They have published a series of recommendations for governments and regulators on how to improve the short- and long-term resilience of lung cancer services to ultimately improve patient outcomes.
Data scientists at the Young Global Leaders Forum continue to push for # Mask4All, a global movement calling on people and governments to follow the overwhelming scientific evidence that wearing masks can help stop the spread of COVID-19.
Recognized by the World Health Organization, Global Shapers has implemented grassroots projects in 150 cities around the world to expand trusted public health information, support public health systems, protect livelihoods, and build more community responses. inclusive for groups vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Forum launched a high-level task force of experts and influencers in health and healthcare to provide resources, scale up, globalize, and accelerate the most rigorous and sustainable public-private partnership efforts to strengthen anticipation, preparedness and response to the epidemic.
Incubated by our Global Future Council on Advanced Manufacturing and Production, the Make at Home initiative was launched to accelerate more inclusive, resilient and sustainable business models. The initiative supports underserved communities by giving them the tools and the network to participate in global supply chains and manufacture components in their homes.
The Forum released a report revealing that data-driven operations are key to the future of manufacturing and identifies six organizational and technology priorities to increase productivity, develop new customer experiences, and ensure a positive impact on society and the environment.
To support COVAX’s goals of supplying 2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines, the global leaders in shipping, airlines and logistics from the Transportation Industry and Supply Chain Action Group of the World Economic Forum, together with UNICEF, they signed a letter supporting the delivery of inclusive vaccines in and middle-income countries. Several signatories have stepped forward with tangible collaborative proposals, with UNICEF and DP World this week sharing details of the first published agreement.
· The UK announced that it would work with the World Economic Forum’s Clean Skies for Tomorrow Initiative to develop new policy tools to drive the deployment of sustainable aviation fuels.
· The COVID Response Alliance for Social Entrepreneurs grew to 85 members supporting 90,000 social entrepreneurs in more than 190 countries, reaching almost 2 billion people. The alliance has raised $ 500 million in support of #socents and vulnerable populations and launched 10 Action Clusters to advance crucial project work.
Improve the stewardship of the global commons.
· Feeding 10 billion people sustainably by 2050 requires innovation in the way we produce and consume food in different ways, in different countries. To accelerate this innovation, the Forum and key partners around the world have launched a network of Food Innovation Centers. They will provide input to the next United Nations Food Systems Summit.
· A new report, Nature and Net Zero, highlights the potential of natural climate solutions to achieve one-third of the carbon emission reductions needed by 2030. Based on the recommendations of the Working Group to Scale Voluntary Carbon Markets, this report sets out six actions to accelerate scaling up and it is estimated that $ 10 billion a year could be available, particularly for emerging economies.
· President Iván Duque of Colombia, together with the Inter-American Development Bank and the Forum, launched the BiodiverCities initiative by 2030, which will harness the potential of cities to reduce emissions and protect biodiversity while fostering sustainable urban development.
· The Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders welcomed a new report that identified how eight supply chains account for more than 50% of global emissions and fully decarbonizing them would add only 1% -4% to final consumer costs. The report outlined nine ways to do this and how to get started.
· Mission Possible Partnership is a new coalition that brings together more than 400 companies to forge paths from scratch and the actions necessary to achieve them. It builds on work launched at the United Nations Secretary-General’s Climate Action Summit in 2019 to help seven sectors of heavy industry reduce their carbon emissions.
· Plastic pollution continues to be a global challenge. The Global Plastic Action Partnership (GPAP) welcomed the inclusion of the Government of Nigeria to promote national efforts to combat plastic pollution together with existing members Ghana, Nigeria and Vietnam. As young entrepreneurs play an important role in this fight, GPAP also announced an inaugural cohort of eight youth champions who will serve as project advisors.
· With the support of Uplink, Global Shapers in Navi, Mumbai, is partnering with Forest Creators, Art of Living (IAHV) and Frugal Labs to plant 1 million trees using Miyawaki afforestation and Internet of Things technology.
· More than 400 organizations and companies launched the Neptune Declaration on Seafarers’ Welfare and Crew Change to facilitate the resolution of the current crisis facing more than 1 million seafarers.
· The Forum and its partners launched a new Zero Climate Trade initiative to work to ensure better trade rules for climate-friendly production and consumption.
· Nine cities and more than 70 organizations are working towards a zero-carbon future. Together with the Forum, they launched a framework to help cities rethink urban ecosystems, to ensure they are more efficient, resilient and equitable.
· For the first time, the analysis has quantified the key economic benefits, and the billion-dollar opportunity, that Earth observation data could bring to the African continent.
· The 2030Vision report “Leveraging Technology for the Global Goals: A Framework for Government Action” details ways to help governments and other public sector bodies engage in the critical conversations needed to move towards the Sustainable Development Goals of the ONU.
· At the Davos Agenda, the presidents of COP25 and COP26, the UNFCCC and business leaders met to announce the mobilization of public-private action on climate change: the Race to Net Zero for COP26. The Forum will use its Special Annual Meeting in Singapore to assess progress.
Harnessing the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution
· Almost half of the world’s population remains disconnected. The EDISON Alliance will accelerate digital inclusion, address inequality and connect critical sectors of the economy. It is the first global mobilization of the public sector and industry leaders from all industries to ensure that everyone can participate in the digital economy.
· More than 10,000 grassroots innovators responded to last year’s call by UpLink, the Forum’s digital platform for crowdsourcing innovation. Some 900 business solutions have been unveiled to protect our oceans, address COVID-19, and support our 1t.org’s Trillion Trees initiative.
· The Global AI Action Alliance brings together more than 100 companies, governments, civil society organizations and academic institutions to accelerate the responsible adoption of AI in the global public interest.
· The initiative The future of cities of the Forum will provide a new platform for business leaders commit knowledge and resources to help cities on the road to recovery.
Business leaders have called for more global action on the responsible development of artificial intelligence, citing potential new risks as cities and authorities adopt these tools to combat the spread of COVID-19. In response, the World Economic Forum’s Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in India is spearheading a new collaboration with the public and private sectors to forge an Artificial Intelligence Strategy Framework for Cities.
The Coalition for Trustworthy Internet of Things aims to increase the public’s understanding and awareness of connected devices, such as security cameras, wearable devices, and voice assistants, while ensuring that trust and security are built into their designs.
· The G20 has made technology a key component of its goal of closing a $ 15 trillion global gap in infrastructure investment. As a practical tool to advance this work, the Infrastructure 4.0 initiative mobilized the public and private sectors to establish a library of use cases, with more than 65 use cases and 130 technology-specific case studies, covering more than 40 countries.
· The Forum’s Future of Real Estate initiative launched a new task force to shape the way we work toward more flexible and technology-enabled spaces that enhance well-being and productivity.
Promotion of global and regional cooperation
· The Principles for Strengthening Global Cooperation call for peace and security, equity, gender equality and sustainability. This set of seven principles, developed by the Forum’s Global Action Group, is intended to serve as a compass for global relationships.
In early 2020, Africa’s top CEOs, public figures, civil society representatives, and experts came together to share and define a regional vision and drive action based on the region’s needs and priorities. This Regional Action Group for Africa released its first insights into how policy makers can accelerate free trade after Africa’s ambitious Continental Free Trade Area.
· In many of the sessions of the week, the findings of the Global Risks Report 2021, published just before the start of the Davos Agenda, were supported. Growing disparities and social fragmentation in the next three to five years will threaten the economy and in the next five to ten years they will weaken geopolitical stability. Environmental concerns still top the list in terms of probability and impact for the next decade.
· The CEO Action Group for the European Green Deal has set out to tackle emissions across the value chain to create a greener and more resilient economy.
· The Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation increased the number of projects on practical border reforms to facilitate the transport of goods across borders.
· More than 30 members of the Regional Action Group for the Middle East and North Africa, a high-level community of ministers, CEOs and civil society leaders, have endorsed the Stakeholder Principles of Capitalism. The tokenization of digital assets, the fight against metabolic diseases, the promotion of economic integration and social inclusion, as well as the achievement of environmental sustainability, will be the focus of the next working groups.
The World Economic Forum’s new report, Indian Cities in the Post-Pandemic World, highlights the country’s most pressing urban challenges, which were further exacerbated by the pandemic, and provides information to translate the lessons learned from the pandemic into an agenda of urban reform.
· Global Shapers will lead a youth-driven recovery plan, aggregating the ideas and concerns of citizens in 150 countries and territories to help shape 10 major recovery efforts for the current decade.