Sustainability central theme at the 50th World Economic Forum in Davos

DAVOS: 2020 marked the 50th year of the flagship annual meetings of the World Economic Forum. The invitation-only meeting brought together several prominent global figures ranging from politicians, representatives from academia along with big names from the private sector to deliberate over this year’s theme ‘Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World’. The theme couldn’t have been more relevant given the current scenario and the moral imperative that weighs upon us to be custodians of the planet for the sake of the next generation implies that we must act today. The forum aims to improve the state of the World in the coming 50 years, by offering its platform for putting forth the common good. The keyword at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2020 was “stakeholder responsibility”. The gathering of eminent stakeholders was urged to act against the world’s most pressing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues. An interesting development from this year was that the stakeholders, primarily the private sectors interest towards the climate issues. Achim Steiner, Administrator, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), said, “The WEF Forum is a unique opportunity to discuss development and economic trends while advocating for the private sector to become part of addressing some of the greatest issues of our time. One of the interesting trends, one could observe in Davos this year, is how much the corporate world is now focusing on some of the key environmental risks such as climate change and biodiversity loss that are shaping the economy of tomorrow, which will be a green economy,”
In an encouraging development, new members signed up to the Forum’s Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders, committed to helping companies meet the Paris Climate Goals. Platforms and partnerships were launched to foster inclusive and sustainable growth globally. The Forum and its stakeholders also deliberated on measures to better understand the implications of deploying artificial intelligence.
In a bid to incorporate the concept of inclusive growth across the globe, The International Business Council, incorporating 140 of the world’s largest companies, agreed to support efforts to develop a core set of common metrics and disclosures that can be used to measure private-sector progress on ESG goals. A strategic partnership was signed between the World Economic Forum and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to accelerate progress towards inclusive and sustainable growth globally.

For climate change mitigation
The Forum also moved towards improving the state of climate and environment by becoming a founding partner of an alliance with Refinitiv and the United Nations of The Future of Sustainable Data Alliance which will focus on improving the quality of climate and environmental data for companies and investors. 1t.org, a new multi-stakeholder effort to support efforts to grow, conserve and restore 1 trillion trees by the end of the decade was announced. Within the first days of its launch, Colombia announced to plant 180 million trees by 2022, Salesforce committed to plant 100 million trees and Pakistan also committed to plant 2 billion trees. 1T was also supported by the United States of America, China and Saudi Arabia as part of its G20 Presidency. The Forum’s network of Global Shapers also committed to planting one million trees by next year across its 400 hubs worldwide. New members signed up to the Forum’s community of CEO Climate Leaders. The community is committed to helping companies meet the Paris Climate Goals.

For global benefit
The meeting also marked the launch of the Reskilling Revolution. With this, WEF will aim to provide better education, skills and jobs to a billion people by 2030 with the initial backing of the governments of India along with Brazil, France, Pakistan, the Russian Federation, UAE and the US as well as many important companies.
As the world faces a possibly new epidemic in Corona Virus, CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations which was launched in Davos in 2017, announced the initiation of three programmes to develop vaccines against the novel coronavirus, nCoV-2019 in partnership with Moderna and the Wellcome Trust. The World Economic Forum also announced a partnership with the Global CEO Initiative (CEOi) to form a coalition to accelerate treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.
Ministers in Davos announced negotiations between 99 economies on a new international agreement on investment facilitation at the World Trade Organization. The agreement aims to make it easier for investment to flow between economies while increasing its development impact. The US and France agreed a détente on digital taxation during the Annual Meeting, the Forum received a mandate from multi-stakeholder partners to further build an understanding of and encourage input into international tax reforms. The Forum also partnered with the Japanese government to launch a multi-stakeholder effort to find practical mechanisms to enable “Data Free Flow with Trust” in support of the Osaka Track process that was initiated at the G20 in 2019.

Forming a Sustainable World and marching towards SDGs
The Sustainable Markets Initiative, backed by a Sustainable Markets Council, was launched by The Prince of Wales in collaboration with the Forum aimed at bringing about a transition to sustainable financial markets and rapid industry decarbonization. The Forum’s Advanced Manufacturing and Production community launched the Carbon Reduction in Manufacturing Initiative to achieve a goal of cutting carbon emissions in manufacturing by 50% by 2030.
The Sustainable Development Goals were also addressed at the meeting. The ‘Frontier 2030’ was launched as a platform to leverage the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to accelerate the SDGs. The Food Action Alliance was launched by the Forum, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and over 20 global leaders to strengthen the sustainability of the world’s foods systems through better nutrition, climate adaption and access to finance. A new multi-stakeholder partnership, SDG500, was launched to mobilize $500 million towards achieving the SDGs in emerging markets through a series of six blended finance funds.

Discussion on technological advancement
The Forum partnered with a community of 40 central banks, international organizations, academic researchers and financial institutions to create a framework to help central banks evaluate, design and potentially deploy Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). The Forum, in collaboration with 100 stakeholders, produced the Empowering AI Toolkit to help board members better understand the positive and negative implications of deploying artificial intelligence. Partners of the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Global Network, including Brazil, Colombia, Japan and Saudi Arabia, expanded their commitment to ensuring responsible and ethical governance of smart city technologies through the G20 Global Smart Cities Alliance on Technology Governance, led by the World Economic Forum. The World Economic Forum’s Global AI Council, launched in 2019, collaborated with UNICEF to create guidelines for AI-supported toys for the under-sevens, as well as identifying young people under the age of 18 to sit on a Global AI Youth Council. A group of private-sector leaders from major cybersecurity companies, services providers and global corporations along with leading law enforcement agencies, Interpol and Europol, agreed to work together with the Forum through 2020 to foster a global public-private alliance against cybercrime. A group of telecommunications stakeholders endorsed new principles combatting high-volume cyberattacks that could protect up to 1 billion consumers in 180 countries. A community of key stakeholders from international organizations, government and business was formed to reinforce cyber resilience in global aviation.