Cautious Optimism for the Purpose Agenda at WEF 2018

Judging by the tone and energy of delegates at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, last week, there is reason to be optimistic about the state of the world.

• The International Monetary Fund (IMF) reports that the global economic recovery has strengthened and upgraded its forecast for global GDP growth this year.
• That news was underscored by the PwC annual CEO Survey, which saw “the highest-ever jump to the highest-ever level of CEO optimism” about global growth prospects in 2018.
• There was much discussion about BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s letter to CEOs, which sent a strong message about the role of business in society and reaffirmed how a commitment to creating shared value is vital for long-term success.
• That message was underscored by PR, business, media and NGO leaders on a panel exploring how business navigates populism, volatility and fake news hosted by the Holmes Report with Dow Jones and Weber Shandwick (including our Chairman Jack Leslie). It seems the activist CEO (and the purpose-driven companies behind them) is here to stay.

Indeed, there is much to cheer us as we launch into 2018, but the optimism is tinged with caution and anxiety. Let’s not forget that the theme of this year’s global WEF gathering was “creating a shared future in a fractured world,” emphasizing that economic prosperity does not guarantee social cohesion and equity for all.

Even as IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde was delivering good news about the near-term economic outlook, she signalled that the mid-term forecast is more turbulent, especially if more people continue to be excluded from economic prosperity. And while CEOs are confident about 2018, their levels of “extreme concern” over terrorism, geopolitical uncertainty and cyber threats rose in the PwC survey. In fact, the news about democracy was rather dim in the WEF Global Risks Report and in Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2018 report, both released in conjunction with WEF. Both reports indicate that democracy is in crisis, facing serious threats all around the world, particularly when it comes to free and fair elections, freedom of the press and the rule of law.

Against that context, what struck me about the dialogue at WEF this year, both on the official agenda and in the informal programming surrounding the event, was a shared acknowledgement of the tough issues we must solve together if we hope for lasting global progress.

The SDG agenda was more present than ever before, and not only on SDGLive and at the Sustainable Impact Hub. Many were asking what good is economic growth if it only benefits the few? What does leadership look like when it seeks to empower and include women, as well as men? How do we help more people understand that there is more opportunity in solving climate change than in ignoring it? How do we ensure technological innovation has a social conscious that puts people first?

Below is a quick snapshot of the dialogue around central purpose themes at WEF 2018.

INEQUALITY

“Inclusive growth” was arguably the catchphrase of WEF 2018, as participants debated the value of GDP as the sole marker of an economy’s health in an age of both soaring wealth and income inequality.

• The term was reinforced by the results of the WEF Inclusive Development Index 2018, a new annual assessment of 103 countries’ economic performance measured across eleven dimensions of economic progress (including poverty, income inequality, life expectancy, public debt and depletion of natural resources) in addition to GDP. As you might expect, the Nordic countries topped the list this year.
• The point about the widening wealth gap as economic power concentrates among asset owners was hammered home by the Oxfam International Reward Work, Not Wealth report which asserts that the wealthiest 1% collected 82% of all wealth created in 2017. The 3.7 billion people who make up the poorest half of the world saw no increase in their wealth.

An undercurrent to the inequality conversation was the link between migration, and more notably refugees, and the economy.

• Miroslav Lajcák, President of the 72nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly, urged world leaders to better understand mass migration in order to leverage it to boost economic growth.
• Peter Maurer, the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), outlined seven issues that will shape the humanitarian agenda in 2018, including a call to better care for and integrate the more than 65 million people who have been forced to flee their homes due to war and conflict.
• Actor and UNHCR Global Goodwill Ambassador Cate Blanchett implored world leaders to act with more compassion towards refugees saying: “Nowhere is the fractured world more humanly embodied than in the refugee — a person uprooted from all they hold dear, forced to flee, often resented and reviled in the country where they settle, labelled as an economic burden or terrorist threat. And this is the narrative that we truly need to disrupt.”

What refugees feel, shared at the “Day in the Life of a Refugee” simulation

I was particularly moved by the “Day in the Life of a Refugee” event hosted by the Crossroads Foundation. After experiencing a simulation of what it’s like to be in a refugee camp for a mere 40 minutes, I learned that the fear, stress, confusion and vulnerability I felt was just 14% of what it feels like in reality. 100% seems unimaginable and became even more so once I heard the personal stories of the simulation “actors,” who were actually aid workers, former child soldiers, and current refugees. After hearing their testimonies, it is understandable that participants are compelled to take action and pledge to #standwithrefugees. In fact, the Starbucks commitment to hire 10,000 refugees was cited as an action attributable to a company representative experiencing the simulation in the past.

The evidence of rising global inequality, poverty and human suffering is mounting and informing a robust dialogue among global leaders. Only time will tell if all the WEF talk of “inclusive growth” turns into real world impact. The Oxfam report subtitle put it best: “to end the inequality crisis, we must build an economy for ordinary working people, not the rich and powerful.”

GENDER GAP

Only 21% of WEF participants are women, but to make a statement about gender equality, the event was entirely co-chaired by women this year. The “magnificent seven,” as they were dubbed, included

• Sharon Burrow, the General-Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)
• Fabiola Gianotti, Director-General of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)
• Isabelle Kocher, CEO at Engie
• Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the IMF
• Ginni Rometty, Chairman and CEO of IBM
• Chetna Sinha, the Founder and Chair of the Mann Deshi Foundation
• Erna Solberg, the Prime Minister of Norway

An impressive line-up.

Equally impressive was the calibre of speakers and dialogue on gender equality throughout the official WEF agenda and at the brand lounges lining the Davos Promenade.

• The always-packed Female Quotient “Equality Lounge” convened three days of talks on how to achieve gender equality in leadership and in the workplace and reinforced the message that inclusion doesn’t just benefit women — everyone benefits.
• One promising statistic to that effect: 40% of the attendees at Mercer’s annual “When Women Thrive” breakfast were men. Four years ago that number was 10%.
• Further down the Promenade, Seneca Women and P&G hosted an interactive installation on “Women at Work: Myth vs. Reality,” with insights and solutions that company leaders can use to create a gender-equal workplace.

Malala Yousafzai summed up the gender gap message from WEF in the age of #MeToo in her address: “We won’t ask men to change the world, we’re going to do it ourselves.”

Female Quotient Equality Lounge at WEF

CLIMATE CHANGE

2017 marked the year climate change activity began to dominate the WEF agenda. Last year, as America threatened to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord, China seized the moment to assert its aspiration to lead the global effort to solve climate change. This year, climate change was a consistent theme, but the focus was less on global cooperation and more on specific commitments and actions by governments and companies.

• WEF’s Two Degrees of Transformation report offers examples and advice for how businesses can lead on climate change.
• The Global Goals Arctic Basecamp, an immersive Arctic experience with the latest scientific evidence and research technology, offered solutions and opportunities to inspire action amongst world leaders.
• A notable opinion piece in the New York Times, argued that there are hard choices ahead for world leaders if we are to truly solve climate change. Eduardo Porter claims that the greatest impediments to slowing climate change are “wishful thinking” and “an illusion of progress” centred around trying to do the same things around climate change yet expecting different results.
• WEF co-chair Sharon Burrow wrote a more optimistic piece for CNN that encourages governments to “embrace the innovations that will enable us to accelerate climate action and the transformation to a low-carbon economy.”
• In an opinion piece for the Washington Post, John Podesta and Timothy E. Wirth assert that women’s rights are climate change issues, demonstrating the interconnectedness of SDG targets.
• On the WEF blog, Lou Del Bello, a reporter for SciDev.Net warns that climate change will make the refugee crisis much worse.

Global Goals Arctic Basecamp at WEF

But the biggest environmental issue of WEF 2018 was plastics.

• Commitments by companies, such as Iceland, Coca-Cola and Evian, to remove or reduce plastic from production and packaging were celebrated. But the reviews were mixed.
• Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall penned an opinion piece in The Guardian lauding Iceland as the only grocery chain understanding the severity and urgency of the issue of plastics in the oceans.
• Unilever CEO Paul Polman said the consumer goods industry needs to “go much further, much faster” in cutting consumption of single-use plastics.
• Dame Ellen MacArthur presented WEF with a list of five innovations in materials science that may help discover new approaches to plastic packaging, as part of her foundation’s New Plastics Economy initiative (launched at WEF 2017). Among the innovations are ways to replace multi-layered packaging materials that perform a variety of functions, and which supermarkets say are vital to help prevent food waste, let alone to help solve plastics pollution in the environment.

The main climate change take-away from WEF 2018 was a sense of urgency — to understand the true costs and risks, to discover the innovations that can make a difference, to form the alliances we need to solve the challenges ahead, and to find the will to act. As Alison Martin, the Group Chief Risk Officer of Zurich Insurance Group, said on the WEF blog, “It’s not too late to build a more resilient tomorrow but we need to act with a stronger sense of urgency.”

TECHNOLOGY

The technology conversation at WEF 2018 was markedly different from years prior. In the past, technological advancement has been heralded as an end to itself. Any new innovation was seen as a net positive. But in the wake of souring opinions of Silicon Valley and ‘Big Tech’ leaders, who are seen as contributing to inequality, the gender gap, the rise of fake news and the growing polarization of our society (see recent coverage in Fast Company and The Guardian), people are asking tough questions about the impact of technology on humanity.

• Blockchain and cryptocurrencies were prominent tech themes with both evangelists and detractors weighing in, and some of the debate centered on how to use blockchain to help solve issues such distributing clean energy or tracing ingredients in the value chain.
• Virtual reality (VR) was still a hot topic and there were several demonstrations of how VR can help bring people closer to the real world impact of SDG issues. (I found the ICRC and UNICEF VR experiences at the Sustainable Innovation Hub quite powerful.)
• Much of the conversation about technology, especially artificial intelligence (AI), was more nuanced than flashy, with room to debate the impact on the future of work and global development, and how technology will impact the next generation.
• A big topic of conversation was the promise of technology to revolutionize healthcare (and not just in helping us to live to 120). While a lot of the focus was on how advancements in technology will accelerate breakthroughs in patient care and disease treatment, such as spotting cancer before it occurs, there was robust dialogue about tackling the 2030 global health agenda. The message was clear: we need to advance R&D and scale affordable innovation in service of the most intractable challenges.
• Most notably, tech platforms were called out as not doing enough to earn credibility and trust. There were even calls for regulation of the tech sector, and those calls were sometimes by tech CEOs!

Jack Ma, Founder and Executive Chairman of Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba perhaps summed up the tech conundrum best: “Every technological revolution that comes is going to create a lot of social problems. […] In the next thirty years, the world is going to be hugely changed. If there is a third world war, I think the world war should be a war against disease, a war against environmental pollution, a war against poverty, together. We should not war against ourselves.”

Sustainable Impact Hub at WEF

You can explore the above themes further in the Weber Shandwick Social Impact practice’s Inclusive Global Economies report. As always, I welcome your perspective on how to achieve the purpose agenda.