Invite Only Event

A conversation with UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner, UN Global Compact CEO and Executive Director Lise Kingo and CEOs from leading companies including:

• Adeline Lescanne-Gautier, Executive Director, Nutriset SAS;

• Mai Oldgard, Senior Vice President and Head of Sustainability, Telenor Group;

• Mary Snapp, Corporate Vice President Microsoft;

• Ndidi Nwuneli, Co-Founder and Director AACE Foods;

• Pia Heidenmark Cook, Acting Chief Sustainability Officer, IKEA Group;

• Rowan Douglas, CEO, Capital, Science & Policy Practice at Willis Towers Watson, & Chair of the Implementation Group of the Insurance Development Forum, IDF. Speakers will share their perspectives on how they leverage their company’s core competencies, expertise and resources to promote sustainable development and help leave no one behind.

When: 9:30am Wednesday 20 September
Where: New York
How: Invite-only

The world is changing rapidly, the evidence is all around us. Decades of growth and unsustainable consumption of natural resources is giving way to a resource-limited world and forcing us to change our individual behaviors. The consequences for businesses are massive: with these changes fundamentally rewriting the rules of the game, companies are increasingly recognizing the need to take a deeper look at what this new era signifies for them and how they should respond. Some major trends are forcing companies to find new and innovative ways to deliver value for their stakeholders.

As businesses rethink their strategies and grapple with how they need to change their organizations to thrive and grow in today’s world, the SDGs can be an opportunity. Many leading companies have found a way to grow and increase competitiveness despite, and sometimes thanks to, the global challenges they face. They are already using the SDGs to help them develop new inclusive and sustainable opportunities. However, many barriers still prevent businesses from responding to the Global Goals.

The Business Solutions for the SDGs event will look at how businesses are and can further use the SDGs to manage long-term risks and find opportunities to grow and develop their business while generating the significant societal and environmental benefits that their customers, investors, as well as the global community, increasingly value. UNDP leadership will host a conversation with business leaders who will share their perspectives on how they will continue to leverage their company’s core competencies, expertise and resources to promote sustainable development and help leave no one behind.

The event will offer insights on the ways in which the private sector can accelerate the achievement of the SDGs, how companies can best integrate the SDGs in their business strategies, connecting them with the world’s most pressing needs and ambitiously responding to a rapidly changing business context. Participants are also expected to offer recommendations on what more the private sector, governments and UNDP need to do - individually and collectively - to help countries achieve the Global Goals.

Event Organizers: UNDP, Business Call to Action and UN Global Compact

United Nations Development Programme: UNDP is the UN's global development network, advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. UNDP is on the ground in some 170 countries and territories, supporting their own solutions to development challenges and developing national and local capacities that will help them achieve human development and the Sustainable Development Goals. Work is concentrated on three main focus areas: sustainable development, democratic governance and peace-building, and climate and disaster resilience. UNDP helps countries attract and use aid effectively. In all its activities, it promotes gender equality and the protection of human rights.

Business Call to Action: Launched at the United Nations in 2008, BCtA aims to accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by challenging companies to develop inclusive business models that offer the potential for both commercial success and development impact. BCtA is a unique multilateral alliance between key donor governments including the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, UK Department for International Development, US Agency for International Development, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of Finland, and the United Nations Development Programme — which hosts the secretariat

UN Global Compact: The United Nations Global Compact is a call to companies everywhere to voluntarily align their operations and strategies with ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption, and to take action in support of UN goals and issues. The UN Global Compact is a leadership platform for the development, implementation and disclosure of responsible corporate policies and practices. Launched in 2000, it is the largest corporate sustainability initiative in the world, with over 8,000 companies and 4,000 non-business signatories based in 170 countries. www.unglobalcompact.org