Join leading organizations WBCSD, U.N. Global Compact and GRI for an in-depth, interactive tutorial that will explore the implications of the Sustainable Development Goals for business, highlight emerging trends and developments across the business and SDG landscape, and underline best practice around strategic alignment with the SDG agenda. This session will address key enablers and barriers to effective integration of the SDGs into business strategy as well as trends in corporate reporting and how best to account for your SDG progress. Participating in this tutorial will help you develop a comprehensive SDG strategy for your own organization.

We often talk about employee engagement in the corporate office, but engaging hourly employees on the frontlines is essential to an impactful program. Join this session to learn effective strategies for activating this critical group, featuring learnings from International Paper and the National Environmental Education Foundation’s (NEEF) collaboration to rally manufacturing employees around the company’s community sustainability commitments. This workshop will explore the process of design thinking for creative problem solving, applied to understanding what matters most to employees across a variety of industrial work environments. The goal: Engage employees in localized activities that meet the needs of employees, communities and their environments.

Hands on and outdoor-based programs can disrupt thinking, encourage innovation, and build sustainability leaders. Join us to get a taste of what it is like to help solve an important environmental challenge by collecting critical scientific data alongside leading scientist Dr. Thomas Meixner in the desert landscape of Mummy Mountain. You will learn about desert ecology, climate change, citizen science, and the benefit of corporations engaging in natural spaces like these. Earthwatch creates immersive and inspirational experiences around the world for corporate employees to learn about environmental challenges first hand and use that as foundation to take action on sustainability in their day jobs. Please dress appropriately for the outdoors and bring your (reusable) water bottle.

Corporate executives are facing increasing pressure from employees, customers and their own personal convictions to voice positions on public policy. Some companies are making public statements and even fundamental business decisions that convey their stands on issues from gun control, voting rights and women's healthcare to immigration, inequality and climate action. This session will tap into the experience of change makers to explore why, when and how companies make the decision to speak out — or not — and the intended and unintended consequences of doing so.

The upcoming circular economy is as real as it is unavoidable. With a 9% circular world today, companies are not only curious about their current circular performance, but also ask themselves how to set meaningful targets and how to measure success through their circular strategies. This session dives into how the Circular Transition Indicators, a framework developed by 26 global companies, can help your company to measure and calculate circular performance, as well as how associated risk and opportunities can be identified, acted on and monitored. We invite you to join us and explore how your company can capitalize on the opportunities held by the 91% improvement space out there.

There are more strategies to use clean energy and become more efficient than ever. If your company wants to explore options for procuring renewables and increasing energy productivity, where do you start? In your own organization! This session outlines how the different parts of an organization can work together — from finance to sustainability to energy — to get internal buy-in and reset how your organization can think about decarbonizing. 

Join this session to explore creative approaches to advancing the SDGs centered in design-thinking and innovation. Learn from this year's cohort of the sustainability accelerator Young SDG Innovators Programme, future leaders who are developing and driving solutions through new technologies, initiatives, and business models, and delivering on their company’s sustainability objectives.

Investors and financial institutions are increasingly integrating companies’ ESG performances into their decision-making, regardless of the type of investment class or type of asset. In parallel, the rise of new ESG-related products and services, such as thematic funds or sustainable linked loans, are all based on an investment’s overall ESG performance. How are investors and financial organizations engaging with companies to understand their ESG performance? How is the financial industry embracing ESG and integrating it into its products and decision-making? Are they focusing on the right things? This panel will explore how investors are engaging with companies to understand their ESG management and performance beyond disclosures and ESG ranking and rating agencies. During the session, the panelists will discuss:

• How asset managers and financial institutions are using ESG ranking and ratings while performing their own analysis to understand the entire universe of risk
• When and where the concept of materiality comes into play
• Expectations from a management, governance and disclosure perspective and how they are changing
• How companies are reacting to investors’ interest in ESG

From the US to India, Brazil, and the UK, a polarizing political climate fueled by misinformation, fake news, and aggression is becoming a critical turning point for our society as people lose trust in democracy and institutions. We believe that deep and interconnected structural factors related to income inequality, demographic change, and more, are at play and as sustainability professionals, understanding the implications of nationalism and contributing trends will be critical to making any progress in the years to come. Forum for the Future will lead this roundtable and draw upon their research on nationalism and rising polarization conducted over the past two years. Come and join a discussion on how environmental issues, international agreements, and sustainability initiatives are impacted by a polarized world, and what we as sustainability professionals and leading companies could do about it.

About Roundtable Lunches: Join interactive lunch discussions, moderated by an expert or thought leader, held at a roundtable of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants. All roundtable lunches do not have advanced sign-up — participation is first-come, first-served.

At this session, we will encourage lively discussion around how livestock producers can meet the increasing global demand for protein while addressing the sustainability requests of their customers. Learn how new feeding technologies are joining data analytics and genetics to deliver more meat and milk with fewer resources, and contribute your ideas for new innovations and partnerships to accelerate this important trend.

About Roundtable Lunches: Join interactive lunch discussions, moderated by an expert or thought leader, held at roundtables of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions, and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants. All roundtable lunches do not have advanced sign-up — participation is first-come, first-served.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) address wide-reaching global issues and offer immediate guidance for organizations and governments to adjust their direct impact. Supply chain management is an important factor to consider when aligning your business with the SDGs. Join this session to exchange ideas with peers on how to use innovative tools to enable your organization to take action on the SDGs and improve sustainability performance among your suppliers. Silvia Schmid, sustainable procurement program manager, and Marta Cobeño López, CSR analyst, will facilitate a discussion on the collaborative efforts required between governments and organizations, as well as between companies in the private sector, to enable this action at scale.

About Roundtable Lunches: Join interactive lunch discussions, moderated by an expert or thought leader, held at roundtables of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions, and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants. All roundtable lunches do not have advanced sign-up — participation is first-come, first-served.

During this facilitated lunch discussion, Shannon Houde, a Daniel Goleman Emotional Intelligence certified meta coach, will challenge you to answer the simple question: Do you have what it takes to lead scalable change? You will learn:

• How we can leverage emotional intelligence (EI) as change leaders

• How to use empathy to shift mindsets about the value of sustainability 

• How you rate the 12 competencies of EI when performing as a sustainability influencer

• Share your challenges in a small and safe group

• Walk away with Daniel Goleman’s EI framework to guide you forward

Every carbon molecule emitted by every company from the 20th and 21st centuries is still in the atmosphere, contributing to the climate crisis. What if your company decided it wanted to be carbon negative, from its first day of business onwards? Is that possible? How could that be achieved? Regenerative farming, and its CO2 drawdown capabilities may be one path forward.

About Roundtable Lunches: Join interactive lunch discussions, moderated by an expert or thought leader, held at a roundtable of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions, and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants. All roundtable lunches do not have advanced sign-up — participation is first-come, first-served.

Climate strategies can take many forms, from setting science-based targets, plans for 100% renewable energy, and goals that are carbon neutral, climate positive, or carbon negative. How do companies select where to invest their money in order to deliver the speed, scale and impact required to meet the urgency of the climate challenge and harness the business opportunities? Join this roundtable lunch for a frank discussion about internal reductions, the value of offsetting, carbon sinks, drawdown and avoided emissions, and what a business can do to focus and prioritise.

About Roundtable Lunches: Join interactive lunch discussions, moderated by an expert or thought leader, held at roundtables of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions, and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants. All roundtable lunches do not have advanced sign-up — participation is first-come, first-served.

Join your peers to learn about and share your leading strategies and methods for setting and accounting for SBTs for scope 3 emissions. Josh Whitney, Anthesis Group Executive Director will facilitate a discussion around the challenges and opportunities of tracking absolute emissions reductions in the supply chain, as well as leading methods for engaging suppliers and building their capacity to set their own SBTs.

About Roundtable Lunches: Join interactive lunch discussions, moderated by an expert or thought leader, held at roundtables of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions, and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants. All roundtable lunches do not have advanced sign-up — participation is first-come, first-served.

Did you know that, on average, humans ingest the equivalent of one credit card (5 grams) of microplastics in a week? While we don’t fully understand the scale and long-term impacts of microplastic contamination in the environment and on human health, consumers are becoming more aware and concerned about the issue. Consumer concern will drive decisions and demand for products and supply chains that no longer add to environmental microplastic contamination. Which industries can have the greatest impact in reducing microplastic contamination through redesigning their products and supply chains? Join the discussion with Conservation X Labs as we build a coalition of partners to lead a global Grand Challenge competition with the Flotilla Foundation to source scalable solutions and tackle this growing crisis.

About Roundtable Lunches: Join interactive lunch discussions, moderated by an expert or thought leader, held at roundtables of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions, and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants. All roundtable lunches do not have advanced sign-up — participation is first-come, first-served.

Women’s lack of representation in positions of leadership is broadly acknowledged throughout the business world. Yet business is falling short in rising to this challenge and considerable barriers still hold women back. Only 4% of leadership positions in Fortune 500 companies are held by women. 9 out of 10 Americans are convinced that pervasive preconceptions and a lack of support from mentors are key contributors to women’s lack of representation in top positions. Increasing the representation of women at the top of companies helps business not only to become more successful but also more sustainable. Join WBCSD for a discussion on empowering women to lead, featuring their new LEAP initiative (Leading Women for Sustainable Development) that aims to help women reach senior positions in their company and ensure that sustainability is embedded both in their leadership and their company’s strategy.

About Roundtable Lunches: Join interactive lunch discussions, moderated by an expert or thought leader, held at a roundtable of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions, and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants. All roundtable lunches do not have advanced sign-up — participation is first-come, first-served.

This session will talk about tools and tricks to align your clean energy and sustainability goals with your carbon reduction goals. After all, we won’t address climate change by adding more clean energy; we’ll address it by having less carbon in the atmosphere.

When done strategically, the alignment of a company's sustainability program with its foundation and philanthropic efforts can be a powerful driver of change. Hear from leaders that have been instrumental in transforming their companies' strategies to maximize impact for environmental and social sustainability.

As global businesses continue to increase their efforts to create more responsible supply chains, scalability has become a pressing issue. There’s a framework to address almost any industry and any issue within the supply chain, but as businesses develop their responsible sourcing strategies, how can they be sure which approach suits them best, and how their unique business needs might fit within those frameworks? At the same time, suppliers are under an increasing burden to provide data across a disparate set of information requests – and their ability to respond adequately is only getting worse. Is there a healthy balance between standardization, unique business approaches, and supplier bandwidth? This panel explores the landscape of industry frameworks for supply chain responsibility and makes the case that, through shared metrics and better platforms for collaboration, a state of harmony for responsible sourcing may be within reach after all.

There is an increased awareness globally of the need for a food system transformation in which human nutrition and environmental sustainability align to enable healthy diets for all within planetary boundaries. This proposed shift in protein production and consumption will put immense pressure on food and agriculture companies, but will also enable new business opportunities and present possibilities for mitigating climate risks. Hear from established food producers as they navigate the new protein landscape, striving to improve the food system and reducing risks from fork to farm.

While voluntary corporate actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are critical, only public policy can deliver the pace and scale of reductions needed to bend the overall emissions curve downward — and help companies meet their climate targets. That’s why climate policy advocacy is an essential element of climate leadership. This session will cover the business benefits of engaging in policy advocacy and introduce a framework to help attendees navigate what it takes to adopt and execute on a corporate climate policy agenda. Participants will hear from and engage with companies that are leading on policy advocacy and learn how their own companies can get involved.

Is the harmonization of ESG standards and frameworks desirable, practical or possible? Is it what companies and capital markets need to accelerate progress? How can companies and investors better understand the strategic fit, alignment and differences at a practical level? There is a proliferation of sustainability reporting standards and frameworks to choose from, causing confusion in the marketplace. Is this material – or is it a matter of finding the right tool to solve the right problem? How can companies learn about the objectives of each reporting organization? Come learn about the move towards alignment and dispel the myths of ‘disharmonization’.

An estimated 40 million people are victims of modern slavery, of which 25 million are in situations of forced labor. Of the 25 million, 16 million are in the private sector - generating $150 billion in illegal profits in the private economy. Violations of human and labor rights in supply chains have drawn the attention of governments, NGOs, and the public, and put pressure on companies to take action to maintain responsible and transparent supply chains. Critically, companies need to be a strong force to improve the conditions under which people labor in their global supply chains. The seafood industry, the apparel industry, and the coffee sector provide a source of income and support the livelihoods of more than 350 million producers around the globe. The world drinks more than 600 billion cups of coffee, consumes more than 150 million metric tons of seafood per year and imports apparel products at a value of US$127 billion. Yet, the raw materials are often first sourced in regions where the livelihoods of the farming and fishing communities are vulnerable. And workers are often the most vulnerable. As supply chains have become increasingly complex and globalized, workers’ rights and protections have been eroded. Labor violations drive social instability, poverty, and natural resource decline. These factors put businesses at financial and reputational risk due to vulnerable workforce practices that may include child labor, forced labor, hazardous working conditions, long hours and low pay. Join this session to learn how your company can rise to the challenge of ethical labor practices,  ensure co-benefits for people alongside positive environmental and climate outcomes, and truly make a difference for the better in peoples' lives and communities deep in your supply chains

Sustainability is still a new challenge for most companies, and communicating sustainability is no easy feat. Companies often will have communications professionals that have little experience in sustainability or sustainability professionals with little experience in communication. Even the most sustainable companies find that effective communication strategies can be tough, especially when breaking down science into understandable messages for consumers and the rest of the industry. On this panel, you will hear from communication leaders, laggards and the rest as they share successes and learn from their failures at communicating sustainability.

Are you looking to make ESG an authentic part of your culture? In this design sprint, Kim Dabbs, Director of Social Innovation and Engagement, and Marlene Hernandez, Director of Learning at Steelcase, will share how they started a global grassroots movement by building Change Corp teams focused around SDGs and shared impact. Together, you’ll move through a design challenge to co-create opportunities for employees intended to embed a culture of ESG in your organization. 

This session will explore how blockchain — an electronic "ledger" system that manages and authorizes transactions across a distributed network of participants — can improve transparency, monitor safety and compliance, and create new sources of income across complex supply chains for food and electronics. Our subject matter experts will discuss early real-world projects to verify sourcing along with the economic and sustainability benefits for both large multinational businesses and smaller suppliers.

Corporate America has more power than ever, and with that comes a rising movement for it to better serve employees, communities and the environment. This session looks at the responsibility of companies to align their operations, political influence and social clout with sustainability and emission reduction goals to ensure a safe climate future. Experts will discuss what the private sector is doing right, where it is falling short, and how to step up efforts. 

Meet your new consumer: the Honest Generation. Join this session to explore the emerging Gen Z consumer’s radically shifting expectations of business and brands and guidance on what it means for business. The headline? Gen Z prioritizes product honesty over brand purpose and thinks almost no brands are doing enough to meet their demand for sustainable solutions. Based on groundbreaking research conducted by change agency Futerra in partnership with the Consumer Goods Forum, this session will give leaders a glimpse into their future and equip them to prepare for the 2020s – the decade the Honest Generation, the climate strikers of today, becomes the Honest Majority, and the brand target audience, of tomorrow.