Welcome to the 2021 Business for Peace Spotlight Series: Rethinking Systems of Decent Work!

Each May, Business for Peace hosts its annual Summit, including the pinnacle Business for Peace Award Ceremony. However, due to the coronavirus pandemic, we postponed our 2020 Summit and decided to host an exciting new digital event series as a scaled down version of our usual events. In line with our vision to recognise, inspire and accelerate "businessworthy" leadership, we will continue to host valuable, impactful discussions about current global issues affecting sustainability and ethical business leadership.

Please visit our website to view the complete programme.

Event Description

The current pandemic has shone a light on the importance of stakeholder capitalism and the difference between how our economies have worked in the past versus how we need them to work going forward. The actions of companies toward their stakeholders has come under additional scrutiny. While many companies have prioritised employee safety, community protection, and customer safety, others have only focused on their bottom-lines.

Research has shown that serving all stakeholders is an ethical good that can be a source of competitive advantage, however, this concept remains an ideal rather than an operational goal for many. This conversation will address:

• The evolution of the relationship between companies and their stakeholders in 2020-2021 What it means for stakeholder capitalism when many companies have had to prioritise survival over employee well-being
• How governments and businesses can work together to ensure that all stakeholders are protected going forward
• To what extent the Business Roundtable declaration created real change
• The future of stakeholder capitalism in the Global South

Interviewer, Kjersti Løken Stavrum, CEO at Tinius Trust

Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize Winning Economist and Professor, Columbia University

Stiglitz is an American economist, professor at Columbia University, and founder of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue. He is a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001) and was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2011. Stiglitz’s work focuses on income distribution, risk, corporate governance, public policy, macroeconomics, and globalisation. He is Chief Economist of the Roosevelt Institute, a former Chief Economist of the World Bank, and a former Chairman of the U.S. president's Council of Economic Advisers.

Løken Stavrum is CEO at Tinius Trust, President of PEN Norway, former Secretary-General of the Norwegian Press Association, and former Director of Communications for the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise.

This is part of the 2021 Business for Peace Spotlight Series.