Business for a better world … Inspired by Schneider and Ørsted, the world’s most sustainable companies, how can your business create more positive impact?

November 5, 2021

Copenhagen is the venue for this year’s European Business Forum.

In recent year’s we’ve brought together many of the world’s top business experts at the European Business Forum – from the strategic wisdom of Harvard’s Michael Porter to the innovative canvases of Strategyzer’s Alex Osterwalder, peaking around corners with Colombia’s Rita McGrath and crossing cultures with Insead’s Erin Meyer, fighting over the future with Innosight’s Scott Antony and IMD’s Howard Yu, and shaking up leaders with Marshall Goldsmith and Whitney Johnson.

This year it’s about businesses in action. Businesses creating a better world.

I’m absolutely delighted that we’ll be bringing together the top two “world’s most sustainable companies” according to the annual ranking by Canadian analysts Corporate Knights. In 2020, they ranked Danish energy company Ørsted as the global leader, recognising it’s 10 year transition from a state-owned, coal-fired utility into a publicly-listed, clean energy leader in wind power. It’s an amazing journey, including an IPO, many acquisitions, and significant growth across the world.

Ørsted’s Martin Neubert joins us to share the transformational journey “from black to green”.

This year, in 2021, Schneider Electric is #1. The French company defines its purpose as to empower all to make the most of our energy and resources, bridging progress and sustainability for all. They call this “Life Is On”. Behind this why is the how – providing energy and automation digital solutions for efficiency and sustainability. And the what – addressing homes, buildings, data centers, infrastructure and industries, by combining energy technologies, real-time automation, software and services.

Schneider Electric’s Michael Seremet will unlock the business model that has created a global leader

More generally we’ll be exploring a wide range of businesses – from start-ups like sustainable fashion entrepreneur Malaika New York, minimising waste by making clothes in squares – to corporates in search of reinvention, like Philip Morris who are willing to kill off Marlboro Man in search of a smoke-free future. While environmental issues dominate, particularly inspired by COP26, we’ll also be exploring broader issues like social inequality, accessible healthcare, and diversity and inclusion.

You can download my Business for a Better World: Leadership Playbook

Interview with Peter Fisk

Q: What, in your opinion will be the single biggest, common challenge, that the majority of business leaders face in 2022?

Accelerating their post-Covid futures … We are just at the beginning of a decade of phenomenal change, probably with more change in the next 10 years than the last 250 years, and therefore more impact than the steam engine, automobile, telephone, space travel, and digital revolutions combined.

Covid-19 disrupted the start of this “great acceleration” but then catalysed its accelerated with new agendas – more local, more human, more responsible. Green tech is everywhere – energy to automotive, food to finance – but its how we use it to build better societies, better lives, that matters.

57% of companies are founded in a downturn, 90% of patents are filed in a downturn, and companies who innovate during tough times achieve a 30% market value premium in the following upturn. Therefore now is the time to accelerate your recovery, but with new imagination and broader impacts.

Denmark has some incredible companies driving this new revolution, putting sustainable innovation and growth at the heart of strategy. Mearsk’s transformation with blockchain-enabled logistics, Orsted’s transformation to wind power, Novo Nordisk in healthcare.

But there is also a vibrant entrepreneurial spirit in Denmark – like Plastix, recycling sea waste plastics in Odense, or Malaika no-waste fashions based in New York, and of course Too Good To Go. Many of these businesses have not been afraid to leap into global markets, to make a bigger impact faster.

Q: Your work has been focused around monitoring new trends and trying to learn from the companies who have proven to be world leaders in mastering the tools necessary to benefit from these trends – what has been your primary new insight in the field of sustainable business during the latter months?

Sustainability is not simply about reducing bad things – reducing emissions, reducing waste, reducing inequality – but more importantly, about enhancing good things – better access, better health, better opportunity.

Businesses can be “platforms for good” – mobilising their huge resources, from brands and networks, to capital and relationships, employees and consumers – to make a bigger difference faster. By using sustainability as a catalyst for innovation – they create better solutions for customers, better products and services, that customers want, that generate profits, but equally have more impact for society and the environment.

Look at how Danone has transformed itself from nutrition to health, how Adidas pours huge creativity into sustainable materials and designs as well as building a “Run for the Oceans” movement to encourage social change, how Phillip Morris has declared it will be “smoke free” in coming years and is acquiring health businesses to help. And then we have fast-growth good-growth companies like Tesla, Impossible Foods, and Next Era.

New technologies also give is new ways to solve the big problems – indeed finding a big human/social problem to solve is actually one of the best starting points for a strategy. And then engaging everyone, inside and outside the organisation, in pursuit of co-created solutions to get there. That means harnessing the creativity of customers, start-ups, competitors, governments, charities, and more.

Another big shift in recent times is how sustainability is now core to strategies – forget words like CSR and ESG, where sustainability was an add-on to business as usual. Now it is core to what companies do, and how they win – its driven by customers, it drives competitive advantage, and in many cases can also deliver more significant profitability and growth – as well as the wider positive impacts.

There are plenty tools, which can sometimes seem like gimmicks – but having a real sense of purpose, for how you can make the world better, really does work. Equally using the 17 SDGs as a checklist for how you can do better. Equally measuring the carbon footprint, cradle to grave. But it starts with a passion, to make the world better in some relevant way. To fight the injustices, to solve the big problems, and to inspire people to be better.

Q: The theme of the European Business Forum is “Business for a Better World” – why have you chosen this theme at this exact point in time?

As I just described, Covid-19 was an incredibly difficult time, but also a catalyst for new thinking, and accelerated change. The shift from reducing negative impact to enhancing positive impact. The shift from sustainability as a separate agenda to “sustainable innovation” as core.

I believe that business has the power to solve our big challenges better than any government or NGO. I also think that sustainability, because in its many different forms – from climate to wellness, equality to inclusivity – can be the best source of profitable growth.

Core to this is the idea of “sustainable innovation” – creating better products and services that are also better for the world – and quite often, by looking at these broader solutions, the original products can become better, more desirable, and more profitable too. I remember when Nike created no-waste “FlyKnit” production, they also created the most comfortable shoes.

Here are some more examples

  • Adidas – from Parley shoes made from ocean waste, to global movements seeking to change society
  • Blackrock – demanding that companies put purpose before profit, if they want investment
  • Cemex – a purpose that seeks to build better communities rather than just deliver cement
  • Danone – transforming itself from food to health, with new benefits and new services
  • Ecovative – harnessing mycelium, the root of mushrooms, to reinvent packaging solutions
  • Impossible – plant-based meat on a mission to eliminate animals from the food chain
  • Natura – the Brazilian cosmetics giant that seeks to make the rainforests shine again
  • Patagonia – corporate activism personified, seeking to save the planet
  • Syngenta – its good growth plan is helping farmers to farm better to feed the future 9 billion
  • Tesla – more than a mobility company, a purpose to accelerate the shift to clean energy
  • Unilever – sustainable living, from Dove’s campaign for real beauty to Ben and Jerry’s Justice Remix’d

Q: Cop26 is held in Glasgow at the same time – why should the Danish business community prioritize EBF, when the world’s leaders are discussing a yet unknown, new framework for the very same issues?

EBF on 9th November comes at almost the end of two weeks of the world’s leaders exploring the big issues. We already know what they their agendas, and most points of view.

We will kick-off with a live link to Glasgow, and talk to Diane Holdorf, Managing Director of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) who will summarise the mode, debates and outcomes from Cop26, to ensure we fully build on the moment.

Actually, I believe that this year’s EBF is at the perfect moment to take the raised profile and new commitments from Cop26 and fast-forward it onto their business agendas. It is the perfect time to introduce the thinking to boardrooms, to investors, and to customers.

Q: The concept of the EBF this year is a mixture between talks and interaction amongst the participants – why this new format?

I see three big drivers of this in any organisation – Imagination, Acceleration and Transformation.

And for that reason we have designed this year’s European Business Forum, around three high-energy, high-participation “labs” in which every participant will develop their own playbook for sustainable innovation and future growth.

Each of these three labs will have four speakers – each given just a short moment to share their big ideas, like a creative catalyst – and then work with the participants in applying the ideas to their own business.

Who are these catalytic speakers, well …

In the Imagination Lab, we will explore “How can business be a platform for change?”

  • Diane Holdorf, brings a global perspective, representing the WBCSD, a network of over 100 of the world’s largest and most sustainability-driven companies
  • Lotte Hansen, CEO of HE Agenda, will give that a more local flavour, sharing new research of which sustainability issues matter most in the Nordics.
  • Malaika Haaning, founder of fashion brand Malaika New York will give us an exciting creative perspective from a Dane living in America.
  • Martin Neubert, COO of Orsted, will reflect on his company’s transformation from state to private sector, local to global, and black to green.

In the Acceleration Lab, the focus is on “What does it mean to be a sustainable innovator?”

  • Camilia Sylvest, EVP at Novo Nordisk, will share some of the brilliant work which they have been doing to care more for people around the world.
  • Michael Seremet, from the world’s most sustainable company in 2021, Schneider Electric, will focus on global platforms and new business models.
  • Tine Arentsen Willumsen, CEO of Above and Beyond, then brings her huge passion for diversity, to build a better organisation – one as amazing as the people inside it.

In the Transformation Lab, we reflect on “How can you transform your business for good?”

  • Mark Esposito, from Nexus Frontiertech, is an AI technology expert who works with Harvard and the UAE Government to accelerate transformation across entire industries.
  • Anette Rosengren, MD Nordics of Philip Morris, will explain why she is about to “kill off Marlboro Man” in pursuit of a non-smoking, healthier future.
  • Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez, Head of GSK’s sustainable transformation, will focus on his passion for better project management, making transformation projects work, faster.
  • Hans Axel Kristensen, CEO of Plastix, will leave us with his own personal story, of creating a business that puts saving our natural environment at its heart.

Q: What should participants expect to gain from attending the forum this year?

I know that there is no shortage of ideas and information right now. I also know, how busy everyone has got in recent months.

But that’s why we all need a burst of enlightened acceleration.

This will not be like a normal conference. It’s not about snoozing in your seats and rubbing shoulders with celebrity names. We need to get real. We need new ideas, and we need to ensure we apply them faster and smarter to our businesses, right now.

And we have the world’s most sustainable companies in 2020 and 2021 – who better to learn from, in terms of the strategies and implementations towards becoming a company that really can make the world better – and be a successful business.

It’s going to be challenging, but inspiring, and great fun!

More from the blog