Deeper than the world’s economic and financial crises and the threat of climate change, there is an underlying crisis of values. That was the overriding message that came through loud and clear from speakers at the fourth annual conference on Trust and Integrity in the Global Economy, held in Caux, 24 to 29 July. It was attended by 160 people from 38 countries.
In his opening keynote address, Zimbabwean George Katito, a researcher at the South African Institute of International Affairs in Johannesburg, said that 200 million people will be forced to migrate as a direct result of climate change, according to the International Organization for Migration. ‘What ails our global economy may seem daunting, overwhelming and perhaps even out of our depth,’ he said. ‘However, if there is one clear lesson to be gleaned from the progress of human civilization through the centuries, it is that we are sufficiently equipped to inspire and effect change.’
There was no shortage of analysis of the scale of the problems. In the two decades to 2000, the poorest quarter of the world’s population saw their incomes drop from 2.5 per cent to 1.2 per cent of global income; over 600 million people live in slums or shantytowns; more than a third of the world’s forests have disappeared in the last 50 years. ‘If the Industrial Revolution was such a resounding success, why are we in such dire social and environmental situations?’ was asked by one delegate.
It was this inspiration to effect change—and the call for a new paradigm in thinking and living—that permeated the ethos of the conference. It was billed as a ‘people-focussed, sustainable approach to globalization’. Four daily discussion work-streams involved business leaders and entrepreneurs; young professionals; food sustainability activists and farmers; journalists and film makers. Academics and university students joined in each of the streams.
If there was an underlying crisis of values, what should those values be? And what are the sources of inspiration that affect change?
The conference title might have been reversed: integrity and trust in the global economy. As speakers stressed, integrity, including honesty and transparency in personal and professional life and the stance against corruption, leads to trust, so sorely lacking in the global banking crisis.
Corporate lawyer Jean-Pierre Mean, Vice-President in Switzerland of the anti-corruption body Transparency International, and a council member of the Caux-Initiatives of Change Foundation, also stressed that the world’s inequalities had increased. He announced the decision taken by a group of 30, meeting in the business work-stream, to promote the incorporation of the Caux Round Table’s Principles for Business into the curriculum of business schools worldwide. This would promote trust and integrity as core values for doing business. John Brinkman, Dean, and Donna Harper, lecturer in business, at Liverpool Hope University agreed to support this initiative as did Professor Kooi-Guan Cheah, Dean of UNITAR, a leading business school in Malaysia. A British social entrepreneur declared that he would incorporate the Principles for Business in his company and would encourage all the people in his supply chain to follow suit.
Rajeev Dubey, a President and member of the Group Management Board of the Indian industrial giant Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd, told how the Mahindra Group is committed to ‘socially responsible products and services’ and ‘responsible investment and employee engagement in community development.’ He outlined, in his lecture on ‘Transforming capitalism through trust and integrity’, how the $8 billion company, India’s leading tractor manufacturer, is pioneering a range of biodiesel and hybrid electric vehicles. It is also constructing ‘green’ buildings, including at its new R&D plant in Chennai. Meanwhile 25,000 employees have volunteered their time in community programmes, including planting more than a million trees across the country last year.
The company sponsors a nationwide education programme for girl children from poor backgrounds. Nearly 60,000 girls, including in the slums of Mumbai and Delhi, have completed 10 years of ‘quality education’, Dubey said. ‘Sustainability and corporate social responsibility are embedded in the group’s DNA,’ he claimed, emphasizing that ‘a sharp focus on sustainability is in line with customer and community sensitivities across the globe.’
The Food Sustainability Network, co-chaired by Lavinia Sommaruga Bodeo, Switzerland, and Cristina Bignardi, Italy, highlighted that, behind the financial crisis, another crisis is quietly taking place: one of food. Sommaruga, from Alliance Sud, a Swiss Alliance of Development Organisations, is responsible for development policy in the Italian part of Switzerland. She called for ‘a dynamic of solidarity and not of exclusion’. Outlining her initiatives on Fair Trade, she said it ‘consists of a new ethic based on principles of trust, solidarity and sharing.’ Six Swiss fair trade activists joined her on the panel, including the coordinator for Magasins du Monde, a network of fair trade shops in the Geneva/Vaud/Fribourg region.
Swedish nutritionist Ingrid Franzon, author of many health care books, outlined the health challenges facing civilisation due to depletion of food minerals and the fast food culture. Add to this, bio-fuels are causing more food problems for the poor. This had a profound influence on the thinking of a young Central American who learnt about the harm caused by ethanol made from grains and corn. Recruited as an advisor on the production of ethanol in his country, he left with the information he needed to challenge and change his country’s policy and develop a healthier bio-fuel.
Journalists in the media work-stream recognised that economic challenges and new online media, including ‘citizen journalism’, were transforming the nature of reporting. But ethics also played a vital part. As Mike Jempson of the MediaWise Trust in the UK said, ‘Journalist quite properly question people’s motives. But what can be done to reinstate altruism as a valid motivation?’
The world needed a ‘moral bailout’ at a time of financial bailouts, asserted Don de Silva, a communications company director and founder member of the United Nations Environment Program. Moral and spiritual groups across the world needed to shed their narrow perceptions and relate their beliefs to the world’s critical issues. The task was to ‘bring about a civilizational change in values and belief systems in economics, finance, food and sustainable development.’ This was vital for human survival, he said.
And what of the student response? Adam Foxall, from Liverpool Hope University, was surprised by the optimism of the older generation he met in Caux. ‘This feeling of positivity is what will stay with me most of all from the TIGE conference,’ he said. Law and theatre studies student Charlotte Sawyer observed that ‘all those attending had an evident desire to generate solutions that are practical, attainable and will stand the test of real business life.’ And Jonathan Herman, a media and politics student, wrote afterwards: ‘Among men and women of undeniable integrity and humility, all I could often wonder was how the world or I could have ever done without such places. I mourn that so few of us show the strength to live the way we all know to be right and true, if we only dare to enquire of the depths of silence. But I am so glad, hopeful and inspired because Caux is proof that this truth is alive and well in the world.’
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