The first ever student-led conference about global corporate social responsibility in China-Being Globally Responsible Conference-was held in the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) from June 9 to 11 in Shanghai.
Representatives of the world's top multinational corporations, academic and social organizations attended this event and delivered speeches including Fred Dubee, UN Global Compact.
On the first day of the event, students signed a 2006 Shanghai Consensus, a pact that included their promise and commitment to not working for companies that are environmentally or socially irresponsible, returning to their schools and becoming global responsibility ambassadors. "I am moved by the commitment of the students' consensus… it is a serious commitment and I respect it," said Serge Abou, EU Ambassador.
Throughout the three-day event, speakers including Richard Bunch, Aspen Institute, discussed and showed evidence to prove that, in the medium term, MBA students who were purely driven by a desire to get rich, quickly and at all costs actually tended to end up earning the same levels of salary as those who were not of such Machiavellian economic intent. Fred Dubee, UN Global Compact, gave a rousing speech on the inefficiency and harm caused by some aspects of current business models. He explained that in one year we lose 220 million human years of productivity due to non-economic efficiency. If that is measured at a rate of one or two dollars per day it adds to a figure of billions of dollars per year, and putting 50 cents worth of nutrition per person per year could solve a lot of problems for a lot of people in this world. "The business model is changing and who is really going to change it is you people," Dubee explained.
On Saturday, further depth and discussion of specific CSR issues were addressed in 13 different workshops including: sustainable development, corporate governance; bribery and anti-corruption; CSR strategy; community outreach; private/public sector partnership; UN Global compact; social entrepreneurship; CSR evaluation; media, internet, and CSR; money laundering; micro-financing; and environment and business. For more details about the workshop, please follow this link.doc:
