USCIB Hosts Launch Event for Business Pact for the Future
Left to right: USCIB President and CEO Whitney Baird, President and CEO of the United Nations Foundation Elizabeth Cousens, and US Ambassador Chris Lu.
USCIB and The USCIB Foundation hosted a “Business Pact for the Future (BPF)” launch event for the UN community and the private sector at the Yale Club of New York on September 20. BPF is a business initiative to accelerate implementation of the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, a centerpiece of the UN Summit of the Future (SOTF).
UN Ambassadors from Canada and the United States, UN representatives from the UN Foundation and UNDP, as well as USCIB leadership and members from Novonesis, Microsoft, and Salesforce spoke at the event.
The Business Pact will explore new pathways and calls for an all-of-society approach to strengthen business-UN cooperation to advance the UN’s global goals and explore new interfaces for the private sector with the multilateral system.
“We must speed up our efforts to deliver on the SDGs. And we must – and will – use the private sector to help do so,” said Novonesis President and CEO Ester Baiget, a USCIB Trustee. “Businesses and business leaders play a critical role, because without economic growth and shared prosperity, the pursuit of sustainability is not possible.”
Ambassador Robert Rae, President of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and Canada’s Permanent Representative to the UN as well as Ambassador Chris Lu, US Ambassador to the UN for Management and Reform, spoke about the critical and necessary role of the private sector in the multilateral system.
Ambassador Rae emphasized businesses as the drivers of change while Ambassador Lu called for the establishment of a business envoy at the UN.
“There has never been as much opportunity as there is now,” said USCIB member Howard Wachtel, Senior Director, Head of UN and International Organizations Policy at Microsoft. “Governments alone cannot solve these challenges. You need the SOTF and all the principles outlined in the Global Digital Compact (GDC) to help accelerate progress on the SDGs. There has been a unique opening for the private sector to be part of the conversation. A lot of that has gone through USCIB. BPF is really important.”
Left to right: USCIB’s Norine Kennedy, Microsoft’s Howard Wachtel, Salesforce’s Nancy DeVore, and Novonesis’ Justin Perrettson.
“BPF is really core to the way forward,” said USCIB member Nancy DeVore, Senior Director, Strategic Relations (AMER) at Salesforce.
“USCIB has had a unique role in the UN with nearly 80 years of partnership across the multilateral system as a long-term, dedicated partner and solutions provider,” said USCIB Chair Eric Loeb, Executive Vice President of Global Government Affairs at Salesforce, who delivered remarks remotely. “It’s exciting to see USCIB’s new BPF highlight innovation as a way to accelerate progress across the international community. Innovation in all its forms—from technology to information to partnership—can help accelerate our achievement of the 2030 Agenda and Summit of the Future outcomes.’
USCIB President and CEO Whitney Baird said: “This is just the beginning of this venture, and we really appreciate the support from our members. We invite all of you to come along with us. Multilateralism is in our DNA, and we, on behalf of our members, were early adopters and supporters of the SDGs, the UNFCCC and its Paris Agreement, and of the Convention on Biological Diversity, among other international frameworks that are priorities for our members.”
The Business Pact is a joint project of USCIB’s Moving the Needle initiative and The USCIB Foundation. The Business Pact is a business initiative to accelerate implementation of the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and to carry the momentum of a centerpiece of the SOTF forward to the 4th International Conference on Finance for Development and the 2nd World Social Summit in 2025.