WATCH: The role of the private sector in global sustainable development

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“The development activities of civil society and the public sector are critical but not sufficient,” Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, chair of the Business and Sustainable Development Commission, told an audience at Brookings in reference to the need for private sector engagement in global sustainable development. At an event co-hosted by the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings and the United Nations Foundation, the case was made that the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) need the private sector and that business needs the SDGs too.


In her welcoming remarks, Ambassador Elizabeth Cousens, deputy chief executive officer of the U.N. Foundation, introduced the commission’s work as “path-breaking,” based on the geographic and sector-specific underpinnings of its business case. She further described the challenge of sustaining public trust, and the power of aligning the private sector’s core business with the strategic objectives of the international community.
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Malloch-Brown, himself a former U.N. deputy secretary-general, explained that a core theme of the commission’s new Better Business, Better World report is that development should be central to business activity because it eventually leads to sustainable profits. The report draws on insights from over 30 global private sector and civil society leaders who are commission members, including Jack Ma of Alibaba, Laura Alfaro of Harvard Business School, Bob Collymore of Safaricom, and Ho Ching of Temasek Holdings.
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The panel following Malloch-Brown’s opening remarks discussed the report and their views on how business can become a bigger player in lifting country’s out of fragility, tackling climate change, and taking on the challenge of ending extreme poverty.
Barry Parkin, chief sustainability and health and wellbeing officer of Mars Inc., reinforced many of the themes laid out by Malloch-Brown, using the example that it is the food industry’s best interest to help lift farmers out of poverty, because ...

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