Sanda Ojiambo thinks businesses can thrive while upholding values that are becoming increasingly important to consumers and stakeholders. And as CEO and executive director of the United Nations Global Compact, she is at the helm of a movement navigating that intersection of business growth and honoring social justice movements.
During GreenBiz 21 last week, Ojiambo spoke about the need for companies to have a mission-driven response to social issues in order to contribute to an equitable and resilient recovery from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. She credited her experience in both the private and public sector for her ability to brainstorm potential solutions to inequality that involve both.
“There has to be an ‘all of’ sector, a multi-sectoral approach to driving this [social] change,” Ojiambo said during a keynote conversation. “Each time I’m in a different sector, there’s different views, different challenges and certainly different opportunities.”
She called 2020 an “incredible year” that demonstrated how business leaders can step up to embody their company’s social mission statements, pointing to new partnerships created to support COVID relief. She pointed out that necessity had bred innovation across e-commerce, online learning and even vaccine production. More than 90% of the 169 targets of the SDGs are linked to international human rights and labor standards. Read more…
