G&A Institute Team Note
We continue to bring you news of private (corporate and business), public and social sector developments as organizations in the three societal sectors adjust to the coronavirus emergency.

This is post #13 in the series, “Excellence in Corporate Citizenship on Display in the Coronavirus Crisis.”  #WeRise2FightCOVID-19   “Corporate Purpose – Virus Crisis”  –  April 7 2020 

By Hank Boerner — Chair & Chief Strategist – G&A Institute

The World Economic Forum – “Davos” – issued principles on April 1st on Corporations and the Upholding of Stakeholder Principles in the Virus Crisis

Leading CEO’s around the globe got a communication from the World Economic Forum (“Davos” in shorthand) urging the following of Stakeholder Principles in the COVID Era.

The business community’s contribution in the global pandemic, say the leaders of the WEF “Covid Action Platform”, is to be leaders of responsiveness and stewards of resilience.

And — to cooperate and collaborate in managing the corporate community’s response to help society deal with the global emergency and work towards economic recovery.

To those ends, the platform Stakeholder Principles set out for business leaders are:

• To employees, our principle is to keep you safe.
• To our ecosystem of suppliers and customers, our principle is to secure our shared business continuity…to keep the supply chains open and integrate supply partners in the firm’s business.
• To our end consumers, our principle is to maintain fair prices and commercial terms for essential supplies.
• To governments and society, our principles is to offer our full support…standing ready with resources, capabilities and know-how.
• To our shareholders, our principle remains the long-term viability of the company and its potential to create sustained value.

And…we must also maintain the principles and we must continue our sustainability efforts unabated, to bring our world closer to achieving shared goals, including the Paris climate agreement and the UN SDGs agenda.

By doing all we can, say the WEF leadership, and coordinate our work, we can ensure that our society and economy get through this crisis – and we can mitigate the impact on all of our stakeholders.

The signatories of the letter to CEOs:

• WEF Founder Klaus Schwab (he’s executive chair);
• Brian Moynihan (CEO of Bank of America and Chair of the WEF International Business Committee);
• Feike Sijbesma (Royal DSM, Special Envoy on Coronavirus, Dutch Government) , and Jim Snabe (Chairman, Siemens and Maersk), the Co-Chairs of the WEF Impact Committee.

The WEF leaders stress that CEOs should continue to embody “stakeholder capitalism” to help secure a common prosperity.

CEOs receiving the letter were asked to support the WEF global effort to manage the economic impact in the COVID-19 era.

Link to the Covid Action Platform document: http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Stakeholder_Principles_COVID_Era.pdf?mod=article_inline

The WEF also circulated a 6-page “Workforce Principles for the COVID-19 Pandemic – Stakeholder Capitalism in a Time of Crisis” white paper. This is especially timely as corporate HR managers and others focus on Human Capital Management (HCM) in a time of crisis.

Link: http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_NES_COVID_19_Pandemic_Workforce_Principles_2020.pdf

Our December 3, 2020 profile of the World Economic Forum (WEF) / Davos conveners with focus on Corporate Citizenship topics is in the blog at: https://ga-institute.com/Sustainability-Update/the-world-economic-forum-on-corporate-citizenship-topics-with-focus-on-the-fourth-industrial-revolution/

G&A Institute Team Note
We continue to bring you news of private (corporate and business), public and social sector developments as organizations in the three societal sectors adjust to the emergency.

New items will be posted at the top of the blog post and the items today will move down the queue.

We created the tag “Corporate Purpose – Virus Crisis” for this continuing series – and the hashtag “#WeRise2FightCOVID-19“ for our Twitter posts.  Do join the conversation and contribute your views and news. 

Do send us news about your organization – info@ga-institute.com so we can share.   Stay safe – be well — keep in touch!