Bold ideas for a better world from Davos and beyond

As the last day of the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, kicks off, we asked participants to share the ideas they are taking away about the real things they can do to help solve the world’s top challenges.

But Davos has also taken plenty of flack for its exclusivity, and we also want to democratize the discussion.

Given the huge scope and scale of problems such as climate change, health and inequality, many big bold ideas are needed to really move the needle. We’re looking for strong commitments from business leaders; inspiring ideas from academics, nonprofits and readers; and personal pledges from consumers.

Check out the wide-ranging responses readers already have contributed to the discussion, and share your own ideas here or in the previous post’s comments. If you’re able to make a personal or professional pledge, tweet #GSBDavos. We’ll pull some of the most inspiring thoughts from both into this thread, and look for your responses to these ideas in the comments below this post.

Ideas from Davos participants:

• Start talking

What has stuck out most to us at Davos is two things: first, the impressive number of corporations that have made bold commitments to help curb climate change, and second, how few of those companies are talking to their consumers about it.

This is a gap, but also an opportunity for the vanguard of progressive companies surging to the forefront of this transition – working toward 100% clean energy, building sustainable technologies, and starting to replenish forests. If these efforts are to succeed, it is important for multinationals to build public trust and affinity – but most consumers still have little idea about the transformational strides these brands are taking.

Imagine how powerful a message that could be, if the world’s leading companies coordinated to show their consumers how they’re leading the transition to a clean, prosperous future. And if those same companies provided a way for consumers to support those commitments and take actions of their own? The impact could be game-changing.

At Purpose, we launched Here Now in October in part to close this gap by developing a flexible, shared platform from which companies may begin having these discussions in ways that are relevant to consumers. We believe companies stand to reap substantial rewards – both in branding boosts from association with this vanguard of leading consumer brands and in business impact from the ample opportunities to integrate climate commitments with key selling periods and sustainable product lines.

By joining the wider wave of mobilisation currently underway, these corporations can ensure that 2015 is the year climate action hits a tipping point. All they have to do is start talking, and invite others to join.

– Paul Hilder, executive director of Here Now, and Jeremy Heimans, CEO of Purpose

• Stop using words like ‘product lifecycle’

In many discussions at Davos this week, I’ve heard company leaders and regulators refer to a product’s “lifecycle” and its “end of life”. But this illustrates old thinking in which products are born from resource-intense raw materials amid sophisticated global supply chains and die a crude, even toxic death in the form of refuse piles, followed by burial in land, in rivers, at sea or by cremation in burn piles or even “waste to energy” plants.

These are old stories of throwing things away in a world with more than enough. But now, as we recognize the limited growth of constrained resources in a shrinking world, perhaps we can see that “away” has gone away. We need a new vocabulary to fit in with that new reality: I’d like to replace “lifecycle” and “end of life” with thinking about “endless use” and “endless resourcefulness”.

As an architect, I think about the old design directives: Less is More (and then Less is a Bore). Today, I am saying Endless is More.

– William McDonough, founder of McDonough Innovation and chair of the World Economic Forum Meta-Council on the Circular Economy

• Engage in peer pressure

CEOs play a key role in setting company strategy, so it’s clear that any big corporate sustainability effort needs commitment from the top to succeed. Yet, in Davos we learned from our BCG/MIT Sloan Management Review study that only 21% of executives surveyed feel that their board is very supportive of their sustainability activity.

Compounding this finding, we know that many companies are too busy trying to cover a broad range of areas, when in reality meaningful impact comes from focusing on one or two key issues.

Equally important is the understanding that many of today’s sustainability issues cannot be solved by one company or organization alone. Developing solutions requires collaboration – like we see happening with efforts to reduce deforestation in the palm oil industry – to ensure efforts have a meaningful, widespread impact.

Tackling sustainability issues on a company-by-company basis isn’t enough; companies and industries need to start working together. Businesses should decide on one key issue on which to focus now, and get three of their peers to join a collaborative group – such as the UN Global Compact program – that is working on broader, more systemic solutions to the issue.

– Knut Haanaes, senior partner and global practice area leader for strategy and sustainability at BCG

• Strike the right balance between skepticism and optimism

Davos tends to cover a lot of subjects, and this year’s edition is no exception. It occurs to me, though, that there are really two Davoses: Opportunity Davos and Threat Davos.

It’s a tale of two cities. Opportunity Davos is represented by possibilities opening up due to technology, emerging economies and women’s empowerment. Threat Davos is represented by risks from European economic malaise, cybersecurity and geopolitics.

Sustainability, particularly the challenges of decisive action on climate change and of achieving truly inclusive economic growth, is where these two Davoses meet. Al Gore’s updated presentation underlined the rising economic and social risks of inaction. Unilever’s Paul Polman is again playing the role of chief climate statesman from the business community, pointing to the innovation opportunities business can unearth as it works to mitigate impacts and prepare for changing climate.

Davos can generate extremes of both unwarranted optimism and pessimism. The broad attention to sustainable, inclusive prosperity seems to get the balance right, suggesting that this is where the real action is.

It is essential that the circle of companies prioritizing climate be widened. Businesses can do this by building more tangible collaborations, like 2014’s commitments on deforestation and a price on carbon. These deliver measurable impacts that improve business to demonstrate what’s possible outside of the ideological cheerleading and skepticism that too often marks our debates.

– Aron Cramer, president and CEO of BSR

• Set goals based on scientific targets

As I conclude another World Economic Forum, it’s positive to again see climate change high on the agenda of corporate leaders.

As CEOS are preparing for Paris where a global climate agreement is set to be reached, three issues have emerged from the various sessions here in Davos as critical for success: making the case for carbon pricing, corporate goal setting aligned with science targets, and transparency on corporate reporting on emissions.

What’s still missing from the conversation is the important role of emerging markets. The time has come to show true leadership in all areas. Only with strong business support can we lay the foundation for the climate challenge to change markets and reverse political positions.

- Georg Kell, executive director of the UN Global Compact

•Produce benefits and assets, not liabilities and detriments

From inequality to climate change, the hot topics at Davos make it clear that commerce has created a legacy of problems, the solutions to which are either deferred for generations or impossible within any reasonable number of human lifetimes.

One might say our first industrial revolution production model – take, make, waste – has used unprincipled commerce as a weapon to wage unintentional war with the planet and all its creatures, and now, almost like a fearful retreating army, it is continuing to lay it all to waste.

Any thinking person today recognizes the urgent calamity of climate change and pollution. Now is the time to fiercely and intentionally wage peace on the planet, with commerce – as the only human institution big enough, creative enough and fast enough – as the engine of principled prosperity and beneficial change.

The job of business now is to support customers by producing benefits and assets for society, not liabilities and detriments.

– William McDonough, co-author of Cradle to Cradle and The Upcycle and chair of the World Economic Forum Meta-Council on the Circular Economy

• Commit to all the UN sustainable development goals

Here in Davos I’ve been asking myself, what’s the most important issue being discussed: economic inequality, gender equality, climate change, human rights.

It’s occurred to me that this year’s World Economic Forum is not about these issue taken separately, but rather bringing them all into one set of global, moral, and political commitments. It’s about world leaders collaborating to bring about the changes so desperately needed.

The sustainable development goals are a great example of this. Thousands of businesses from around the world will commit to action towards a more sustainable world. And it’s more than lofty goals and talk: they will also measure results, and communicate their progress to the world.

– Michael Meehan, CEO of the Global Reporting Initiative

• Support a high-priority water goal

There was a danger, with the economic and political outlook so uncertain, that immediate challenges would crowd out discussion at Davos of long-term challenges. I am glad to say – at least as far as the issue of global water supplies goes – this danger was avoided.

We were helped by the WEF’s own annual Global Risk Report which, for the first time, made water the number one threat to the world’s stability and prosperity. This would come as no surprise to the third of the world’s population already living in water-stressed areas.

Are we taking this threat seriously enough yet? No, but discussions at Davos revealed an increased determination from governments and businesses to work together to respond to the challenge.

Many businesses – including SABMiller – are not only reducing our own water usage, but actively joining partnerships to conserve supplies well beyond our operations.

As the Millennium Development Goals have shown, though, global focus is essential to deliver the scale of change needed.

Businesses must back calls for water to be a high priority in the post-MDG framework to be agreed upon this autumn – and then commit ourselves to do all we can to meet these targets.

– Mark Bowman, managing director of SABMiller Africa

Ideas from readers:

(read more responses here)

• Don’t contribute to climate change

1. Pledge that each process, product, services will be delivered which do not cause negative climate change

2. Pledge to make each individual at the age above 18 as employable by imparting certain skills

– Ravi, a Guardian reader in Pune, India

• Put sustainability first

An unlikely pledge to put the apparently insurmountable social and environmental issues first, whatever the cost for economic growth and corporate interests.

– Luiz, a Guardian reader from Curitiba, Brazil

• Support a carbon tax

Given the new fiscal space opened up by the oil price collapse, the time is now right for a bold pledge from business to get behind a global carbon tax. If it has to happen, and happen soon, why not now?

– Chris, a Guardian reader in the UK

• Shift to renewable energy

I would ask business leaders to shift to renewable energy sources for 80% of their energy requirements in the next 10 years, covering energy requirements of every aspect of their business lifecycle - from procurement, to production, to marketing & distribution, to end lifecycle.

– Aditi, a Guardian reader in New Delhi, India

• Pay for waste and environmental damage up front

The environment is being trashed at every level. Businesses must lead in reversing this trend which includes climate change, water, food, economic inequality, gender inequality, etc. It is all connected.

The downstream cost must be included in all production, and waste and damage to the environment must be paid for up front. It is very difficult to clean up the mess we have created, and future generations and many other species will suffer because of this negligence. We have a short period of time to change our ways. Don’t waste any more time.

– Alex, a Guardian reader from Sydney, Australia

• Take a risk on sustainable investments

I would urge enterprises to take a risk on sustainable investments that take more than one year to show returns.

I’d also ask them to consider how inequality will increase if climate change is not attended urgently and how markets will collapse if inequality is not levelled.

– Karina, a Guardian reader in Nuevo Leon, Mexico

Commit to real consequences for rule breaking

A commitment to wind up corporations who flout the laws that the rest of the world must live by. In general, if a corporation breaks the law, then send it to jail in the same way an individual is denied liberty.

The corporation would then be either wound up or given over to the employees of said corporation.

– Kris, a Guardian reader in Australia

• Stop having the World Economic Forum meetings in Davos

I’d like the WEF to pledge to leave Davos after 2015 and take the annual conferences to the front lines of unsustainable development, so that the challenges are up close and personal to its delegates.

I’d like to the WEF to say: “We will meet in the mega-cities of the global South. We will meet in Detroit. We will meet in New Orleans. We will meet in the favelas. We will meet the people most affected by the unsustainable developments in our environment, societies and economic systems.”

– Ian, a Guardian reader in London

Ideas from the twittersphere:

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