WEF proposed a set of universal Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) indicators, and companies may report in terms of them regardless of the sector or region they belong to. WEF studies how businesses might use non-financial indicators related to information disclosure and how investors and governments might work together to promote stakeholder capitalism.

Klaus Schwab

He is the founder and the Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum in Geneva

  • 2021 will be a turning point in the global business philosophy as the shareholder capitalism will be evolving into all stakeholders' capitalism.
  • Revitalising trust is crucial in the first instance to reignite the economy and restore global and local links between businesses, investors, communities and governments.
  • Finance facilities governed primarily by ESG criteria are now operating with more than a trillion USD.
  • No one will be safe until everyone is vaccinated.
  • While the notion of capitalism implied financial resources in the past, now it increasingly means also human and environmental capital.
  • WEF seeks to create a universal ESG-based assessment and reporting system.

Ilham Kadri

CEO, Chairman of Solvay SA Executive Committee

  • The ESG metrics will become more important in business reporting and even more important than financial performance reports.
  • Sustainable development performance is already becoming the main driver of the market value of a business.

Mohammad Abdullah Al Gergawi

Minister of Cabinet Affairs and Future, Ministry of Cabinet Affairs and Future of the United Arab Emirates

  • Each country's government seeks to balance the interests of public health, economy, and social development.
  • The pandemic is a global challenge, and we all should agree upon global decisions. For example, we should not only vaccinate our own citizens only but make sure everybody else will go through this process.
  • The old management style has failed, it will never return
  • "Vaccination diplomacy" will be a new theme in international relations in the years to come.

Gillian R. Tett

Editor, the Financial Times

  • People who claimed at the beginning of the crisis that sustainable development or climate change would cease to be a priority (as it reasonably seemed that no one had at present the luxury of investing resources and time in them) were indeed wrong.
  • Some corporate media and newsfeeds from corporations enjoy more trust than traditional media.

Chrystia Freeland

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of Canada

  • Canada has already introduced a tax on CO2 emissions and pollution.
  • Canada encourages people to modernise their houses to make them more energy-efficient. It should be done not only to reach carbon neutrality. It is also a part of a green economy; it creates jobs and drives finance.
  • Canada assumed an obligation to plant 2 billion trees.

 

Marc Benioff

Chief Executive Officer, Salesforce

  • It is not governments that save us from the pandemic. It was businesses who discovered, produced and distributed the vaccine.
  • Businesses act as governments in many respects. It is so even in developed countries.
  • The strength of corporations does not reside solely in generating profits, but in the impact, they exert on society.

Kristalina Georgieva

Managing director of the International Monetary Fund

  • The last IMF forecasts are more optimistic. The Fund forecasts the global GDP growth of 5.5% already for 2021. The GDP decreased in 2020, but, according to our new forecast, by 3.5% only, which is not as much as we had expected before.
  • 2021 will be a year of a battle between the mutating virus and the vaccines.
  • We need more global cooperation in all sectors to make the vaccine win this battle.
  • This year we need more than ever before determination from governments and world leaders in supporting the most vulnerable categories struck by the pandemic.
  • No country's economy may recover if global cooperation is not recovered and rebounded.
  • There is a negative trend of widening the gap between rich and poor countries.

Laurence D. Fink

Chief Executive Officer of BlackRock Inc., one of the biggest asset management foundations

  • Investors have modified their assessment methods. They already think differently, they take account of other factors while assessing projects.
  • The world needs 50 trillion USD of investments to reach the goal of zero-level CO2 emissions in 2050.
  • Companies with better ESG reporting have higher prices, all other factors being equal. The ESG reporting gains prominence and is becoming one of the main factors influencing decision-making.