Coming from Argentina, a country where ‘dreaming’ equals nonsensical sleeping activity, I was surprised to notice as I landed in the US the power of the word ‘dream’ in this culture. “I have a dream,” Martin Luther King said, making it the foundation for a goal, and ever since we can find leaders of many kinds using the term to indicate their vision for a better future that they plan to make happen.
I liked the idea of identifying what we want, as opposed to the more melancholic and dis-empowering focus on what we don’t like about reality, or what we have lost and now miss. With this new inner scaffolding, I engaged in studying what could be done to develop a new generation of leaders that act with planetary interests in mind. Shortly into my doctoral journey, I attended a conference with entitled Business as Agents of World Benefit held at Case Western Reserve University, where I rejoiced meeting like-minded speakers and participants, all eager to review the potential role that education could play in shaping a better world.
This was the year 2006, and this conference became the incubator of a group of Deans, University Presidents and other representatives of academic institutions, tasked to develop guiding principles of what could be ‘Responsible Management Education’. A year later, the six Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) were announced at a United Nations Global Compact Leaders’ Summit in Geneva, Switzerland. The Principles addressed the purpose of business, the values we were teaching, the pedagogical methods we were using, the research we were focusing on, the partnerships and dialogues that were being fostered in management education, all with an awareness of the major role that business decisions were playing on the fate of society, the environment, and economies.
The Six Principles
Principle 1 | Purpose: We will develop the capabilities of students to be future generators of sustainable value for business and society at large and to work for an inclusive and sustainable global economy.
Principle 2 | Values: We will incorporate into our academic activities and curricula the values of global social responsibility as portrayed in international initiatives such as the United Nations Global Compact.
Principle 3 | Method: We will create educational frameworks, materials, processes and environments that enable effective learning experiences for responsible leadership.
Principle 4 | Research: We will engage in conceptual and empirical research that advances our understanding about the role, dynamics, and impact of corporations in the creation of sustainable social, environmental and economic value.
Principle 5 | Partnership: We will interact with managers of business corporations to extend our knowledge of their challenges in meeting social and environmental responsibilities and to explore jointly effective approaches to meeting these challenges.
Principle 6 | Dialogue: We will facilitate and support dialog and debate among educators, students, business, government, consumers, media, civil society organizations and other interested groups and stakeholders on critical issues related to global social responsibility and sustainability.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon celebrated the Principles, recognizing that they had “the capacity to take the case for universal values and business into classrooms on every continent.” Today, PRME has among its signatories over 680 academic institutions of higher education. Does everyone live up to them? Probably not, but it has become a new measuring stick.
A Decade Making History
The Principles arrived in a decade marked by the rise of a movement that brought values to the forefront of our attention. What tipping point were we reaching globally, that prompted so many calls for voluntary collaboration and action around higher values?
In 2000, the concern about how business was impacting economies, people, and planet originated the UN Global Compact. It was by invitation of then Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who summoned business leaders to work with the UN on shared values and principles. Today, the UN Global Compact is the world’s largest sustainability initiative, with over 12,000 participants, including 9,000 businesses and over 3,000 civil societies in 170 countries. It is a voluntary initiative whose progressive members commit to align operations and strategies with ten principles for responsible business in the areas of human rights, labor, the environment, and anti-corruption. Here again - even if not everyone lives up to the commitment, the existence of new ethical frameworks is drawing lines in the sand that reshape what is acceptable and what is less so.
Then: Money Matters
In 2005, a similar process started, focusing on investment. Understanding that money is a leading force that shapes behaviors, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan invited a group of the world’s largest institutional investors to develop principles for responsible investment. With the support of experts from the investment industry, intergovernmental organizations and civil society, they created the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), another voluntary and aspirational set of principles that offer a menu of possible actions for incorporating Environment-Social-Governance (ESG) issues into investment decisions. The PRI were launched in April 2006 at the New York Stock Exchange, and to date have over 1,750 signatories from over 50 countries, representing around $70 trillion dollars. In implementing the PRI, signatories contribute to developing a more sustainable global financial system. With increasing transparency, it is becoming difficult to hide, and most of us act better when someone is watching. Another engine of change.
Setting Goals
Also in 2000, the UN and its 191 member states committed to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), a set of eight goals ranging from halving extreme poverty to providing universal primary education and halting the spread of HIV/AIDS, all by the target date of 2015. Setting the goals was an important milestone, even with their imperfections and shortcomings. The governments of the member states had an uneven performance, and measurements were unclear. In 2015, UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki-moon reflected that while the MDGs had been an important initiative, it had not been ambitious enough, stating that “by aiming to ‘halve extreme poverty’ we [were] proposing to help 50% of those who most need it. We need goals for a world that works for all.”
That comment came shortly before the launch of an initiative that would become the boldest and most important agenda of all time: The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Carefully crafted in a participatory process including representatives of 193 countries and civil society, the SDGs are organized into 17 Goals and 169 detailed targets.
Speaking of dreams, then…
Imagine the world you would want to live, in which:
· extreme poverty is eradicated
· all human beings are able to fulfill their potential in dignity and equality
· the human rights of all are realized
· gender equality is achieved
· the planet is protected from degradation
· urgent action has been taken on climate change towards achieving the Paris Agreement
and
· all live in peaceful, just and inclusive societies which are free from fear and violence
The SDGs are an agenda in which anyone, no matter what occupation or age, can find their own opportunity to contribute to shaping that world. The invitation is broad and inclusive: Business, governments, NGOs, civil society, educators, asset managers, youth, and also children. “We’re shaping a sustainable future. You need to be part of it” is the message proclaimed for all to hear.
Too ambitious? Utopian? Unrealistic? We may achieve some of those goals, or some more than others, but having the goals serves as a compass showing us where we need to aim, on what we need to focus. They are a wake-up call, an alarm clock set to get up and go to work. After all, aren’t the dreams the place to start?
