My Davos 2020

In this article, I hope to guide you through a part of my 2020 Davos experience. This was the year when technology, partnering, and the environment dominated top billings and billboards inside and outside the Congress Centre.

This year, I had privileged access inside to discussions. Many of them were publicly broadcast. I have included links to them below.

I was also invited to speak and to attend a few other public and private sessions on the margins. I had the chance to see some old friends and to make new ones, lots of them wearing free blue hats from Zurich Insurance.

Normally, I am reasonably confident when speaking to blue hatted strangers, but I was a recluse compared to some of the people I met this year. So, I made a point of asking “How was your Davos?” as a conversation starter. The answers were surprisingly revealing.

“Awesome! I have got so much to do. This is my first time. I knew it would be great, but it’s been gravy!” If ‘gravy’ means the same as the slang in my old London manor that could be quite a disturbing revelation for the global elite.

I expected other participants at the 2020 World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting to at least agree with the general message of the beef stock aficionado. Instead, there was more of a reflective mood.

“I have been coming for 12 years. I think we could have done more for the world this time” one white badge holder told me. “I heard a lot about climate and the environment. I come here for meetings for my business, but when I go to the sessions, I remember my role as a global citizen” said one CEO, curiously only now catching up with her part in ‘team planet Earth’. Even more remarkable considering the slogans on the shop fronts on the main street. It seemed that everyone was advertising what they were doing to save the world.

As usual, there were intense criticisms of the World Economic Forum and the Annual Meeting from people who were in Davos, people who were marching to it, and people who were not. The protestors who made the 40-kilometre trek from Landquart to Davos didn’t get the notice they deserved. After all, they were competing with expert and very well-resourced competition.

Inside the Congress Centre, more people were advocating for change, more inclusion and for broader representation in decision making, especially on global environmental challenges. The theme “Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World” gave them the opportunity to make their case. Still, it took me all week to work out the call for “stakeholder capitalism” was not the opposite of “stakeholder socialism”. It seems to mean that the successful companies of the future will be working for the benefit of customers and communities, not just their shareholders. Write to the WEF if you have a good suggestion on how to do that.

The teams that put the programme and speakers together earned their praise, as did the speakers. There was inspiring energy floating around in the sessions, especially among Global Shapers, the youngest of the WEF networks.

This year, I shared the venue with celebrities such as the Prince of Wales, President Trump, Greta Thunberg, and Antonio Gutteres, but I didn’t get near them. There were swarms of other “global leaders” competing for that space and serious security all around. Those of us on the periphery sometimes joked about our familiarity with Charley, Don, and Tony but couldn’t work out a nickname for Greta.

“Who was that?” asked one participant as a herd of suits stomped along its way to the Media Zone, seemingly with no famous face among them. “That was Greta. She was the one in the middle.” I replied, adding “…at the bottom” for some strange reason when I realised, Greta hadn’t been seen. Greta was being frog-marched between meetings by her entourage, allowing no time for interaction with her environment. I don’t know if it was her choice or not, or whether she was simply in a rush.

“We don’t need a ‘low-carbon economy,’ ” said Greta when she had a platform to speak. “We don’t need to ‘lower emissions’. Our emissions have to stop. Any plan or policy of yours that doesn’t include radical emission cuts at the source, starting today, is completely insufficient.”

The reaction to President Trump was contradictory. He was criticised for his “machine gun statistics” and praised for “his tremendous achievements”. An American journalist said: “It all sounds good, but he does have a chequered history with his facts doesn’t he.” There was applause at the end of his speech, but it was tepid. He didn’t please all the Davos crowd, but they did make an extra effort to hear him speak, cramming into the Congress Hall and overflowing into side rooms to watch on large video screens. Even his claim of concern for the environment by backing a new initiative to plant 1 trillion trees was criticised by my new friend Greta.

Gossip about participants’ rise and falls is the cream on the Davos pie (I’m not sure where that metaphor came from – I’m actually thinking cheese on pizza), but it’s the commitments that come out of the meeting that are the cherries (or the pepperoni – ok, I will stop now). There were two of particular interest to me.

The International Business Council agreed to develop a common set of metrics to measure the progress of companies against environmental, social and governance goals. This is an important contribution to the work I am doing with my fantastic team David, Irina, Lily Nirmaan, Rob, George and Steve through the Impact17 initiative.

Impact17 promotes and supports partnerships in collaboration with some of the world’s leading experts. We are collaborating with Daniel and Tina and the rest of the team Gluonnet to conduct a global mapping of Sustainable Development Goal partnerships using AI and machine learning. Impact17 is also using the same technology to assess these partnerships and partners, and the impact of organisations on the SDGs against customised criteria we have developed with experts and practitioners. If you are interested in helping to support what we are doing with Impact17, or in becoming an Associate Partner, let me know.

The SDG 500 multi-stakeholder initiative was also launched this week. It claims to mobilise $500 million for the SDGs in emerging markets. We will be monitoring this carefully with Firoz and Zubair for potential collaboration on another sports-related global initiative we will be launching soon.

The Congress Centre was busy. More than 3,000 people, the most ever, or so it was said. The “main drag” certainly had its fair share of human obstacles around this year’s installations and exhibitions. They had a strong environmental aroma which helped some of them waft out of the hubbub. There were demonstrations of 3D printing using algae, a seaweed igloo, and tiles made of corn.

The artists Sam and Cat Van Aken were my favourites. They are inspiring and wonderful people without realising it. Sam designs trees of forty fruit - apple or stone fruit trees - with multiple varieties. Apples with apples I can understand. But apricots with peaches, almonds and plums? The results are stunning living displays of blossom and fruit that also preserves rare varieties. Their patient answers to my questions and daily demonstrations of apple tree grafting was worth its weight in golden delicious. I am sure that was a welcome break from talking to all the other participants all day every day for 4 days. I couldn’t work out why this ‘art’ was so captivating until I realised something. The tree on display and the rootstocks were the only natural living things inside the Congress Centre – apart from the obvious.

My first session was called When Humankind Overrides Evolution, with Magdalena Skipper, Beth Shapiro, Kevin Esvelt, Werner Baumann, who talked about the ethics of genetic modification. They agreed with confidence that scientists, businesses, politicians and the media must be brave in explaining and conveying the rationale for genetic modification to a wider audience. It was not a busy session. Perhaps even more bravery is needed.

Meanwhile, outside the Congress Centre, Tali, CEO of the Global Citizen Forum very kindly offered to host our high-level panel session on Innovative Financing and Collaborative Philanthropy on behalf of the Sustainable Impact Hub 17 UN, NGO and International Organisation members. Tali and Trisha De Borchgrave moderated Bandar Hajjar, Jemilah Mahmood, Silvia Bastante De Unverhau, Eric Berseth and Gabriela Ramos in a fascinating two-hour discussion. I even heard how well it went from inside the Congress Centre. The team was terrific. I can’t wait to see Tali again at the Humanitarian Networks & Partnerships Week in Geneva in February. Thank you, Kelsi and Alessandro, on behalf of all the partners for skilfully pulling together an excellent panel. We were able to use the very rare 360 camera lent to us by Samsung to film the discussions. I will add a link to the video when it becomes available. Everyone seemed to get what they wanted from the experience. Send me a private message if you are interested in being involved in the Sustainable Impact Hub in Davos next year.

My biggest regret was being unable to take up the invitation to participate in the Connecting People and Nature Session. This was organised by the wonderful Elise Buckle and Lucy Almond moderated by David Nabbaro in collaboration with UN Geneva, UNEP, Nature4Climate and Business For Nature. For me, it was the recognition of multisector collaboration that resonated most from the post-meeting update. “There is a drumbeat of companies signing up, meaning that the business voice is getting louder and more unified on the role that nature plays.” Said Eva Zabey.

Back inside Kirstine Stewart, Marc Pritchard, Linda Yaccarino, David Kenny were Shaping the Future of Media, Entertainment and Culture. They talked about the lack of trust among consumers of the media sector and suggested that the protection of personal data, clever curation and the delivery of new content, in more targeted, smaller amounts will help rebuild that trust. It took me a while to realise they were talking about advertising.

Mark Lowcock, the head of UNOCHA gave a great presentation with excellent graphics produced in collaboration with a team from Carnegie Mellon University to demonstrate the severity of The Big Picture on Humanitarian Crises. It was a powerful example of how great visuals could effectively convey a message. The session was held in an open space near the Congress Hall, where lots of people passed by, but few stopped to listen. I wonder if that was because the message was not a new one or, more sadly, because there is a lack of interest. I spoke with the CMU team about collaborating on the Impact17 visuals, and it seemed like that might just be possible. Exciting!

The session Shaping the Future of Health and Healthcare Systems with Winnie Byanyima, Gong Yingying, Shobana Kamineni, Arnaud Bernaert, Christophe Weber, and Helen Clark was much more popular. Winnie drew out the passion with her conviction that it must be governments that take on the responsibility of delivering health care to the most vulnerable people. The panellists again implied that data and Artificial Intelligence are the elixirs of all problems, and that stakeholder collaboration between vulnerable people, local communities, patients, governments, the private sector, and everyone else is “key”. (I added the “everyone else” part.)

There was another fascinating exchange during the session Providing Clean Energy in Fragile Contexts with José Manuel Entrecanales Domecq, Sara Pantuliano, Filippo Grandi, Khaya Gobodo, and Vincent Biruta. See the link to the video for the full context when José said: “The poorer the community, the less the margin for a business approach to be in place. We don’t help. We work for profit. As soon as the business community sees an opportunity, we will rush in and we will find a solution.” I felt more comfortable when they agreed on the need for the private sector, International Organisations and governments to work together as partners. They were especially keen that we needed to overcome traditional client and service provider partnership models to jointly design solutions. Yes, please! Alliance4Impact stands ready to assist.

I was thrown back to the Saturday morning Greek School memories of my childhood in Bethnal Green when I attended the Special Address by His All-Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew, Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome. I don’t think anyone noticed when my palms went damp and I started shaking. I used to eat soap to make myself sick so I didn’t have to go. I mean when I was a child, not last week in Davos. His All-Holiness was very impressive and made some very good points, last week in Davos, not during my childhood in Bethnal Green.

The session Fighting Modern Slavery at Sea was not live broadcast and was not as well attended as the one on Ending Modern Slavery, but Douglas McCauley obviously knew his stuff and was proposing practical solutions to a massive problem. I didn’t realise that efforts to catch similar quantities of fish have been increasing exponentially over the past 70 years, while the global catch has hardly changed. This is apparently why slavery and indentured labour in the fishing industry have increased too.

Edward Ndopu, Molly Burke and Caroline Casey were amazing in the emotionally charged chat show version of Closing the Disability Inclusion Gap. All three people are high achievers with fervent opinions about disability, inclusion and I can imagine almost anything they want to turn their minds to. Their opinions aren’t merely wafted around in the pub. These three people actually do something about it. It was a humbling experience, and I learned a lot about myself.

“Guts is a prerequisite for travelling in space and we need that every day.” Said Molly in response to Edward’s announcement that he has secured a zero-gravity experience for later this year. “When someone says ‘No’ to me, that is fuel for ‘Yes I will!’. When life doesn’t give you an option, you just ‘do’! If there is something I can’t do because of my disability and I need help, then I will ask.” she said. Molly is taking on the whole challenge of driving, from choosing and buying a car to driving it. She reassured us that the driving would be on salt flats, not the public road. “I want to do something that I, in society, never thought I would,” she said.

I left that session feeling completely safe in their hands. I made a promise to follow-up with Edward on the Sustainable Impact Association and the rest of the SDG work we are doing. What a great Ambassador he would be!

In Fostering Transparency and Trust in Global Supply Chains Mohammed Shahriar Alam, Stefan Doboczky, Jamie Heller, and Leanne Kemp talked about technology to track and increase transparency about products for consumers, so they can turn supply chains into value chains. “The facial recognition of a person can also be applied to the facial recognition of a diamond and connecting those scanning points along the supply chain gives you the ability to record the provenance of an event,” said Leanne Kemp. If it can be done in the gemstone industry it can be done in others.

I arrived late at The Digital Economist event organised by Heidi and Navroop, despite being invited a Council member. They graciously offered Alliance4Impact and Impact17 a platform for a lightning talk and to lead a discussion on Technology for Humanity in front of the most enthusiastic crowd I had seen in Davos for years… Apparently an apt comparison to Bollywood Night according to photos on social media. Thanks to David for stepping in and to the journalists I spoke to at midnight for the enlightening conversation. You know who you are.

Back in the Congress Centre on the last day, Rena Effendi introduced David Miliband to talk about The Human Cost of an Age of Impunity. There are some sessions that should be compulsory for all attendees in Davos. The IRC aid workers Mohamed Mishnen and Fadi Alomar were just two of the increasing number of aid workers recently killed while doing their work.

David made an excellent case for why business leaders should care about violations of international law. David explained that when Governments become more inward-looking, and when they respond to violations of internal law by terrorists by themselves violating the same laws, they are encouraging a perpetuating cycle of violations.

“It is good that companies represented here in Davos refused to attend the ‘Davos in the Desert’ a few weeks after the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. It is not good that a year later they did attend that conference without any progress on accountability for that crime.” he said.

By Saturday morning there was a feeling of exhaustion among all those that had remained, not just by me (even though I avoided almost all the late-night social events). One producer of a famous TV news network said to me, “I have never worked so hard in my life”. There was also a sense of new and missed opportunities, and of trepidation about the next steps.

“It is still very good, but not like it used to be. I am pleased it ends on a Friday now. It means I can see my family at the weekend.” said a rather eccentrically dressed gent on the way to the train station. “I know you can’t change the world over Skype, but do you really think this meeting is carbon neutral?” he said with no suggestion of how to do that. Hopefully, next year, the Annual Meeting will be able to shake off the negative image articulated by people such as Payal Parekh.