The Sustainability Symposium
Sustainable
Development - cross-sectional topic between business, education, consumers and
politics - also a topic for the international student organisation AIESEC. At
the Symposium - a part of EXPO 2000's Global Dialogue 9 "Future Works" - 80
selected AIESEC members, international trainees and other students got the opportunity
to discuss with Britta Steilmann Sustainable Development GmbH & Co. KG [B.S.S.D.],
Gerling, Hewlett-Packard [HP], IBM, KPMG and The Body Shop about corporate social
responsibility and sustainable development and to talk about innovative concepts
and new approaches.
Following warm words of welcome from the national "AIESEC meets EXPO 2000" team
at the NordLB Forum, Britta Steilmann introduced the audience in the topic of
the Symposium. Afterwards Prof. Dr. Dr. Radermacher discussed impressively the
relevance of sustainability, chances and risks, technical potentials and limits.
Prior to dividing the delegates into workshop groups, the company representatives
summarised objectives and methods of their prepared task force.
B.S.S.D., focusing on strategic business consulting, vision setting
and communication, introduced their digital web-based platform "Knowledge Trust",
enabling companies to filter internal and external information, making it accessible
to the employees and simplifying communication in world wide company networks.
After that the participants discussed the significance of vision, objective
and target group definition in the area of entrepreneurial consulting. For example
"co-petition", meaning cooperation of competing companies was one of the new
expressions we learned.
Gerling informed us in their workshop about the internal branch "Gerling
Sustainable Project GmbH" and used its experiences in the field of project management
to set up a simulation about the significance of finding a consensus in international
negotiations.. Small groups simulated different stakeholders in a developing
country setting. Diplomatic and intercultural competence as well as negotiation
tactics were the issues addressed here.
Hewlett-Packard focused on the relevant future field of international working
networks and virtual teamwork. HP's European Marketing Center was used as an
example to show how sustainable development is internally defined and which
problems and challenges arise from this internationally operating environment.
IBM, a leading company in the sector of information technology, involved
the workshop participants actively in building up a virtual "e-business". Especially
skills like creativity and active participation were addressed here. In the
understanding of IBM, sustainability is based on high personal motivation of
the employees, implementation of innovative concepts and strategies, interdisciplinary
thinking, corporate responsibility and teamwork.
KPMG, global advisory firm with over 100.000 employees designed an open
dialogue about corporate strategies, managing and accounting of sustainable
non-financial measures and sustainability communication. Criteria to measure
sustainability were worked out and applied to the environmental reports of leading
edge companies like Shell, Volkswagen and Schering.
For The Body Shop sustainable development is directly linked to values
within societies and the enforcement of human rights. Consequently the company
representative addressed internal and external communication of The Body Shop,
according to their internal corporate values (The company owns a Social and
an Eco- Statement) and the orientation towards its role of responsibility in
society. ,Strategies and solutions were worked out.
As part of the world exposition EXPO 2000's Global Dialogue "Future Work - Labour,
Sustainable Business and Social Responsibility" the participants of the AIESEC
Symposium were given the unique chance to attend an internationally broadcasted
panel discussion in the Convention Center. Here, visions of work in the future
and the threats based on integration of developing countries and cultural barriers
were commented by representatives of students, educators and companies. Since
the discussion seemed to consist of accusations from the student side for the
lack of integration tools on the company side rather than solution-oriented
thinking, no progress evolved.
To wrap up the day, delegates from each company's group presented the workshop
output in front of the Symposium audience ending in an open discussion round
in the NordLB Forum. By this, the participants received a broad overview over
the various topics and an insight into the understanding and implementation
of sustainable development from the perspective of the companies.
Personally, I regard this Symposium as a successful approach to the issue of
sustainability where company representatives received the chance to get input
and ideas from students interested in the subject. As well members of the departments
"human resource employment" and "recruitment" positioned the companies as potential
employer in front of the target group. On the side of the students, we gained
an insight into company structures, communication issues and teamwork of compentent
business professionals. This could be regarded as a classical "Win-Win Situation".
At the end a personal thank you to the organisational team and the company representatives.
Highly significant discussions on a global sustainable future in the framework
of the EXPO 2000 contribute to a positive image of the, sometimes too critically
evaluated and through financial debates negatively influenced, most amazing
and culture-unifying world exhibition in Germany.
Janik Reitel
Director of Programme, AIESEC in Germany