Lead Independent Director and Vice-Chairman of the Board, Compagnie de Saint-Gobain S.A.
SB Paris 2019: Yeleka Barrett - Jean-Francois Cirelli - Santa Meyer-Nandi
VIRTUOUS VALUE CHAIN “Planet heroes: guess who's next?” Which are the best triggers to act fast and furious #climatechange ...
Transcript (26 segments)
H
Host0:10
Good afternoon we'll be continuing this conversation we've been having for two days and what we're doing is we're searching for the proper tools and the correct means to change the way we produce and change the way we consume so basically just like any hero we're trying to save the world this morning we heard that we're all about to die so yeah this morning was intense and so right now we're just trying to save the world but because we're in a hurry as we're all gonna die the question becomes who has the best means who has the most efficient levers how do we change effectively and how do we do it very fast you know basically should consumers lead the way should business change to become social businesses or should investors demand actions and lend money to a more sustainable growth of course you're gonna say it's a combination of all three we can all assume that but my question is who can do it most efficiently and actually the fastest and to discuss this with us today we have the privilege of having people who work for or with the three types of actors the co-director and founder of the UNESCO award-winning think and action lab finding sustainability Miss Santa Mayor Nandi a global community manager at Ashoka the largest network of social entrepreneurs Miss Lilly Cabarrus and the CEO of Blackrock France Jean-Francois Cirelli thank you all for being here with us this afternoon
Ashoka has a worldwide network of social entrepreneurs they are active in many fields they're trying to make a change do you think this is the first lever that companies should become social businesses
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Lilly Cabarrus2:00
Well not that companies should become social businesses but Ashoka has over 40 years of experience identifying individuals with system changing ideas the most innovative social innovation in their regions and in their countries and through this we've seen in 40 years and 3,000 social entrepreneurs around the world that there are skill sets that everyone can embody and anyone can embody and so we talked about in everyone a changemaker world and one of these very important skill sets is empathy so it's empathy for other empathy for community empathy for planet empathy for people and when people are able to practice empathy and able to work in communities understanding that we are together that's when we start to see change happening when we start to see social change happening and happening at every level in society and in community
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Host3:00
And here in this room we are together as well you have signs on your seats they're red and they're green the idea is for you to wave them when you hear something that you agree with or the red if you don't agree with what's being said if everybody's a change maker and everybody should practice their empathy I guess this is where awareness and education come from and these are your field of expertise through your blog and your consulting practice this is you know how can individuals take actions how do you become enlightened how do you become aware of what you can do
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Santa Mayor Nandi3:39
It first starts with objective measurements which means that you are able to identify the areas where you can make the most change which is mobility consumption what you eat and then of course you also need to bridge this think and action gap and know exactly how to because it's one thing to know I should eat in a certain way or consume in a certain way if you don't know how to do it and then there's the third aspect which I call the well-being aspect of the being aspect and that is translating different aspects to your own lifestyle and also tailor make them everyone has different interests if you are someone who seeks adventure in your life it can either be translated by a trip to Thailand for five days or you find a way to integrate it where you live in Paris if you're a bit shy going to a karaoke party by yourself or just taking the train somewhere outside there are many ways you can increase your well-being and actually also benefit from a financial perspective from a health perspective and it doesn't need to be that sustainable behavior changes are just negative to actually benefit you in many many ways
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Host5:01
These are individual changes the fact that we're all changemakers the fact that we can all become more aware but maybe that they're not enough to change the huge and daunting challenges that we have in front of us climate change social unrest social instability social welfare that we have to redefine so can actually finance and investment you know be the lever we're searching for that this idea that we can change on such a global scale
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Jean-Francois Cirelli5:34
First of all good afternoon yes I think so I think so despite the fact that clearly financing cannot alone change and be the trigger all the changes which are necessary we need scientists we need regulation we need NGOs we need a sort of ownership we need a lot of things but I'm quite impressed to see the changes in the finance industry although the last I would say two or three years clearly there has been a turning point now some years ago if you were speaking about investing in sustainable investment to investors they would clearly disregard for two reasons the first one is that you are asking them to trade performance returns to values and investors will not do that second there was no data no analytical framework to decide what is a good investment in ESG with specific areas so nothing changed things have totally changed we have a lot of data providers we are covering all the investments have the scientists the academic research findings so there's a lot that has changed and today we believe that investing in sustainable investments is not anymore a niche for some investor but it's becoming more and more the core investment to give you one figure only we have with Blackrock for instance we believe that in what we call the index funds for equities we have 12 billion dollars invested in ESG funds and we believe in 10 years from now there will be 250 billion dollars so it means that it is a massive change but does that mean that now investors can shift from revenues to values or is there something else that changed no are they in this for the good fight but there are more and more where performance and investing in sustainability are not contradictory and that's the big change and in Blackrock for instance we made a lot of research to educate investors saying if you invest in sustainable investment it doesn't mean that the performance has to be lower compared to the other investments and this is more and more taken into consideration which as for instance makes you study what are the consequences of the weather events in the US and for the electric sector and we can show that they have had bad consequences on many equities or bonds etcetera so taking into consideration climate and if you want to have long-term profitability because investors mainly in the Anglo-Saxon world are investing for their pensions and so they are investing long-term if you want to invest long-term you want to have long-term profitability if you want to have long-term profitability it means that you have to do something for the planet so this is mainly understood we should not it's not our money at Blackrock it's our clients' if the client doesn't want to invest in sustainable we have nothing against it but more on what becomes real and I think that for Blackrock we have a little bit we are not alone there are a lot of asset managers but I think that we are a little bit in a leadership and we are able to provide a lot of solutions to the investors because one of the issues too is do we have funds or means to invest for sustainable investments and more and more we have that
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Host9:35
So there's money in sustainability now that's something very good to hear in that room we actually have a question from activators here and moving away from money a little bit we want to ask how can you make sure that the more diverse heroes that are out there the more diverse role models get more visibility they go further up the pyramid that's an open question to all of you at Ashoka's it's something you really really strive for
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Lilly Cabarrus9:59
I mean it's just innate in what we do we are looking I think we've elected fellows in 92 countries around the world so this is diversity of perspective experience and solutions that are coming forward working with social entrepreneurs and so that's just kind of innate in how we identify social entrepreneurship innovation and working to change the world
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Host10:29
Going back to I will not only talk about finance but to hear that finance is in for the fight is normally relief it's a huge news in a way do you also look for diversity and inclusion when you suggest investments to your clients
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Jean-Francois Cirelli10:47
Yes we have a specific I take the Blackrock experience because we have a specific team which is called Stewardship it looks at how the diversity is applied in the companies where we're investing in because it's a way to be sure that long-term profitability and long-term views are taken into consideration
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Host11:11
We heard that there's money in sustainability but there's also a big advantage for major corporations to take within themselves smaller social entrepreneurs to have a diverse view at how they do business you've been working with a pure German pharmaceutical company for more than four years I believe what's in it for them what's the benefits for the big companies
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Lilly Cabarrus11:33
Yeah so the partnership that I work on is called Making More Health and it's with Boehringer Ingelheim pharmaceuticals it's a joint partnership between Ashoka and Boehringer Ingelheim and it is about making more health happen in communities around the world and we do that through social entrepreneurship and what we found was so I've been working on the partnership for four years but it's actually almost eight years old now and in the beginning it really did start off as kind of your philanthropic almost yes sorry kind of partnership but what Boehringer Ingelheim found after a couple of years was oh my gosh this is actually a way to do business and it's a way to do business that as you were saying before there's a win-win in it there's win for business and there's win for social good and two truths can exist in that and so through working with Boehringer Ingelheim they've been able to identify solutions that probably would have never come out of their typical R&D strain before one that I can think of off the top of my head is called Clinical Garbage Initiative which was founded by a social entrepreneur in Indonesia in which they are looking to or which they've created a strategy in which you can do recycling and garbage collection and receive health services and so you would never think these kind of two things would come together but you have social entrepreneurs creating that solution and with Boehringer Ingelheim taking this journey and kind of starting out with us what we've realized is that we can transform companies and organizations in which everyone is an actor for change and everyone is looking for social entrepreneurship and innovating within their company no matter where they are and so that has led us to start working with other companies through what we're calling the League of Changemaker Companies and through that we're now looking at inter-sectoral change making between companies like Boehringer Ingelheim Chanel Capgemini Solvay all of these companies have stepped forward and said we want to create sustainability we want to do it in a way that's transforming our company and we want to do it with social entrepreneurs so that there's a good for business and good for social impact but that is when it works when the companies are aligned when you have the right social entrepreneurs
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Host13:52
Some people can feel at a loss in this sort of brave new world that we're facing this idea that you have to rethink and reshape every process every product how do you advise when people are sort of lost in between all these options what is the best way to find your own bearing and perhaps your company's bearing if you're looking for such
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Santa Mayor Nandi14:14
At first just cut out the whole guilt thing and don't try to approach it in a perfectionist way take baby steps and there's a really good thing about unleashing your own planet hero and that means that you're proud when you haven't forgotten you're cutting back when you have gone to the bio section and bought your little cotton bag and filled the non-plastic things inside of it and that you can be your own superhero even if you don't do things in a perfect way that's one part and then try to attach it to other values you have I think most of you want your kids to be in a non-toxic and healthy environment you can raise your green card if you want to or live in a healthy way don't gain weight have mindful moments where you just have time for yourself for your family all these things or save money in a very pragmatic way and all these things that are important for us can lead us to sustainability without sustainability in itself being the purpose and I think we need to look much more at this well-being aspect that there are a lot of win-win aspects to our personal lives if we start opening ourselves up and feeling guilty blocks us
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Host15:41
The change we're facing mostly climate change is massive in both scale and range and it could prove very difficult to some people in all of your opinions as an investor as a social business as a social entrepreneur as an advisor and rooting out for individual changes in your perspective would it work best to nudge people to change or to push them to change as consumers push the companies you'd invest in push the companies you'd be working with push the individuals to change or so we again explain nudge and help it's an open question
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Lilly Cabarrus16:23
Well I'm gonna pick option C which is demonstrate step out there and do it and once other companies other people other individuals and institutions start to see the change they come so there's no need to nudge there's no need to push just act and when you act and you're successful that's when everyone starts to come forward
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Santa Mayor Nandi16:48
Can I just choose all three options you can choose everything I think it's very important to live as an example as you were saying it at the same time a lot of the policies do not incite environmentally friendly consumerism or actions so already on a political level it would be important to start integrating externalities into the prices and at the same time often also make incentives for producers who produce in an environmentally packaging poor kind of way and then of course nudging if we get free public transport that would cause us to use our cars less so I think we are in very urgent times and it's important to face it from all kinds of directions
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Jean-Francois Cirelli17:37
I think for us it's start by just telling what we want what we believe it's important and it's why our CEO for instance is vocal on these issues which is not very frequent in the finance profession because the finance doesn't like to enter into society questions or issues so Larry Fink has said for many years that social responsibility that long-term investing that taking into consideration issues are key and we need cooperation to have a purpose to be successful in the years to come and I think just by taking the floor and saying what we believe it's good for the future is already a very important step because then people think to reflect and say well it's for real if I don't have the investors with me in the next decade my company will be dead because I will not find the shareholders I need for my company so I think it starts by that and it's working
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Host18:39
Would you imagine Blackrock becoming an activist investor going into companies and saying look we just bought 17% of your shares and we're gonna make you change the way you do business to become sustainable
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Jean-Francois Cirelli18:54
To that extent no but clearly we with some time are more activist we vote against Exxon last year because they didn't want to publish the environmental figures so there are very important steps that when a company like Exxon is mentioned or voting against them it's quite a signal so there is a lot of things we are prudent we're very conservative we're finance people who do not ask us to make the revolution ourselves I'm trying but we will do our part
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Host19:33
We've been yeah there are already that convenience a lot of the activators go ahead isn't it also that the term activism is connotated in a very one-sided kind of way when you hear activism we think of people who lie down in front of a building or you can take some violence now they agree with you actually thank you even though maybe we play certain companies into the bad guys category they still do have quite a bit of leverage and so what they are doing in a way is some kind of activism and I'm saying this as an activist myself who tries to do it in a positive way so there's of course many questions we could still ask but you have around you people who are professionals they're individuals they're citizens they can be investors as well what would be your each and every one of you your advice to be that first lever what is the first action or the second action they can take because you have people in this room who obviously care about sustainability how do we take caring about sustainability to become proactive active and effective in promoting sustainable change
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Lilly Cabarrus20:52
Well I think a lot of people have already taken the step the first step it's understanding what your passion is and understanding what your possibility is and so when you have a passion when you have a pot and when you understand the possibility that you can create into this world then you can start to look for actors then you can start to look for I like to call your tribe those people that you can work with that can help you to excel an idea or that whose idea you want to help you excel not everyone has to be an entrepreneur but you can be an entrepreneur as well you can support other organizations and I think that when people are able to understand their possibility in their passion then you know we can change the world
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Santa Mayor Nandi21:38
For me it's very important to get rid of cliches not pointing the fingers at others and also not at ourselves it's trying to be the best in your branch no matter how your branch is viewed and just seeing vulnerability as strengths you can apply it in your communication strategy and all companies as we very deeply and profoundly care about sustainability they'll be in most of our I had a little question mark but why can't we say we are trying to improve and do our best and still be an oil company I think that's very important
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Jean-Francois Cirelli22:16
So over the next 15 years 24 trillion dollars will be inherited by the Millennials so on the Millennials they said we are the future I am the virtual sunset on their t-shirt so the Millennials are more interested in environmentally and social responsibility than previous generation so the only thing is focus on the Millennials you will change because 24 years to 34 $300 you will change the world so it's a massive shift we come from you
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Host22:55
So this morning we learned that we were all about to die and this afternoon we actually just learned that Millennials are actually hugely rich or will soon be and that we can actually all change the world and that if we don't they will change that for us so we're not all dead afterwards in narrative terms we call that to close the loop so thank you very much for closing that loop with us today