FOR YOUR INFORMATION
FIVS’s first-ever virtual round table, The United Nations Agenda for Sustainable Development and Its Relevance to the Alcohol Beverage Industry: A Conversation with John Morris, was held on 27 October 2020 and drew participants from twelve countries.
During the event, FIVS demonstrated its leadership regarding the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by launching a new publication, FIVS & the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: Walking the Talk. The publication presents FIVS’s work over the past 15+ years through the lens of the UN SDGs, reinforcing FIVS’s ongoing commitment to help the industry increase its activity in these areas.
Here are three takeaways from our conversation with John Morris of 17 Asset Management, who was joined by FIVS President Greg Hodson as the moderator and by Ignacio Sánchez Recarte of the Comité Européen des Entreprises Vins and Simon Stannard of the Wine and Spirit Trade Association as commentators:
- A Global Roadmap: SDGs offer businesses the only realistic global framework for change – for making the world more prosperous even during the hardest times. SDGs should not be viewed as yet another set of rules. They are instead about leadership and intentionality, your brand, your commitment to your employees and stakeholders, and connecting to tech-enabled, socially conscious millennials.
- The Decade of Action: A growing number of companies are deeply committed to SDGs. As the pace of commitment accelerates this year, next year, and the following year, 2020 may well be the decade of action for SDGs. In a survey of 700 global companies, half had identified priority SDGs and over half of those companies had included SDGs in their business strategies.
- Integration: Organisations can fully integrate the intentionality of SDGs into their work through the following steps: align, imbed, implement, and measure. You may view slides from John’s presentation here to better understand these concepts.
We also share FIVS’s press release to provide you with an overview of the round table.
We encourage you to join us for our remaining virtual round tables which will be held in mid-November, concerning ecommerce, climate change, and the coronavirus pandemic, forces that are driving quantum change in the alcohol beverage industry. We have separately sent FIVS alerts with details regarding the programme and registration. FIVS non-members may contact the FIVS Secretariat at admin@fivs.org about attending these round tables, which are not open to members of the press.