Richard Hall

Improving sustainability

Richard Hall is chairman of Zenith International.

During the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit, I had the privilege of chairing two small roundtables on what business could contribute.

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The first was on sustainability. We had a particular brief and came up with three conclusions which seemed consistent with what others were saying, too:

• Work together to agree a range of global standards, such as for organics and fair trade, with a monitoring process to uphold them.
• Promote the standards; share best practice so that more companies achieve them, especially small and medium-size firms. Build these expectations into business education programmes.
• Acknowledge progress generously to encourage this, rather than dismiss others’ efforts towards these goals.
• The pressure groups have much to gain by working with, instead of against, business.

Richard Hall is chairman of Zenith International. You can also read his blog at BevBlog.