Caroline Anstey, Global Head of UBS and Society, said it’s promising that younger people are wanting to invest in issues they care about as they grow, rather than waiting until old age to decide on what their legacy might be.
“The millennials are making it clear they want to invest alongside their values,” Anstey told HuffPost Live at Davos. “Younger people are saying, ‘I want my investments to reflect my beliefs, I want my workplace to reflect my beliefs,’ and I think there is a big potential… to direct that.”
Anstey said “despite all the gloom and doom,” it’s “very exciting” that people are looking to contribute to global issues.
“Imagine if you get 1, 2 percent of that money going into impact investing,” Anstey added, noting that could mean billions of dollars going toward different causes.
Anstey spoke on impact investing and how it can be fostered by public-private partnerships.
“Impact investing, which is creating bonds, creating financial instruments to help the private sector come in and finance those things but finance them against the provision of results… I think is a very interesting concept,” she said.
“We tend as a society to have this divide between private and public,” Anstey added. “We have to now recognize that, saying people can do well and do good… it something we have to embrace.”
Below, more updates from the 2015 Davos Annual Meeting:
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Salesforce Foundation President & Co-Founder Suzanne DiBianca talks about the success of her company’s commitment to public service.
Amanshah noted that InvestKL’s goal is to get 100 companies to invest in Greater Kuala Lumpur/Klang Valley by 2020, and they’re “just under halfway.” He said this is a signal the business opportunities in Kuala Lumpur haven’t been negatively impacted by the recent crises like the December AirAsia plane crash and the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
“In terms of impact on tourism, yes, perhaps [the planes had an impact], because people are human and they are all touched by such instances,” he said.
“The investors look at the fundamentals of the opportunities,” he added.
InvestKL CEO Zainal Amanshah spoke to HuffPost Live at Davos about the goals for his company, which aims to get other companies to invest in Greater Kuala Lumpur/Klang Valley.
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Lally Weymouth, Senior Associate Editor of the Washington Post, stopped by HuffPost Live at Davos on Thursday, spoke about the situation in Ukraine and Russia, saying she thinks the U.S. government could be doing more to help the Ukrainian people.
“I think they should be giving them weapons to defends themselves — not offensive weapons, but defensive weapons,” Weymouth said.
Kristel Van der Elst, Senior Director and Head of Strategic Foresight of the World Economic Forum, and Trudi Lang, Director of Strategic Foresight for the World Economic Forum, wrote:
As participants at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos contemplate the “new global context,” the emerging global shifts identified by the Global Strategic Foresight Community (GFSC) can be referenced to provide fresh perspectives on the future of jobs.
In current narratives on the coming era of employment, we often come across fears of a future in which permanent jobs will fade away and machines increasingly perform cognitive jobs in place of people, forcing automation and, as a result, unemployment across the employment spectrum — including high-skilled and white-collar labour. Such scenarios are highlighted by several GSFC members (Francisco Sagasti, Claudia Juech, Jill Wong, Nouriel Roubini).
Read more here.
Ermotti showed off his Fitbit, saying he and others are trying to stimulate kids in Africa to go to school. He said 1,000 Fitbits have been distributed to kids in Africa, many of whom walk six kilometers to school, to encourage them to keep going. Bikes were also distributed, he said.
Ermotti said he’s walked five kilometers so far today at Davos, which is “above average.”
Sergio Ermotti, the group CEO of UBS, spoke about cybersecurity threats in an interview with HuffPost Live at Davos.
“We need also to change the rules of the game in society in respect to privacy,” Ermotti said, noting even our governments infringing in privacy.
Dr. Mo Ibrahim writes:
We know that corruption is bad for business. Corruption adds significant costs, undermines competition, and negatively affects sustainable and human development. Anonymous companies are the “getaway vehicle” for corruption. They appear as a common thread in cases of crime, corruption, and schemes to defraud investors. Ethical and effective businesses do not require anonymous companies to operate and succeed, yet such businesses may suffer the consequences of their use by business partners, or be targeted by patent trolls hiding behind them.
Since The B Team began to advocate for beneficial ownership, and against anonymous companies, people have asked us, “What is the business case for beneficial ownership?”. Beneficial ownership transparency involves knowing the identity of the real, living people who ultimately own and control companies and other legal entities.
Read more here.
