 Good morning from Geneva on this second day of the Sustainable Development Impact Summit of the World Economic Forum, which is taking place digitally, also in the context of the UN General Assembly. A warm welcome to all of you to this session titled Global Implications of the European Green Recovery. I'm here in the studio with the president of the World Economic Forum, Borger Brande, and we're excited to have with us such a distinguished panel of speakers on this important topic. Of course, we're particularly honored to have with us the prime minister of Belgium, Alexander de Kru, a warm welcome, and we will have with us also today Fyke Sibesma, chairman of the supervisory board, Royal Philips de Netherlands, a warm welcome, Alison Martin, chief executive officer, Europe, Middle East, Africa and bank distribution, Zurich, insurance group, and last but not least, Stefan Scheibler, global managing partner at Roland Burger. This session builds on the work, the hard work of a very specific special community, very impact-driven community of the CO Action Group for the European Green Deal, which is chaired by Fyke Sibesma and Thomas Bubero, so I'd just like to recognize the work of this group. So without further ado, let me give the floor to the president of the World Economic Forum, Borger Brande, to officially start the session. Thank you so much, Mirek, and welcome to all our panelists, great panel. Let me start with you, Prime Minister, Prime Minister Alexander de Kru. We saw during the summer terrible floods in Belgium, also in Germany, the rest of Europe. It was a reminder for all of us that the cost of inaction far exceeds the cost of action when it comes to climate change. It's not really anymore about why, but it is about how. And I did last evening look at your plan in Belgium, and it seems like almost 50% of the fiscal stimulus is now allocated into a green transition for your country. So it would be very interesting, Prime Minister, at the start of this discussion, also in the run up to the incredibly important COP26 in Glasgow, to really hear about how you are planning to really advance net zero for your country. We know that Europe is already having this big ambition of being the first net zero continent by 2050. Over to you and welcome. Well, first of all, Borger, thank you for the invitation. It's always a pleasure to to use the World Economic Forum to discuss topics, especially this one, which I think over this summer really has moved into the minds of everyone throughout Europe and actually throughout the world. All of us have been confronted with weather phenomena, which opened the eyes of even the last ones who are doubting on the impact of climate change and also economically. Just one element, agriculture in Belgium, highly intensive agriculture. We've seen that over the last five years, in a lot of crops, actually the productivity has gone down. Whereas over the last decades every year we would see a gradual augmentation of productivity. So it's in the minds of people, but it's also in the economic hearts of our of our society today. Now, how do we how do we do this? We are deeply convinced that technology and innovation is going to be the way we get out of this and we will, we as humans, we've never solved our biggest challenges by putting progress in reverse. We will only do it by shift a few years up in in using in using technology and just giving you a few concrete elements. One, for example, is in zero emission cars. We have taken a decision that by 2026 all our corporate fleets needs to be zero emission, that is approximately 15% of the of the total of the car fleet mandatory zero emission by 2026. That is actually quite quite soon. Other element is for example in offshore wind offshore wind. We are today the number four worldwide in installed capacity, which for a country with a rather small coastline is is remarkable. We have done that by creating an ecosystem that was very attractive for for our economy to invest in this. And we've created a whole sector that is basically installing offshore wind farms throughout the world today. The main point that I want to make here is that as a government now really is the time where you can create a framework in which economic actors can take actions, which are the right actions from from a human perspective, but also the right actions from an economic perspective. It is clear that if you want to take steps forward, it also needs to make business sense and making sure that it makes business sense. Well, that is a that is a task for governments. Well, thank you. We know that the EU and Europe is also playing an incredibly important role in the diplomacy on the green transition net zero by 2050. And we know that this incredibly important COP26 is approaching in Glasgow. I guess you're planning also to go. Who do you see know the prospects for a successful outcome? Are you concerned that the latest geopolitical developments can also have a negative impact on this? Because we know that the relationship between the G2 is very important to get the deal. It's also a question of facing out coal. It's a question of, can you peak by 2030 or not? So it would be very interesting to hear your take on the prospects for COP26. For me, there's no doubt COP26 needs to be successful and geopolitics really cannot play a role in that. I think everyone has very high expectations of that of that summit as a European Union. Obviously, we will be playing a leading role in that. The ambitions of the European Union are very clear. Also on the role we play outside of our borders, because at some point people could say, well, but if we go for a very sustainable life or very sustainable society in the European Union, is that going to move the needle? Because we're only not such a big part of the world population. Well, it's not only our behaviour that will move the needle. What will move the needle is our technology. And our technology can save the world. I think everyone in the European Union is now convinced that if you want to be a technological leader, sustainability is going to be at the heart of it. And exporting our technology and exporting our models, that can have a tremendous impact on the world. And things have changed within the European Union on how we achieve that. Everyone in the European Union is a big fan of this internal market. This internal market has been such a source of prosperity, and especially for a small open economy like Belgium. We know how valuable this is for us. But up to now, the single market was one thing. But we've never had an economic policy that was at the size of that single market. Up to now, economic policy, every country was a little bit doing their own thing. For the first time with this resilience and recovery facility, this is the first time that the European Union has an economic policy that is at the same size as the single market. For the first time, we now have a plan where 27 economies are going in the same direction, where 27 locomotives are pulling in the same direction. I'm convinced that the impact of that will multiply what we already have with the single market. We now finally are leveraging this single market into a common economic policy, where sustainability really is at the heart. And that's good for Europe, and it should be good for the rest of the world as well. Well, thank you. And it's very interesting also that the 750 billion stimulus is focusing on the green transition, but also then on the digital transition. And these are the new technologies that you alluded to, Prime Minister. And what role do you think also more concrete these new technologies can play? We know that, for example, the price of solar fell to one tenth in 10 years. The price of wind fell to one seventh in 10 years. No one really predicted this, but that was what happened when you put all the policy tools together and you got our creativity there. But we also know that this has to happen when it comes to carbon capture, storage and sequestration. We know this also has to come when it comes to really also getting CO2 out of the air and et cetera. But are you in Europe ready to take the leadership here and apply the new technologies, but also put even more of the policy tools together to make sure that these new technologies that I just mentioned are also going to be as competitive as the renewables in some areas have become the last decade. Yeah, Borke, very interesting that you make that point because we now have throughout Europe a big discussion on the fact that energy prices are going up. And if you look at the different technologies, I mean the sustainable technologies are the only ones where the cost of energy is going down. Fossil fuels, the costs are going up. Nuclear costs are basically more or less stable. But renewables year over year, the costs are going down and they're going down in a very dramatic way. So if you want to have lower cost energy, well putting your bets on renewable energy is the way to drive the cost of energy down. That's the first element. Second element, of course, is that there is a geopolitical dimension to it. And as a European Union, well we need to be more energy independent and being more energy independent, obviously sustainable or renewable energy will play a role in that. There is an element, a bit of a caveat into that, that of course we know that a lot of the renewable energy sources has some dependence related to certain materials. But that should push us to be stronger on recycling those rare materials, stronger in upcycling these rare materials. What you said about carbon capture and so on, if I look at the different investment plans of the European countries, you see that there is a very big focus on carbon capture, on pipelines for CO2, on hydrogen investments and so on. And in Belgium we will play an important role in that because we are at the crossroads of so many means of transportation with our harbors but also with our pipelines. So coming back at what I put in my previous answer, for the first time we are using our scale and by using our scale we really can reap the benefits of the economies of scale in deploying technology. Thank you. Last question to you Prime Minister, you mentioned it yourself that the soaring energy prices in Europe, no gas prices and there has been less wind in the UK and etc. There really no peaking and we know that the pandemic also has in some countries led to increased inequalities. So this is going to be I guess a very delicate political handling in the winter because you need to make sure that the path towards a green transition continues but what kind of policy tools can you use then with this kind of soaring energy prices without losing the momentum on the green transition because we know higher energy prices is something that really gets people into the streets. Yes and rightly so, this energy transition will never happen in a successful way if a big part of the population is feeling that they only have the negatives, only have the drawbacks of that. So that social dimension I think everyone is very well aware that we need to cope with that and well there's two ways of looking at it. You could say a bit in a populist way, well you see this is an issue and let's not do the transition or you could look at it more in detail and understand that the rising prices actually are rising because of fossil fuel and then take action on how to deal with it. In our resilience and recovery plan a big part so it's approximately one billion is actually being invested in making our housing and our buildings more sustainable and this is the only way forward is well every energy that is not being used has the biggest benefit from a social perspective. We are very much aware of that, we know also that there is a discussion now on expanding the ETS system to other domains such as transportation and housing for example, well if we do that we need to be aware of the social dimension but in the end giving more people access to sustainable energy knowing that that domain is a domain where the prices are decreasing while giving more people access to that type of energy is the best way to avoid that the social impact would be would be too big and seeing that now the negative social impact is caused by fossil fuel is a great way to convince people and to push people in a long-term good direction. Thank you so much Prime Minister, thank you Alexander, thank you for your leadership and thank you for joining us again. This is a great segue to your neighbor Faikeh Sibasma in the Netherlands. Faikeh is currently the chair of Philips, he's also the honorary chair of DSM but in this context even more important he is co-chairing also the CO climate leaders alliance and the green transformation of Europe in this context so Faikeh listening to the Prime Minister now but also looking at what needs to be done I think we really have to count on the global companies taking a lead here and how much walking of the talk do you expect in the coming year of the global COs and the global companies when do we know when it's real and when do we know it's like a grinning exercise only. Thank you very much Borger and also Prime Minister De Kroo of Belgium with full commitments to addressing this topic and as we all have seen with the forest fires in Greece and Turkey and Italy and the floggings in Belgium and Germany and the Netherlands, Canada, Australia but also here in Europe climate change is real, climate change is happening right now so the European Green Deal I think with Vice President Timmermans has been pushing with support of Prime Ministers like Alexander De Kroo but also of course the President Ursula von der Leyen is very important. We need to realize that 80% of all the investments of the transition need to come from the private sector and not from the public sector so therefore as you know very well Borger what we did is setting up this European Green Deal CEO support group next to talk later the CEO climate leaders so we have two groups of CEOs supporting climate change one is the European Green Deal supporters and one is the CEO climate leaders and what do we do we we embrace what Europe is going to do here and we try to fill that in what can we do as companies on the mitigation and on the adaptation area. I think the IPCC report indicates we are already living in a one-and-a-half degrees Celsius world whether we like it or not so we need to learn to adapt also to the floggings to the fires etc and we need to further mitigate as von Stimmerns is saying it it is not only that we need to take our responsibility for climate which is very costly etc no it will provide also economic growth it will provide jobs it will provide competitiveness and at the end of the day the whole world needs to change so if Europe can change faster and Europe can adapt faster then it could create also an economic benefit and many companies see the same and therefore they join what we do we support agricultural transformation from farm to fork we support the issues we have with mobility by electrical cars by different forms of energy and of course the way of living and housing so those three areas are very important we hope that at the top the 100 billion transition will also be filled in because we need to adapt I would like to add also biodiversity as a topic and this whole group we have now 50 members supporting the European Green Deal I co-chair together with Thomas Biberer of AXA and it's not a lobby group it is a support group to governments like Prime Minister de Croix like Vice President Timmermans realizing that major part of the solution has to come from the private sector. Thank you Fajke we'll come back to you and a short comment from your Prime Minister to what Fajke just said the role of business. I couldn't agree more with what Fajke has said and maybe we could link it a bit to the way we handled covid I mean we handled covid by using technology the restraining measures of lockdowns and others I mean those were not very sustainable ways of dealing with it the way we dealt with it was in vaccines and we developed vaccines I mean no one would ever have thought a year ago that today most European countries would be at vaccination levels of more than 80 percent of the adult population how did they do it well by putting together every one of us what we're best at the academic world that all the research that has been done over the last decades actually in the mRNA technology the public sector by putting our our financing by putting our stability by guaranteeing the fact that we would be taking volumes and a private sector by really I mean putting this this this applied innovation and the private sector by working together I mean what we have seen between some pharmaceutical companies is amazing is saying company a saying to company b you know you shouldn't try this part because we did it and it's it's not working try something else I mean that type of cooperation um is uh is is something unseen and and I think it should it should inspire all of us in tackling something and and climate change has a lot of the same characteristics as a pandemic I mean a lot of people over the last years over the last months understood what is an exponential development an exponential development means that at some point the acceleration is beyond control and that you cannot intervene anymore we've seen that in the pandemic and we've suffered to it actually with climate change it's the same there is a point where the development is just out of control and so the only way to do it I think is by uh working together putting well it's a bit the multi-stakeholder approach that the World Economic Forum has been advocating for so for so long so now is the moment and and I think COVID should inspire us in in tackling this other big issue which is climate change thank you Prime Minister Merrick that's a good segue uh into uh the two other panelists uh too uh from the private sector thank you so much I'd like to go to uh Allison Martin um Allison you're at Zurich Insurance and your company in particular insurance companies overall they they are very close to how we monitor global risks so we've been working with your company for a while on the risk of climate change I know that your company made a recent commitment to decrease its carbon footprint you've announced that you want to decrease business flights for company employees by up to 70 percent you want to shift more to digital communication with customers you want to do a remote customer service assistance and use more electric and hybrid company cars and and really congratulations on this leadership now within the insurance sector you work with all other companies all other sectors so I'm curious how you see the preparedness and the willingness of all the other sectors to do similar things uh to to really step up uh uh vis-a-vis this very transformative challenge that we all face over to you Allison thank you I think it's clear that there are I think that the way that prime minister decree said it is exactly how we would agree that this is about industry actors it's multi-stakeholders working together to make transformative change it's not something that any individual organization or any individual government can tackle it truly is a climate change is one of the most existential risks we face it will require all of us working together I mean if I if I give the example of we were one of the founding members of the net zero asset owners alliance which was convened by the united nations and likewise we're one of the founding members of the net zero insurance alliance in order to why well the industry has to come together in a non and in a non anti competitive way but to provide the means by which we can do one of the most important things which is provide transparency and measurement so the our industry which is not a polluting industry I mean we're we are we're a financial services organization so yes we believe it's critical to walk the talk so things like reducing air travel is a key component of that because that's a very visible emission however for us what's far more important is the financing of emissions so the actions we take on our balance sheet on the investment side and the underwriting side but we can't take action in isolation we need to do it in conjunction with the companies who we invest in and the companies who we ensure so that we can work towards a positive transition together rather than in isolation so you do that by measurement you do that by having an industry wide agreed methodology science-based targets are all talking the same language so we don't have barriers between the languages that different industry sectors use but it's a really important step for the industries coming together and financial services has done through the asset owners alliance I mean Europe has nearly 10 and a half trillion which the largest institutional investment group is through the institutional ownership of asset managers and insurance companies so we have great power to be able to affect change and to support transition thank you Alison and you're a global company so you work in every corner of the world so in terms of the leadership of Europe the industry leadership of Europe in this respect do you see then other geographies following the lead of some of the action that European companies are taking there's clearly differences and I recognize it's a very complex web of geopolitics macroeconomics at play it's not as it's not a straightforward puzzle to solve otherwise we would have done it as a society as governments as businesses decades ago arguably when we had a much better chance of being able to be effective and Prime Minister De Creer was talking about sadly the the impact as well as if I get on on actual the physical risk of climate change which is crystallizing year in year out there was 210 billion dollars of natural catastrophe events last year that's economic losses now and that's that doesn't count no the human cause so this is real it's here and now now yes to to your question we absolutely see there are differences around the world and if you just look at who are the founding members of the net zero asset owner alliance and who are the founding members of the net zero insurance alliance you can clearly see that Europe is taking the lead and I would very much agree with what's previously been said I think that puts Europe in a fantastic place to take the lead in innovation in developing the technologies that can then be used at scale in the rest of the world this is Europe's chance thank you and maybe just one very quick follow-up on farming the Prime Minister mentioned how important it is to work with this sector you're involved in a lighthouse project that we house within the community that if I can mention any learnings from that work of that community and how we can bring this sector along to the European Green Deal so I think we feel very humble and very privileged to be working as part of this lighthouse project so it's the the Europe European carbon farming coalition and it absolutely recognizes that you need to bring everybody along the journey whether it's the smallholder farmer whether it's the delivery it's the entire value chain of farming needs to get together in order to understand what are the critical pain points from farm to fork and how can they be solved now finance is clearly a part of that but it's the coming together of the entire value chain that's going to make a difference and I think the approach that's being taken to these lighthouse projects is is to exactly do that is to convene all the participants within that value chain but each industry to be able to say how can we help mitigate one of these pain points and I think that's definitely the way for thank you so much Alison let me move to Stefan Scheibler at Rollenberger a professional services company based in Germany but a global one first we had a little chat before your company has also of course made commitments around net zero what is the role of professional services companies in general in your view in the framework of the European Green Deal I'd say we have to take our own responsibility so we have the target to be carbon negative in 2028 but this will not make the game in the end there are other sectors that are much more important I think the role of professional service companies is to support the companies in other segments to do their job to come back what was said before I think the good news is that after the American presidential election where Donald Trump let's say was for some companies the only option to somehow hope to avoid that the carbon a neutral game will come this has gone and all companies we give advice to being a strategy consultancy have understood that I think the basis is stable carbon neutrality is a long-term trend here I have to go digitization is a long-term trend very have to go and so you just have to take the opportunity and that was said before to be more competitive and to tap the tremendous growth potentials and that is actually what we are really doing we inserted in every project we do a climate impact assessment component so to interact with a client on the on the climate impact dimension and I'd say in 90 percent of the projects they want to do that and it's really to go through their whole business model is it let's say sustainable regarding climate change we can go through products and services what is the climate impact of their products and services and also in the third dimension what is their own footprint and they highly appreciate that and then you go follow up things like transport decarbonizer for consumer goods companies for the gisty companies energy decarbonizer tool to make it very practical and one good thing because I think we are all European us being the only leading consultancy of European origin it's really a brand advantage to to be from Europe because credibility in America and Asia is is very high for Europe so we shouldn't underestimate that role and prime minister the crew said we cannot fix it by Europe but what we can do if we really play the game have leading edge projects and use it as a tool for innovation and and being more competitive we can contribute dramatically to the steps forward in other regions of the world I think what's worth to go for it as as Europe and as your company in companies and this is actually we are strongly benefiting from that thank you and my follow-up question is around Germany you're originally based in Germany even if you're a global company we have elections coming up but around the preparedness of the of the German industry to really support the European Green Deal you had a recent study published by your firm where you talk about innovation how innovation can help curb carbon emissions and you talk about three key areas for the ecosystem to really function energy efficiency sustainable water management and sustainable mobility so particularly the mobility sector how how prepared is the sector really to support the green transition and what will it do to its competitiveness you think going forward so having a look at European car manufacturers and especially the German ones I'd say three four years I had severe fears of course it's in the German GDP 12 30 percent depending how you calculate that they are contributing I think they made it finally by by going straight in the direction of electrical vehicles and cars and you were mentioning the German elections I think there will be a government in with any outcome that may come and this is very very unpredictable actually how it finally goes but most probably the Green Party will be part of a government and so for the governmental side the challenge will really be to go with instruments that are as close to the market as possible so carbon trading to find the right way for depreciation and activate investments in sustainable technologies in in European else to really push moderation in one direction so if you want to secure the electrical car let's say charging station policy we are far ahead from fulfilling the expected demand so the public side also really has to speed up and if we take the industrial sector to give the security to a steel producer to go for an erect electrical based steel production and what is not let's say a profitable actually you really have to give a very reliable regulations on the political side and that counts for Europe and all European countries where we are not yet there so the quality expectations to the government will raise dramatically and I think this is the biggest challenge so we were in Germany there was more than a decade of growth that was interrupted by covid perhaps that was a wake-up call and we now will have to change dramatically to get these things fixed so I'm not pessimistic I grew up in public sector business and if they get the right political guidance normally people working in public sector can be pretty efficient at least in in Europe is my conviction but these are tremendous challenges just to finalize with one additional example if we replace the fossil fuels in the mobility sector by electricity if we replace in the industrial sector many parts of the production chain by electricity in Germany the need for electricity will double to triple perhaps even more in the next decades and how to get permitting processes sped up and all those things are tremendous challenges so my message is it's understood in the industry and with the services companies but it will be we all together have to find a clever interaction between public sector and private sector to get that all fixed and this this will be so a very interesting decade we have ahead of us and as a consultancy there is a lot to do. Stefan Scheivel, thank you so much a pivotal moment in Germany and Europe I'd like to hand over the floor back to Borger Brande and also Feike for the last four minutes we have. Thank you Marek this has been a fascinating discussion I knew with such a great panel that would also be the case but one has to deliver Feike you'll listen to the other panelists we know that you're spending a lot of your time now on mobilizing private sector also in the run up to COP26 but the whole green transition globally is something that is very close to your heart I think both you and I have been to many cops throughout the years and there has been ups and downs I was this last year when we have seen also the tremendous impact that climate change is already having on our planet our planet is really on fire I was hoping that this would be like another Paris breakthrough in Glasgow it would be very interesting to hear how you feel about the prospects and if you don't get everything you want at COP26 what is our plan not to lose momentum in the years to come and as you said 80% of the investments that is needed for mitigation has to come from the private sector so there is no way around the private sector over to you you can do the summing up and you have two minutes thank you very much my question to the governmental leaders at the COP because the COP is in first and cement for governmental leaders they have the power there why would you not come to a deal and you a false argument why not come to a deal because you're afraid as the government that this deal will cost you money will go at the detriment of your competitiveness of the economic growth of jobs and I tell you that that is a private sector thing and the private sector is asking you governments to take bold actions so it will not go at the cost of your economic growth nor jobs nor competitiveness now we ask you to take fierce actions to reduce the emissions to go to net zero by 2050 and a clear roadmap towards the goal which intermediate step by 2030 we've been totally transparent as a private sector as well on your emissions and the financial implications of climate related matters TCFT and also we as a private sector urge you to put the price on carbon and meaningful price on carbon in as many as possible jurisdictions to get the transition done so the private sector is asking you please team up with us and we are not resistant like maybe the private sector was 20 years ago we are even supporting you to take more and stronger actions it's possible you get our support so I don't see any reason why not to move ahead and that will be my call to the important governmental leaders who've all the power had to come now thank you so much Fakir you're also great on timing it's 2959 and you ended on that I would again say thank you to this great panel the SDI summit will also touch on climate change issues in the days to come thank you so much to my colleague here Marek Dusek and also to Teresa Bellardo that is a driving force behind the whole this green recovery Europe deal and of course our two co-chairs Fakir and Thomas thank you so much for joining us and see you soon bye