 Well thank you all for joining us and welcome to our session Pathways for an Economic Reset. Now you all have a chance to of course ask as many questions as you want to please send those questions through using the Slido app and we'll try and get to as many as we can. I couldn't be more delighted to do this session because it's a very important topic and we're trying to figure out you know as we know COVID-19 is really exposing some of the inadequacies of economic systems causing global concerns for lives but also our own livelihoods in the longer term. So in this panel we're going to try and assess what we can do differently and as leaders try and chart a transition to a greener and more inclusive recovery what will policy reforms look like to try and improve social mobility as well. I'm delighted to be joined by my all-star panel Ahem Steiner, Administrator United Nations Development Program and Finnecan Vice-Chair at Bank of America. Brad Smith, President, Microsoft and Ellen Jope, Chief Executive Officer of Unilever. So thank you all for joining us. I wanted to just start with a very broad but difficult question and ask each of you if you think the ESG agenda is more likely than not to emerge strengthened from this recession. Ahem let's start with you. Thank you very much Francine it's a it's a pleasure to join you and such a distinguished panel so I think my answer is absolutely yes and I think it is in part because what this pandemic has done so far is not really changed the future yet but it has very much revealed the present and I think if you look at what is happening in our world from a pandemic to an economic freefall the first thing that has become obvious is how vulnerable we are how vulnerable poorer people are how vulnerable our economies and societies are to a situation in which you know basic health coverage and inequality in terms of poverty but also the digital gap which has suddenly become so critical in people's ability to cope with lockdowns have shown the world to to be when it is essentially leaving so many behind and I think that is a critical part of understanding that as we look forward and the role that business markets the economy at large will play in allowing us to return or to build forward better I mean there are many phrases that we use right now clearly this is a historic moment it is a project of extraordinary possibility but also a very frightening prospect because if you simply be a back to the normal of yesterday we will be weaker we will be economically damaged and we will still be operating with the same kind of inequalities but also the sustainability Achilles heels that have defined the last decades of of development progress and as the United Nations as the head of the United Nations Development Programme we have focused very much on trying to help countries see how they can work together through parliaments but also with business with civic leaders in trying to address the ability to stabilize with an opportunity to also invest in more opportunities in the future whether it is addressing the need for particularly looking after the vulnerable and the poor with a temporary basic income right now in order to make the lockdowns and the containment of the virus more feasible whether it is a massive investment in the transition towards the greener economy but it is also to understand the significance of connecting all citizens that are able to and want to use the internet and broadband in the coming years because right now only half the world's just over half the world's population actually has access to broadband which is why also over a billion children cannot go to school right now so these are just examples of where ESG in the way that businesses shareholders but also markets understand their role in the larger drama that is playing out becomes a very central issue and I think very much the focus also in boardrooms and with many CEOs around the world and do you agree with that will something actually change a lot of people you know understand what's at stake but given the severity of the recession given you know the the scarring that we're living through will ESG really get a boost well I think we have to transcend the the notion that ESG somehow operates in a space of its own I think it is very much linked to what kind of government policies what kind of priorities to our society said I think we should not be complacent history teaches us that sometimes out of crisis come great moments of pivoting forward into a better into a more positive reality but more often than not the tendencies to try and just scramble back to where we were before so I think ESG needs to be understood in a larger public debate about what kind of societies do we want what kind of economies do we wish to have and out of that I think will come also a new direction for ESG but it certainly will be broader I think it will be less corporately defined I think it will be more embedded in a larger view and consensus around what makes our societies healthy happy successful sustainable and that in turn will define also the economies within which businesses operate and where ESG is an instrument a tool it's it's not an end in itself and so how can company led initiatives you know drive this new agenda well I agree with much of what Archim has just said but but I do think we have hope here because in recent years there's a a fair amount of data that's been put forward to demonstrate that ESG if it's inculcated into the behavior of a company that the company itself does better less bankruptcy higher satisfaction with its clients and customers and even sometimes higher multiple so all of those are accrued to the benefit of of looking at ESG you know a few years ago I guess a year or so ago the business roundtable put out a statement that they would look at things beyond shareholders but I think that's been established through the world economic forum and its stakeholder capitalism mandate for years and those companies that have taken up that mantle have simply done better particularly now during the pandemic because they thought about their employees and the social contract they have with their employees they thought about their customers and the social contract that they have with them and they are doing better than those that have just ignored it further I think whether it's looking at the European Commission and soon the European Parliament's passage of a Green Deal new language in the European Commission new language by the SEC new language by the International Federation of Accountants where this sort of broadening its mandate beyond pure financials is making a big difference there is some new work that's going on it was established we raised it at the Davos in January Alan is very much involved in this so I won't take his thunder but Unilever is a big leader here 200 companies came together working with the IBC the International Business Council the WEF Bank of America Chairman and CEO Brian Moynihan is the chair of the IBC and we worked with four the big four accounting firms these 200 companies to see if we could come up with metrics that we could agree on and those metrics would indicate the sort of ESG kind of platform that all of us would agree to and I'm encouraged to say that over 120 companies have signed on I think there'll be announcement as soon as tomorrow from the WEF about this so I see this as being from a regulatory point of view from a legislative point of view and from I think companies own sense of survival in the future that we're seeing a real convergence now that we had not here to foresee and measurable so Alan let me go to you because we're getting a couple of questions that basically kind of goes back to the idea that Anne was talking about and is how long will it take for us to realize that all economic activity needs to be part of a circular economy and guided by ecological principles I mean is it encouraging business or is it encouraging governments to see it like that Alan you might be muted I definitely was muted you know Francine sometimes cliches are true you measure what you treasure you don't get what you expect you get what you inspect and yet our main measures of success remain solely financial it's bizarre and it's outdated you know the definition of success for a country which is usually GDP our traditional financial metrics are built on you know environmental degradation and growing inequality and surely COVID-19 as we know how interdependent all our systems are we need 21st century tools for a 21st century environment and so we're huge supporters of standardizing actually and mandating non-financial reporting that Anne referred to we strongly support the WEF-IBC working forward to the launch tomorrow but this reporting of non-financial metrics we think is just one of five changes that a business can make the other four not a surprise it's really believing that operating to the benefit of multiple stakeholders works serving customers properly looking after your employees being fair with suppliers making a positive contribution to society and the health of the planet will lead to better financial returns most business leaders still don't believe that they see as a trade-off between financial returns and responsible conduct then we need to price in major externalities carbon being the most obvious example and we need to shift our R&D investment and our business model development towards a circular versus a linear approach and the business case is there so to directly answer the question the business case for circularity is crystal clear and then the final point is as businesses we need to be committed to fair value distribution along the company's value chain and that means not just whether you're paying your people properly are your suppliers paying properly are your distributors paying their people properly and once you've made that mental shift get our and we need to get our investors on board create belief and re-skill our management and advocate for the these types of changes when we do that business will be a positive force good in the world and Brad if you look at you know what Microsoft has been doing of course digital skills re-skilling upskilling but our governments doing or not do you sometimes feel like if you look at all this you know technological language for workers does it feel like it's really businesses that are doing the heavy lifting well I think we're all going to need to do more in the business community and in government circles alike I do think that one of the lasting changes from this pandemic is the increasing acceleration of digital technology I'm not prepared to sign up for the proposition that will all of the rest of our lives on zoom calls I think there's a lot to be said for getting together with people in person but we're finding in so many ways that jobs are becoming more digital we're finding that telehealth services for example are an enormous compliment to the ability to see a doctor or a nurse in person and almost every job that we see through LinkedIn which Microsoft owns is becoming more digital so what does that mean it means that people are going to need more digital skills I do think there's a lot more than governments need to do to help with this part of the economy you know to invest in more digital skills in you know education and higher education to provide new resources to people to pursue lifelong learning but I also think there's an important connection between the private and public sectors in this regard if you look back at the last 20 years after an upsurge in employer investments in employee skilling in the late in your 1990s we've seen 20 years of decline and stagnation by employers investing in the skilling of their employees and I think especially as we look to a recovery we need to have a recovery that is led in part by small business we're going to need to help small businesses on board new employees we're going to need to help small businesses invest in skilling of their employees and this is a huge opportunity I think for governments to think the new about tax credits and other incentives they can provide but ultimately it's an ecosystem that brings the public and private sectors together that's the way we I think we need to think about it but Brad do you think we need to change metrics so you know not look at GDP or not look at shareholder return and find another language to I think the real I think the message and I think we're all saying it perhaps in slightly different ways you know it's not as if you know economic metrics are going to go away it's not as if GDP is no longer important it obviously is but I think we've all realized that there's more to life and there's more to success than economics and money alone and I think that this is a realization that's been spreading across the business community across the past five years you see that in the business roundtables you know really broad support for the approach that they've taken in the last year I think having a roadmap with metrics as you're hearing here I think that's enormously helpful and ultimately I've always felt that it's perhaps less about you know business success versus societal responsibility and perhaps more about long-term versus short-term ways of thinking you know if you want to buy a stock on Monday and sell it on Wednesday I've never stood up and said buy Microsoft if you want to buy a stock in 2020 and hold it to 2030 I think you should want to invest in companies really like Bank of America and like Unilever and like Microsoft where we are focused on what we're doing in the communities where we work and in the world as a whole because I think that is going to make us more successful it's going to attract and retain stronger employees it's going to build the kinds of ties that will bind us with our customers and so I think long-term business and societal success can move forward together. Anthony what can and these are some of the great questions that are also coming in what can society do to incentivize the adoption of stakeholder capitalism like what Brad is saying makes sense but how much can you actually make sure that people really adopt it and go forward with it? Well I think in terms of shareholders and stakeholders if you're an investor individual or an institutional investor the expectations of the companies in which you invest in needs to be heard so I assure you that any company any one of the public companies you're talking to here today we are hearing our shareholders we are hearing our stakeholders they are broader than just economic they are looking for us to be citizens of the world and whether we are abiding by the various sort of alphabet soup of third parties that evaluate us for climate or ESG part of what we're talking about here today is that we want to set a benchmark with the IBC work international business council work and the WEF so that we can have a metrics that are completely transparent to the world from all companies because that will be a very effective starting point for all of us it will be an immediate indicator of who is doing this sort of half you know maybe two dozen elements of these of these metrics and who isn't doing them and then as an investor whether it's an individual and their 401k or an institutional investor those companies that abide by those rules and are doing well at them should be your first choice and I think they already are I mean all of us meet with institutional investors all the time and the question of ESG did not come up five years ago and it came up sort of four years ago and in the last three years they are in the room and that is front and center for every conversation and I came where should these metrics really come from I mean are you seeing a lot of people really asking the right questions but then being committed to them or is there a danger that once we get out of the pandemic we go back to what we were like four or five years ago I think one of the sobering lessons of the you know the last financial crisis 2008 2009 is that it in a sense was largely driven by a quick return to normality and yet what we witnessed in the in the year subsequently is that maybe on the stock markets we were doing very well but in our societies we're increasingly seeing the ruptures and and the consequence of not acting at the time you know before this pandemic and we we witnessed on our television you know sets every night protests breaking out from Hong Kong to Santiago de Chile to Paris the United States I mean there there is a great deal of conflict that is manifesting itself around the kind of choices that have been made so I think the first thing is you must acknowledge that indeed we are in the midst of an of a situation that is perhaps without precedent and in an odd sort of way the long term has suddenly become the short-term reality and the short-term decisions that we make have become the lock-ins for the long term and I think this is shifting very much what Anne what Brad and Alan just spoke to as well how businesses look at at the future of markets and here I think transparency and accountability and being part of the solution as opposed to part of the problem are just sort of three headlines that I think capture well what what consumers what what markets what investors are looking for and you know Alan and I were just before this call together and in another call that's on champions 12.3 it's a sustainable development goal that deals with with food loss and food waste when you realize it in our world today we lose up to one-third and waste up to one-third of all the food produced here is an extraordinary irrationality in our economy and we can address it if you look with Brad and I I've had very good conversation with Microsoft also the digital gap this is not something that has to be a reality we can close that digital gap in the next few years and and fintech the whole opportunity that arises with the emergence of digital finance technology to bring literally hundreds of millions of people into the financial system that are so far excluded and simply because they don't have any collateral they don't have an address don't exist all of these are good examples of how you know revolutionary transformations are possible but they need to be embraced by leaders in business governments have to incentivize enable them and I think then consumers will reward people so and and companies for making those choices and the ability to to measure that and to demonstrate that you are indeed changing course I think is an important part of our much more transparent and let's say mature public scrutiny of governments of business of the United Nations for that matter so yes I think that's that's the direction but I think how difficult is it for governments to come together and collaborate at a time where you have a lot of geopolitical questions and this goes back to one of the questions being asked on Slido but also you know protectionism until we have that how difficult is it to come together as nations well I often remind people that if you ever are involved in a local parents teachers association or in a local community you know representational form you know differences in views are you you know not unique to intergovernmental relations I think we have to recognize that there will always be different views on how to move forward the fact that we are passing through a period right now that is from a geopolitical point of view first of all increasingly polarized and secondly with the pandemic also under enormous stress and that's why you know behind me you see the empty general assembly although this morning it is actually not empty it is the beginning of of the high level general assembly week and I think points to the fact that it is extremely challenging but I think we have time and again over the last 75 years of the United Nations being in existence found ways in which despite our differences we can find common ground and when you listen to what my fellow panelists have just addressed then this is a moment where all difference is notwithstanding there is no way forward out of the pandemic or indeed in terms of some of the inequalities sustainability issues without international cooperation so wisdom and also let's say good judgment is required while there is a lot of anger in in our political atmosphere but that's precisely why I believe those of us who can counter that notion that we are falling apart as a global community need to speak up now but not only speak up we need to act and that's what gives people hope and that is where polarization becomes less powerful and you know rational thinking and the sense that solidarity and cooperation are as much in my self-interest as they are in the interest of solving these issues becomes the driving force this is not just lofty ideals it's actually what history has taught us time and again I'm getting quite a lot of questions about greenwashing Alan let me start off with you so this question is basically how can we ensure a framework against the troubling evolution of corporate greenwashing so Alan maybe lay out you know the top three priorities that you would do either a common language or new metrics to try and avoid this yeah well I think it kind of comes back to two things one is a belief system and the other is reporting non-financial metrics so a lot of the even the discussion here even the questions that are coming in are predicated on an assumption that there is a trade-off between either delivering on ESG metrics or delivering strong financial performance and that investors and retail investors and people will some or other choose do I invest in an ESG responsible company or an a company that drives better financial performance and we have to break that paradigm we have to build the evidence that offering sustainable solutions to consumers conducting yourself with decency makes you an attractive employer that treating suppliers well that reducing your environmental footprint actually lowers costs and all these things drive better financial performance then there will be less suspicion there will be a belief that is not a trade-off between ESG and better financial performance but so long as we present it as one or the other the the shift will never happen and then in terms of corporate greenwashing actually what Adam was talking about there we've got the big four accounting firms designing and developing these standardized metrics and I think they will become as reliable for all their strengths and weaknesses as traditional financial metrics and frankly I can tell you leading a big company that takes a lot of initiative on environmental and social issues there's nowhere to hide so we publish everything and if it's not accurate we get called out on it so I believe society will hold us to account but if we make it easier for society to do that by having standardized metrics we'll be in a better place and what would be your your two or three priorities uh well it's easy climate and nature is the first social impact is the second and and probably waste and your waste footprint would be the third okay and Finnegan your priorities uh well I think my first priority is to see this work uh be presented and embraced in addition to the four accounting firms setting the metrics they're working in conjunction with the global reporting initiative SASB which is sustainability accounting standards board and the climate disclosure standards board so they aren't doing it on their own they've got some of the best standard setters in the world at their side setting setting these metrics that's one uh the other is that so many companies are already carbon neutral and to be carbon neutral that means you have to have uh the greenhouse gas protocol evaluate your work in three scopes one two and three one and two or what make you carbon neutral three is what will get us all to net zero again that's a third party evaluating us uh and we for instance are carbon neutral and then I guess uh again to eliminate the idea of greenwashing you've got the european parliament who will soon pass a green deal once the green deal is passed it isn't just that we'll be at net zero in 2050 it's that we will be more than halfway there by 2030 and every company that's a multinational will have to figure out how to make that uh transition 2030 is like yesterday for us so uh the ability to make that transition you aren't going to do it in one part of the world and not another you will go across your entire company and make sure it can get to net zero so that's an immediate uh incentive to get going and although the u.s. has uh doesn't have similar legislation and as everyone knows it's more political in the u.s. as a practical matter any multinational will move to uh abide by the green deal because because they're operating in europe and also maybe if you want to take this next question which is what changes and adjustments are needed in the financial sector to reflect a more integrative and long-term thinking of business and this person's also asking what about the role of taxation well I think there's uh it depends on what government you're in to determine whether it's uh taxation or incentive probably will be both by the way uh well I would say if you put as a very practical matter once the green deal passes uh any company every company that's a multinational and any company in europe will need financing to get there so the financial institutions know that already uh whether it's issuing a green bond underwriting a green bond uh uh capital markets is getting involved I think the biggest problem that all of us will have is once you get to how you get to carbon neutrality there's always going to be an offset there's something in your operation that can't uh be done renewably with solar or wind you can't buy all entirely renewable electricity for one reason or another and we all require offsets right now most of the offsets are in the nonprofit world like reforestation and the amazon um or wind farms that that are nonprofits there will be a market there'll be carbon pricing I think there will be a market for the offsets and that's actually an economic opportunity for those that are in the renewable business bread what would you have as top two or three priorities to you know to accelerate this change well the first thing I would point to is is climate and I think in particular carbon that's why we committed that will be carbon negative as a company by 2030 I do think just to pick up on some of the things we're all talking about you know we need to have transparency and we need to have transparency based on the common vocabulary and common measurement systems I think that's the best way to preclude the risk of greenwashing I think we should aspire to live in a world where say by 2030 if not sooner as consumers we can look at the products that we buy whether it's an automobile or something smaller and understand how much carbon was emitted to create that automobile just like we understand today how many calories we'll consume when we buy a product at the grocery store and even though this is a time as you pointed out where I think it's harder to bring governments together the truth is that's probably the last step in the process anyway before you need before you can get to say government regulation around something like transparent reporting of carbon emissions you need standards and that's what we're talking about here before you get the standards you need experimentation and I think this is where businesses together with NGOs can move more quickly and lay the foundation the two other issues that I would point to more briefly are closing the digital gap I think for any company in the tech sector it's what we know best it's what we contribute to most it's where we need to put a large part of our energy and finally I would say especially as a company headquartered in the United States if we're not prioritizing racial equity in 2020 then there probably will never be a year when we do I think it's an imperative across the United States it's an issue that reaches around the world it absolutely is it needs to be a priority for a company like ours yeah for a company Brad but also for government and so our government's doing you know enough to address inequalities that are have just been exacerbated by the pandemic well look I think the short answer is for anything that we're talking about here and for anyone we're talking about the answer is the same no we're not doing enough we're not doing enough because these problems are huge and we're living through a period of time where in many ways we're either learning more as we are about something like this a internet connectivity or things are becoming worse because of a recession so we need to do more and I think fundamentally we need to do more individually and we need to do more together I think it's a good time to think a little bit about the roles we each play businesses play one role in the economy and you know we we need to have business models that are profitable but they also can be business models that are responsible civil society NGOs you know are the foundation of so many countries around the world and they need to be innovating and we need to be doing more to support them and ultimately absolutely we need governments to do to do more both individually and collectively regionally and globally that's the only hope for more progress on something like the sustainable development goals okay I'm getting quite a lot of questions actually on you know large corporates versus small corporates so many of these recommendations this person writes in are focused on global large corporate worlds companies but how can this also be applied to small and medium-sized businesses absolutely correct and I think a vital question because we often forget that in in most countries around the world when we talk about business business is actually small medium-scale enterprises and very often even micro enterprises it's also the famous informal sector in many developing countries in which UNDP works people earn their livelihood 70 80 percent of the time in the informal sector they have no social protection they run a corner shop maybe a workshop a garage a service provider that's one end and I think it is critical that we first will enable them to have a more equitable opportunity I mean whether it is access to broadband for example to turn their business you know into something that can keep up with the rest of the markets and there's a very simple example in Uganda in the middle of the lockdown one of the projects that UNDP undertook is to help market traders in the vegetable markets to essentially create a sort of uber equivalent platform to be able to connect consumers in Kampala in order to be able to give them some opportunity to trade with agriculture produce extraordinary things are happening in this digital space right now and I think our ability to understand that you know even in a country like Japan 98 percent of businesses there are small medium-scale enterprises so this is not a phenomenon only in developing countries means that we on the one hand look to the larger corporations who shape markets and also consumer perception to be leaders in moving these agendas forward but we have to then put special programs in place and that's where again digital finance becomes so critical another example in the pandemic is you know there are now digital platforms where small medium-scale enterprises can borrow money literally either in the morning in order to buy produce selling the market and repay it on their on their smartphone or indeed enterprises can borrow as in China with the Ant Group where with algorithms artificial intelligence and their application is processed in a few seconds and they're able to borrow money we have entirely new frontiers in the financial system here that also are an opportunity to precisely cater to the needs of a small medium-scale enterprises so to your question or the question I would ask I can only reaffirm that we have indeed to better understand how we also held those businesses to be part of a transforming marketplace where technology consumer preferences and the imperatives to act on something like climate change are much more central but also actionable for them Alan do you see a way I mean being a big company do you see a way of maybe bridging the sustainability or ESG gap between small and big companies I think that big companies have got the responsibility to pioneer the techniques and methodologies that we were talking about and make them available to smaller companies to don't remember small companies are often the suppliers or customers of big companies we're interdependent here and one particular area of importance is that as devastating as the health impact of covid has been I think the ripple effects on well being well sorry on livelihoods as the the true size the true scale of unemployment ripples through various economies is going to be devastating and actually now is just the moment when governments might have the political breathing space to unlock job creation in new sectors and that nearly always begins with small and medium size enterprises so I think this is a this idea that small businesses can be part of building back a more just economy is something that governments can hop on right now Brad talk to me maybe about some of the key challenges actually ahead I mean you know even if there's a converging view what do you see as a top three things and this is actually a question that's also coming in what are the key challenges in preparing the company strategy or the world strategy to design a successful pathway to the great reset well I think there's two things that are interesting to think about I mean first of all companies do different things they have different missions and as we think about you know for example of all the world's challenges reflected in the SDGs I think the first question is for each of us who are in a business where do we best fit in what can we contribute you know it would be odd if Unilever and Microsoft were trying to do exactly the same thing we're in different industries the same as Truthful Bank of America but by each focusing on what we do well we can actually complement and partner with each other and I think that is the first sort of pragmatic question for business I think a second one builds on what we've just been talking about and what Alan was referring to I think we always have to keep in mind you know businesses do need to operate with at least a level of profitability meaning you know not losing money at a minimum and not everybody can do the same thing I don't think it's necessarily realistic to expect a small business to do the same thing as a large business in a particular moment of time and the same can be true of business large businesses in different economic sectors and give you a concrete example at Microsoft we are in month seven of paying all of the hourly workers who work in our offices around the world regardless of whether there is any work for them to do a lot of them have had no work to do for seven months because so many of our offices have been closed most of these individuals are actually paid not by us directly but by other suppliers small businesses so we pay the small businesses and we ensure that the small businesses continue to compensate these individuals we should do that in my view in part because we can afford to do that digital technology has been in a beneficiary of this pandemic if you just look at company revenue streams is it feasible for a large airline to do that or a large hotel no they're they're in different economic straits so if we start by asking ourselves where we can make the best contribution and then ask ourselves what we can afford to do and each do what we can I think you start to put together a recipe that can bring businesses together and Finnegan where do you see the biggest challenge or challenges well specific to small businesses I think that as Alan said the the onus is on the larger companies first but we of course we're the in the United States the largest lender to small businesses so we have a pretty good insight into what their issues are and the first is generally you need to create a bigger marketplace for the small businesses to do more business so with big companies we're working on that now we made a billion dollar commitment for racial sort of equality in terms of wealth creation and economic opportunity in the US and really we're starting with small businesses and trying to create job creation for individuals to either work for us or other large companies or even small businesses giving them some training for a small business itself I think that to the degree that we have contracts with them and we set certain expectations and we pay them well enough that in turn allows them to pay their own people so this is a very circular opportunity and I think we all see it as being quite real with minimum wages being lifted technology has allowed us all to do more in less time so those people that work for us have a bigger opportunity for health benefits and better minimum wage Alan would you see it yeah Alan yeah look I noticed one of the questions that's come in on the uh Slido is how can we get China Russia and the US to cooperate closely together to ensure we remain on the same page now I think that particular question might be just outside the remit of this panel however however I doubt there's a global business person who would disagree with the fact that global free trade has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty it is global trade that has allowed the development of a middle class across the emerging world it is precisely because we have a globally connected interdependent supply chain that Unilever's been able to continue to supply our products through this crisis if we would have retreated to some bizarre form of national integrity making only locally for locally around the 150 or so countries in the world that we do business we would be out of business and so I just ask all business leaders and everyone on this panel who are listening in to please don't give up advocating for global free trade because it will play such an important role in the post-covid economic recovery in the world yeah and on that I'd like to hand it to Sadia Sahidi head of the New Economy and Society platform to share the next steps on how the ideas generated in this discussion and other discussions will be taken forward through the forum's platform to enable the co-creation of frameworks for practically shaping an economic recovery and economic resilience and also reset so Sadia take it away thank you very much um first of all let me thank you Francine for your excellent moderation as always um thank you to Allen Brad Ann and Akim all of you are uh collaborators and and and friends and people who we have been driving forward a lot of um impact with so thank you very much for joining this very rich and nuanced conversation I think we heard quite a bit of uh nuanced realism about the challenges ahead but we also heard quite a bit of optimism about this being the moment to deploy uh our capabilities um to to try to achieve that economic reset um at the forum uh we'll be doing quite a bit of work uh first focused on this pillar on economic growth transformation recovery and revival second focused very much on jobs wages social safety nets um and the future of work third focused on education skills and lifelong learning and fourth focused on equity inclusion and social justice and I think you heard all of those themes here today particularly I'd like to call out a new effort where we're trying to look at a new dashboard for the new economy so similar to what the ESG space is doing in terms of the corporate metrics what needs to be done at a more national level and then working with a number of countries to actually see if we can use this moment of transformation to adopt those new policy targets and to adopt ways of being able to measure fairer and greener economies more on that uh later on today uh from the 20th to the 23rd of October at the forum's jobs reset summit we will be continuing large part of today's conversation with that again thank you Francine and thanks to the rest of the panelists thank you everyone have a great afternoon