Editor’s Note: Madelyne is the latest intern from the Scheller College of Business at the Georgia Institute of Technology to lend us her skills and insights during the summer months. As many readers of this space know, we value the opportunity to familiarize people beyond our “peace and security” bubble with the important issues and processes which are likely to greatly impact future prospects, livelihoods and much more. We need more “champions” of multilateral cooperation and we need them in all those still-underserved spaces, not only where people are denied a place at the policy table, but where people don’t see the value of having such a place. Madelyn sees the value and we are grateful for it.
As a business student from Georgia Tech, I really had no clue about the world I was coming into when signing up to do a summer internship with Global Action to Prevent War. Sometimes I felt out of my depth, and I knew I was lacking context to truly understand much of what I was seeing. But that is exactly why my boss, Dr. Zuber, hired me. He didn’t want me here to provide the same perspective as everyone else. He wanted to me to view things through a business lens, so that is exactly what I did. And when I did, I noticed something. I noticed that the world of business, and the world of the UN do not seem to intersect much. I learned a bit about the UN Global Compact and, of course, NGO’s and the role they should play are discussed a good bit. But during these summer months I heard few discussions of what role for-profit businesses should be playing to help the UN realize the Sustainable Development Goals. This is truly disappointing because, from my view, both have a lot to offer the other.
In the world of business, it has become trendy to “care”. To show they care, corporations will create value statements or claim support for a certain social movement, but too often these are just words, not actionable commitments. As I learned in my Servant Leadership course taught by Dr. Robert Thomas at Georgia Tech, this can actually hurt a business. “Empty values statements create cynical and dispirited employees, alienate customers, and undermine managerial credibility,” (“Make Your Values Mean Something” by Patrick M. Lencioni). Rather than making empty statements that can actually hurt your business, businesses need to start creating shared value. Shared Value, as I learned in my Business Decisions and Creating Shared Value course taught by Dr. Ravi Subramanian at Georgia Tech, is “policies and operating practices that enhance the competitiveness of a company while simultaneously advancing economic and social conditions in the communities in which it operates. Shared value creation focuses on identifying and expanding the connections between societal and economic progress” (“Creating Shared Value” by Michael E. Porter & Mark R. Kramer). So, shared value is about creating a win-win for your business and the world. Just as “caring” is meant to create goodwill among your customers, shared value takes it a step further by giving a business incentive to “care,” taking action that creates a more sustainable business model and creates goodwill among your customers. But how does a business create shared value? That is where the UN could come in.
The UN has a global public network, an understanding of the most pressing issues of the world, and opportunities to get involved, all of which businesses lack. So, the UN could use their global network to help businesses expand their connections beyond the private sector and to the public sector which would be a great first step towards creating shared value. Then, the UN could help businesses identify the issues going on in the world that are most detrimental to their supply chain and provide them with ideas on how to get involved to tackle those issues. This would be the next step toward helping businesses create shared value because it provides a direct way for companies to get involved and improve their communities while also giving them an incentive to stay involved because it is improving their supply chain and business operations. For example, COVID-19 has been a major disruptor to businesses’ supply chains, and it has also been a very important matter at the UN. For-profit businesses could have done more to help the UN to raise funds for and distribute vaccines across the world which would help the global community while also limiting variability and stabilizing demand for these businesses around the world.
Just as many businesses utilize too many words and not enough action, this same issue can be seen at the UN. A lot is discussed, but not enough is done. From my time here at the UN, I have come to believe this is because many people holding positions inside the UN are figureheads with insufficient authority given to them by their country. I am not saying they do not want to do more. They may even hold the same ideals as I do when it comes to what the UN could truly be if the countries of the world just bought in, but, unfortunately, some member countries have not bought in sufficiently. So, the UN remains a symbol more than a tool because it does not always have the power needed to take action. This is where businesses could come in.
Corporations have large private networks, deep pockets of funds, and relatively unrestrained authority over their actions. The UN currently relies on sometimes finicky governments for resources which then may choose to withhold these resources at any time. Businesses could become a new supplier of these resources to the UN, and they would be willing to be that supplier for the aforementioned reasons regarding how the UN would also benefit them. In addition to being a new resource for the UN, their work with businesses could also instigate governments to work closer with and provide more authority to the UN due to public criticism. If for-profit businesses did begin to provide these resources to the UN, the UN would have considerably more power and ability to implement their assistance around the world. For example, COVID-19 has been a major crisis that the UN has been trying to address for over a year now, and, as previously mentioned, it has been a major problem for businesses’ as well. Had the UN approached for-profit businesses and incentivized them to fund and distribute vaccines around the world, then the UN could have possibly finished responding to this pandemic by now and even made headway on creating preventative procedures for future global pandemics.
I believe the UN and the business world have much to offer each other. Businesses could enable the UN to take more initiative and bring about legitimate change in the world while the UN could enable businesses to create shared value and thus a more sustainable business model. “Capitalism is an unparalleled vehicle for meeting human needs, improving efficiency, creating jobs, and building wealth. But a narrow conception of capitalism has prevented business from harnessing its full potential to meet society’s broader challenges,” (“Creating Shared Value” by Michael E. Porter & Mark R. Kramer). Avoiding this narrow conception is why businesses and the UN should intersect in even greater measure to help spur the change we all want to see in the world.
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