The fourth SharingValueAsia summit brought together over 200 representatives from corporate, government and not-for-profit organisations to analyse the benefits that partnerships and shared value models can bring in helping organisations reach their goals, whilst simultaneously meeting societies economic and environmental needs.
The summit, developed by the PublicAffairsAsia network, is the region’s leading forum to encourage profit-focused shared value partnership between business, civil society and government. This year, the purpose was to analyse the benefits of using partnership and shared value models to both encourage long term business growth and simultaneously tackle some of the most intractable social, environmental and economic problems.
Interactive plenary sessions and breakout labs provided the perfect environment for best practices to be discussed and thought provoking questions to be answered. The sessions addressed what the key drivers for shared value initiatives are, the value proposition of different approaches, how to maximise and measure the impact of initiatives and also the implications of legislative intervention would have on Asia’s social sector.
Additionally, keynote speakers and panels discussed misunderstandings regarding motivations and methods of creating shared value as well as how to measure and report the effectiveness of initiatives. AVPN’s CEO Naina Subberwal Batra spoke on a panel discussing the reasons behind why corporations take different approaches to partnership and sustainability, providing key information from her own experience in the philanthropic sector.
Although much was taken from the summit and the discussions were very much open to interpretation, ultimately it indicated that treating social issues as business objectives can lead to endless opportunities for innovation and growth for both organisations and society – essential information in an era where consumers, governments and regulators increasingly demand, “profit with a purpose”.