Business for Good: a half-day conference
at China Charity Fair, Shenzhen
2.00pm to 5.30pm on 24th September 2016
The idea of Business for Good
“Business for Good” explores the idea of how a company can create social impact alongside generating profits for shareholders, whether working alone or in partnership with an established social enterprise or innovator.
Companies such as Unilever are finding that products which have an embedded social mission are as profitable or more profitable that products purely for profit. Companies such as Vodafone have been able to develop new businesses, such as M-Pesa which brings banking services to Africa’s poorest. Companies such as JD.com use their platform to assist marginalized people by training rural entrepreneurs and then providing a platform for them to sell their goods and services.
There are just some examples of the “Business for Good” approach, which has the potential to tackle important social issues such as health, education, welfare, livelihoods and the environment at scale using their business rather than through the more traditional Corporate Social Responsibility approach.
This important half-day conference will explore the ideas of “Business for Good” and encourage business to play a greater role in addressing social and environmental challenges, and encourage innovators and non-profits to find new ways of engaging with business to address social needs and find ways of solving social and environmental problems.
This conference will be of interest to business leaders and CSR directors, philanthropy and social investment organisations, innovators, social enterprise and non-profits.
1. Introduction:
Angela Bai, Director, CASVI
Wang Zhenyao, Director, China Global Philanthropy Institute
2. Setting the scene: what is Business for Good and why this new idea is important.
Michael Norton, Professor, China Global Philanthropy Institute
3. Some case studies: why we do what we do and how we could do better
CY Yeung, formerly Intel China, to introduce and chair this session
Zhang Aili, Haier
PreranaLanga, YES Bank, India
Yu Wenchi, Goldman Sachs
Yuan Boyong, Bayer
6. Questions to speakers and panel discussion
5. Reflections and suggestions for the way forward
Cindy Shueh Lin, CEO Chunhui Children
Florian Hoffman, President, The Do School
Jennie Winhall, Director, The ALT/now programme, Banff Centre, Canada
This is a free event, and it forms a part of the “Investing for a Better World” programme being organized by CASVI in association with the YouCheng Foundation, Business Review, Asia Environmental Innovation Forum and China Global Philanthropy Institute with generous sponsorship from Bayer and others.
Two other events are linked to this conference:
Encouraging and Supporting Innovation
A one-day workshop
at China Charity Fair, Shenzhen
9.00am to 5.00pm on 25th September 2016
This workshop on Encouraging and Supporting Innovation within companies, government and social organisations will be facilitated by the Do School, a German-based organisation which promotes and supports innovation and social entrepreneurship.
Business for Good
A two-day workshop
Hangzhou, organized with Green Zhejiang
27th and 28th September 2016
This workshop will explore in greater depth some of the ideas presented at the Business for Good conference in Shenzhen with the aim of enabling participants to explore how their organisation could develop and implement the ideas of Business for Good as an extension of their commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility.
To register for any or all of these events, please contact
Huang Chunyan: christina@enablers.cn
