The Caux Round Table (“CRT”) has received a significant grant from Thai patrons of sustainability to convene a series of global round tables to frame an approach to the ethics of sustainable development in support of the United Nation’s initiative to adopt Sustainable Development Goals for all nations.
In September 2015, the United Nation’s General Assembly will adopt Sustainable Development Goals for the global community to succeed the Millennium Development Goals, which will expire next year. A process is underway to collect suggestions for the Sustainable Development Goals (see: http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300).
The adoption of global Sustainable Development Goals will be a milestone in the evolution of a more moral capitalism for our global community as it faces the challenges of inequalities in income and wealth distribution, growing populations and changes in our planet’s environment.
The CRT proposes in a series of small round tables to contribute to deeper appreciation of Sustainable Development Goals in two dimensions: one, on the necessity for private enterprise and free markets to responsibly contribute to higher living standards and provide revenue and new technologies for environmental stewardship; and, two, to articulate the core values of our wisdom traditions from around the world, which call for our personal and corporate support for sustainable development as an ethical ideal.
Each round table will be asked to consider the CRT’s Bangkok Agenda for a more moral capitalism, which resulted from the CRT’s 2013 Global Dialogue held in Bangkok, Thailand, in October 2013. That Global Dialogue and related conference on sustainable development drew upon the advice and insights provided by Theravada Buddhism on incorporating responsible mindfulness in free market decision-making.
The discussions at each round table will be summarized in a proceedings as written by a skilled rapporteur. The proceedings of all round tables will be condensed into a vision statement for presentation to the leadership of the United Nations and General Assembly. Each round table will follow the CRT practice of open-ended discussion, skillfully facilitated under the Chatham House rule of non-attribution.
The goal of each round table is to draw forth reactions to the Bangkok Agenda statement, along with new, insightful comments on its propositions, supplemented by the raising of additional concerns and perspectives considered germane to sustainable development by round table participants.
The theme of CRT advocacy for sustainable development is the ever present necessity of a moral capitalism to finance and achieve sustainable development with social justice in meeting the aspirations associated with human dignity through just, but robust wealth creation for the global community.
Second, the CRT hopes, by means of theses round tables, to highlight common ethical core values, which speak for sustainable development and justify a commitment to its becoming a reality.
Please send your observations and comments on this initiative to Stephen B. Young, Global Executive Director of the CRT, at: [email protected]
For further information, please contact: Erik Sande, Director of Strategic Communications for the CRT, at: [email protected]
