What Do We Owe Each Other? Part 4: Business as a Global Force for Good

Sanda Ojiambo, Assistant Secretary-General, CEO, and Executive Director of the United Nations Global Compact, discusses Business as a Global Force for Good with Anne Thompson ’79, Chief Environmental Affairs Correspondent for NBC News.

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Transcript

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Welcome to our second session of this very special Notre Dame Forum as part of the inauguration of Reverend Robert A. Dowd, CSC, the University of Notre Dame's 18th president. my name is Megan Sullivan. I'm the Wilsey College family professor of philosophy and the founding director of Notre Dame's Institute for Ethics and the Common Good. I'll be your host and emcee today. We have been reflecting on the theme for this year's Notre Dame Forum. What do we owe each other? We just had the opportunity for a fascinating conversation with Arvind Krishna. The CEO of IBM on the future of responsible technology. now, we're turning our focus to business as a global force for good. With special guest, Sanda Ojiambo. Assistant Secretary General, CEO, and Executive Director of the United Nations Global Compact. please submit any questions you have using the QR code that will be on the screen We will respond to as many as possible during our time together. We're also very pleased to be hosting this fireside chat in partnership with the Notre Dame Deloitte Center for Ethical Leadership. I am now honored to welcome our moderator Anne Thompson, NBC News Chief Environmental Affairs Correspondent. Anne's reports appear across all platforms of NBC News, including NBC Nightly News, the Today Show, and MSNBC, with notable coverage including Pope Francis Papal Tour, the United States China climate deal, and the BP oil spill. Before being named an NBC News correspondent, Anne had been an award winning general assignment reporter for WDIV TV, the NBC affiliate in Detroit, where she worked for several years. Anne is a Notre Dame graduate and currently serves on the University's Board of Trustees. Thank you so much for being with us today, and Anne, I will turn it over to you to introduce our special guest. Megan, thank you very much. Sanda, it's so good to have you here. This is your second visit to the university? It is indeed. has much changed in a year? Well, I'll get to that in the questions, but I just, I get a real sense of optimism and desire to solve. So I always enjoy being here. Sanda has given so much of her time already this morning, meeting with our students and talking about The UN Global Compact and sustainability and how business can be a force for good. let me give the audience a little bit about her personal history. Sanda was born in Kenya. She was educated at McGill University in Canada, where she got her undergraduate degree in economics and international development. She got her master's from the University of Minnesota in public policy. Then she embarked on a career working in both the public and private sector for some two decades. And all of that led her to where she is today as the CEO and Executive Director of the UN Global Compact. the UN Global Compact has more than 20, 000 businesses signed on, and it extends over 160 countries. That's quite the reach. So, first of all, for those who may not know, please tell us, what is the UN Global Compact? Absolutely. the UN Global Compact, or UNGC as we call it, is a part of the United Nations and works distinctly with business. many of you will know the UN as an organization that brings together 193 countries around the world, but none of those countries function without a vibrant and ideally, hopefully prosperous private sector. Thank you. So the Global Compact works with businesses, to just make sure that they're sustainable, that they're ethical, that they're doing good business. We have a set of 10 business principles founded on human rights, labor, the environment, and anti corruption. We believe those are fundamental to any business functioning well. what do we do? We build platforms for business leaders to sit with government and advocate for sustainable business and economies. We work with small and medium enterprises to build resiliency We work on issues such as living wage, how to decarbonize rapidly, how to bridge inequalities and a whole wide range of areas, of course, since 2015, with the advent of the sustainable development goals. We look to see how businesses need to change their processes and their operations to contribute to the goals. Because when the goals were founded, it was for government, civil society, business, and the United Nations to sit together to solve these pressing problems. So that's some of the exciting stuff that we do at the UN Global Compact. So what are the goals that the Global Compact has set out for businesses? there's a couple of things. first of all, need to do more. We're very clear that things work better with the collective. We are a membership based organization, and we know that the more we can recruit forward thinking and forward doing business leaders to our vision and our goals will do better. But we also have some very practical KPIs. if I look at the area of climate, how rapidly can you decarbonize? How fast you embracing and investing in green energy or renewable energy solutions? What are you doing to bridge inequalities? What do you do to make sure that workers have not just a minimum wage, but a living wage? What does it look like when you have good and fair gender representation, not only at the shop floor, but certainly in leadership and management? What are you doing around water resiliency and water stewardship? So we ask this sort of big macro questions. We aim to raise ambition. We want to challenge business leaders to do more and do better. But most importantly, they need to do this in concert with government and policymakers. It really does take us sitting around the table to be able to move and solve for some of these big issues. Is this essentially what you're trying to do is build bridges and pathways so no one business just thinks it has to do it on its own, that there is a support system? Absolutely. And I think the challenges and the opportunities that we face today. are very different from when business or the corporation started. business leaders now are solving for issues such as climate change. They're solving for issues such as how to do business in such a fractured geopolitical world. They're solving for that kind of stuff and you can't do that sitting in isolation. No government can, and certainly no business can, a lot of it is about, the power of the collective and how we get to sit around the table together. I don't take that lightly because now more than ever the world is so fractured. We see political fractures, we see business fractures, we see societal fractures. So the simple act of sitting together to solve doesn't always happen easily. How can business help solve the world's greatest issues? Challenges at the scale and pace the world needs. if we knew that, things would be radically different. there's a couple of things I want to unpack there. First, the awareness that business or the business of business really isn't business as was said years ago, it's really about solving society's complexities. And if you can do that while you make money and while you build a customer base and while you hopefully. Figure out how to use our natural resources in a sustainable way, then that's great. But how can business solve? a couple of things. I have great respect for, how philanthropy and impact investment has helped solve. I see an extra boost of energy around businesses changing their operations, their processes, and how things work to drive forward on the goals that, that is one. So, shifting business operations. We also need strong business leadership. you can't take away the voice of the CEO in today's complex world. I think that's really important. We also know businesses or rather big business specifically to look at what the role of the small and medium enterprises. most of our economies drive and are driven by the SME sector, but I think it's probably only in the COVID pandemic era that we realized the fragility of that sector and the lack of resilience. So. I don't think we can solve if we're not bringing along the SME sector, if we're not building resiliency, if we're not being sure that workers in these smaller enterprises have access to capital, to innovation and continued access to markets. So there's a couple of ways, but for me, it's, CEOs having a voice and advocating for what's good, building resiliency downstream. And I think really doing good and sustainable business. The UN Global Compact has some lofty goals. You want to address human rights. You want to address climate change. where can business make the most immediate impact today? For example, the UN has sustainability goals for 2030. What can business do today that will encourage other businesses to reach those goals in 2030? it's a complex question because the way that the goals were designed, and I'm wearing the little pin here, is that there's 17 goals and they're all intertwined. And the fact is that, no one goal will trump the other. they're all interrelated. we can't only solve for climate or energy when we have poverty and hunger. We can't solve for water. when we're not addressing the other. So I know it doesn't necessarily lend to an easy answer because we need to move all 17 goals along. one of the taglines when the goals are founded is, leave no one behind, leave no goal behind. But I think that's perhaps a simpler way to look at it. And we've looked at it in the form of, six transitions. So areas that are really important for moving forward, specifically, if you look at where the world is now, as opposed to 2015. the first piece is on climate and energy. we're grappling with a climate crisis, we're grappling with the fragility of the oil and gas industry, we are optimistic for what the green and the renewable energy industry looks like, I think the second is food systems, so agriculture and food, because if we don't address food security, We will be in another crisis if you don't address climate, you won't be able to address food. everything is interlinked. then there's some forward looking pieces, like the digital transition. Maybe we didn't think about it back in 2015 or 2000, certainly, but there's so much that happens in the digital transition in terms of the future of work, the future of jobs. How we deal with data and intelligence, ties back to climate and energy. there's another transition area around jobs and skilling. What does that look like? And then there's underpinned by global governance. Because without strong institutions, we'll never be able to do any of the other pieces equitably. I honestly can't answer that question. it's trying to choose your favorite child or sibling because they really have to move together. it's not a simple answer, but I feel we need to move along with all of the goals. I think my biggest concern is, if you looked at how much investment has gone into goals that represent public goods that generally have no commercial value. So water, oceans, et cetera, continue to be the least invested in goals. We can see clear business cases on energy and climate. Investment is flowing towards those. Why is water such a difficult thing to get people to look at? Without water, you can't live. I have a couple of theories. I think we have failed to put a price on water. humankind moves where there's a number. Is there a price to it? Is there an opportunity cost? water isn't seen as the finite resource that it is. Politically and very interestingly, it was just last year in 2023. That we had the second World Water Conference, a water conference had not been held for 47 years. it shows you that whereas we have a climate conference every year, we have a, Human Rights Council meeting. We just haven't done that for water. the world met for the first time in 47 years last year to talk about how to manage at a global perspective, this resource called water. So there's some political challenges there, but I think there's also some pure How do we value water? What is the laws and jurisdictions around water and oceans are sorely lacking, but are beginning to take a space and place a lot more? What does it play out at? That there's millions of people in the world who just don't have access to safe drinking water. We have water sources that are polluted and it happens everywhere in the world from Tokyo to LA to Syria to, my home country of Kenya. We're all struggling with water. Well, it happened a couple of hundred miles down the road here. In Toledo, there was an algae bloom a couple of years ago in Lake Erie, and it polluted the water. to your point on water, in Laudato Si, Pope Francis Encyclical on the Environment, he said that clean water is a human right, and it is so basic, I think it's something we take for granted here in the United States. so how do we make sure that everyone has access to clean water? Do you have to turn it into a business or is it a role that government and business can do together? I think it's something that government and business need to do together. governments need to set the policy frameworks, the enabling environment, business can come in and look at issues such as distribution, but you need the two working in tandem. Things like water. before, I worked at the UN and Sunnene Corporate actually worked in the development sector. I worked at Care International and many others. sometimes I was at the frontline of community projects where we were looking at issues such as access, how does the community decide this is a time for women and girls to come and fetch water, which in and of itself is a problem because it's only the women and girls walking hours to fetch water. versus how much time do you spend on using that water for agriculture or for, livestock use and many others. the problem solving starts from the top to the bottom. it is a basic human right. I think, again, if you look at Pope Francis said it, I didn't. I'm sorry, but both said it. But where do we fall short? Where does the problem start in how national budgets are determined? governments will still spend more on defense. They may spend more on XYZ. We just don't spend enough on water and water infrastructure. it's the perfect case for business to come in and say, what are the strategic investments we can make in water infrastructure to get us there? Well, and think about it, if you provide access to clean water, that helps lift people out of poverty. It helps with, the gender issues, It makes your whole society better. You lift everybody else. Let me ask you this. How do you determine what's a success at the UN Global Compact? What are your metrics for success? So Father Oli's sitting in here. He's on our board. let me just thank Father Oli for his years of support for the Global Compact and sitting on our board. Thank you so much for that. I appreciate it. Yeah. so what does success look like? at a United Nations that wants to see the private sector work more in tandem with the UN and government. For me, and some of the success will play out in just two weeks, we have the UN General Assembly that's happening in New York City where we bring together governments, but it's making sure the private sector is at the table, not simply because you need the financing on the investment. But because we agree that private sector is important in creating solutions that will solve a lot of the world's problems. So for me, that's really important, the inclusion of it. It doesn't always happen easy because, to be honest, there's some countries, some governments that are terrified of corporate capture or the influence that the large corporate can have on the world. On the multilateral world, because there are some corporates whose P& L and, revenues are much bigger than the GDPs of single economies. So how do we strike that balance where business is seen as a force for good, and not one that is simply there to promote its own interests? So for me, the inclusion of business when it matters is absolutely important for that. The second for me is to be able to have business leaders, use our platform to advocate, for issues that are important to business, but also important for society. The third is to build a cohort of more responsible, resilient, and competitive businesses. So, it's not enough to simply say to a business, come join us to help us solve the world's problems. Businesses need to also do good business, so the two have to coexist. that leads me to the next question, because for a lot of businesses, I see the UN Global Compact and it's I can be a good citizen, but I can still do the not so good things that I'm doing, and what's called greenwashing. it's where businesses say one thing but do another. how do you avoid that? How do you keep the global compact from becoming something that is good only in name if there's one thing that keeps you awake at night, it's that. we did say we're a membership organization. no business is perfect what we look for in the Global Compact is progress. are you doing more this year than you did last year? if you weren't great on your, decarbonization, have you set targets that are validated by science and are you moving forward on it? what are you doing around your workers minimum and living wage? What are you doing on building SME resilience? what stance do you take when there's human rights violations, we know there's an end state, but even the goalposts for that end state will change over time. what was great business 20, 40 years ago is not great business now. progress is the best way to look at it. But the greenwashing piece, is pretty serious. I know there's lots of concerns around that. If you look at the EU, for example, there's a, a plethora of regulation coming up to keep business in check. I think the questions you ask is regulation is great. Compliance is great. But, we can't only react to laws and regulations. We need to be able to do business inherently. Here in this country, I think there is a natural reluctance to, regulation, especially from the business standpoint. It is just not part of who we are. let us go do the thing and we'll be okay. So how do you encourage businesses to do the right thing? Without putting up so many guardrails that they can't do anything. it's quite the dance between, business policy and regulations. I think first an agreement on what the right thing is. So, I think it's to encourage government to see what the right thing is. when things are tough, we've got to be sure that we're solving for the same thing. what's the problem we're trying to solve as we put this regulation in place? Do we see it in a way that is not a zero sum game, that you can win, and I can win, and hopefully society can win, is the way that I think would be the ideal piece around regulation. Sometimes you have to regulate because there's poor behavior that needs to be put in check. And I think that's been important for climate, it's been important for a couple of other things. And then it's really important to be able to set, a global framework, lift the floor on some of the things that are just not generally good business or policy practice at all. incentives need to be in the right place, but I think we also need to be sure that we are all collectively lifting this good business behavior forward. So you reward that good business behavior. If you can reward it, that's absolutely great. What are the biggest obstacles to achieving the goals you've set out in the Global Compact? Where do you Get the most pushback? Probably get the most pushback because we have a business model that on the face of it, Look successful, but the long term isn't. And I think sometimes it's very hard to convince people, irrespective of where they lie in the business continuum, large and successful businesses or emerging businesses that we actually need to stop because there's one world and the resources are finite. So that for me is one of the biggest challenges. many times people will ask. show me the evidence. Show me the business case. Tell me that decarbonizing now is important and not in 20 years. Show me that if I don't offer a standard wage or a living wage, my workers will leave. there's not enough of those cases because quite frankly, In a world that is so polarized with inequalities, sometimes there's not enough of a business case to demonstrate why it's important to do good. I think for me that is the first thing, and there's not enough documentation around that. The second, I don't think we always have the most robust policy frameworks to drive this forward. And I think, with more work and thinking around what it is that we're putting policy and legislation in place for, not only at a national level, but at a collective level, we could definitely solve some of those bigger challenges. For the Global Compact, we continue to grow. we have doubled our membership over the last four years, from about 12, 000 to close to 22, 000. What do we hear most from people? They're like, we want to do this, but it takes a lot. I have a CEO of one of the largest energy companies in Europe. And he just said, look, if I'm to balance the principle led work, which I think is important for a CEO, with the growing regulation in the EU, with the growing regulation in Latin America where I work, it's a heavy investment in people. He says, I'm going to do it because I have the resources to do it, but I don't know that everybody will. what are the trade offs that you need to make as a leader of a corporation in that regard? I think in the sustainability sector, there was initial reluctance because the thought was, you can't make a profit. And, transition to clean energy. and that's not the case. That's not the case. the energy in the climate space is, a really strong space to start moving on what a good business case looks like. it's there. we're all alive to the fact that resources in this area, will not last us forever. It's more difficult when you look at trying to bridge inequalities because, business by and large is doing business with just 1 percent of the world. There's 99 percent of, from a consumer perspective, that's generally not your customer, because they can't really afford high value goods, high value parts of the economy, and, we couldn't do better by creating product lines that really cater to the person. That lives on a dollar a day or two dollars a day. They all have the same aspiration. Everybody wants to, use toothpaste. Everybody wants to have a good meal at night. Everybody wants to watch some TV. But a lot of products are priced out of that. they want education for their kids. They live in a safe neighborhood. They put good clean, healthy food on the We're not all that different are we? Human beings are really the same around the world. They really are. Let me ask you, because we are here at Notre Dame and we're in the business of educating the next generation of leaders. How do we ensure that this generation that's in school now is equipped to handle the crises that we can see in the world today, and more importantly, the crises that we can't see? That question gets asked to me everywhere, and it was asked to me about two hours ago with the students that I sat with what is so impressive is that young people today are not asking questions about today, they're really asking about the future. What's the future of work? how are we going to apply technology to what's happening? What's going to happen, 10, 20 years from now, how will we co exist as societies, and I think they're a really set of important questions. business schools, education around the world, I think has a huge challenge and opportunity ahead of us because there's so much unknown about the world. When I was talking to the students earlier today a lot of them were asking for practical career advice, what should I do? Then statistics tell us that pretty much half of the jobs they're going to in the next 20, 30 years, don't even exist now. how do we navigate this uncertainty, keep minds open, keep minds inquiring, but keep minds, in a global perspective where they're ready to embrace the world. Embrace the uncertainty that exists and actually embrace human society because my biggest worry is the breakdown of the fundamentals of human society and relationships and the risk of looking inward at everything that we do and not embracing the world, yet we share all of the same resources. So, I think schools have an important opportunity to talk about sustainability, to keep global perspectives on top of the agenda, continue to grow inquisitive minds. But also, I think, to demonstrate that business can really be a force of good, because, people may be entrepreneurs, they may be business leaders, they might work in civic society, but, there will always be, business driving the economy. So how do you educate a business leader to be a force for good? Is it ethics? Is it philosophy? I assume it's not accounting, but what? Look, now you've offended all the accountants in the room. Sorry, accountants. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. how do you educate a business leader, to do good? we have a program at the Global Compact called PRIME, the Program for Responsible Management Education. For about 20 years, we've been looking with close to 800 universities as to how business leadership or business management education needs to change, to be in tandem with. The problems that we're solving. Last year, we did a survey and asked about 2000 CEOs, how well equipped they felt to deal with the challenges that we've gone through in the last four years. A hundred percent of them, North, South, East, West, large companies, small companies said they felt totally unequipped. there is a huge opportunity, to revamp what business education looks like, because if we want better business leaders, we really need to be able to do that. What's totally impressed me about being here, and I sat with students earlier, all of them students of business and other areas, is the combinations that they're doing, finance and political science, real estate and sustainability, human rights, I just think it's that, looking at the multidisciplinary ways that you can address business and be in business, will be absolutely key. When we asked CEOs a year ago, what are the top 10 issues that keep you awake at night? None of them were business It was how to deal with the climate crisis, how to deal with inequality, what to do with the workforce that is polarized around issues such as women, right? What to do to address race relations, et cetera. Honestly, the top 10 geopolitics, you know what to do when borders are closing. Nobody mentioned business in its purest sense at all. we have some questions from the audience, and first of all, let me start here. Education is a pathway out of poverty, but teachers in many countries do not receive a living wage. What is the Global Compact doing to engage business to support teachers and education around the world? we work in education, but not in the way that the question is phrased, Poverty, as I mentioned, we work around. with a set of business schools, 800 schools around the world, to look at how we can change business management education. So not anything that I engage with directly, but I could take it from the angle of perhaps what the United Nations does as a whole. Last year we held the Transforming Education Summit globally to look at how we need to transform education, the entire education system from top to bottom. And in there was teachers, the important role they play, the wages they receive, the respect they should have, the amount of investment that needs to go into the teacher. in the U. S. we have seen some pushback against investing with the environmental, social and governance framework. How do you respond to the skeptics of your work? This question comes up all the time in the context of the U. S. and it is very, context specific because it's not the case in Europe, Asia and Latin America. our take on the ESG pushback is it does have, a lot of political, wins behind it as well. at the most fundamental base, the question that the average American is asking is my pension safe? I've worked the shop floor for 30 years. I want to be sure that I'll be able to, Get my money out, pay for my kids education, et cetera. it's a fundamental question that we would all ask. I just think it's been polarized and politicized. the lack of belief in the climate crisis, lack of belief in a desire to invest in communities and social cohesion, has challenged. A lot of, ESG funds and those investment opportunities. What do we do? We continue to keep our eye on it because we believe it's absolutely important. We have a country chapter in the U. S. that works actively with U. S. businesses. We sit with policy makers to talk about the importance of ESG. We link ESG to the sustainable development goals because we think there are key, winds that can move us along a huge tailwind. most of all, we hope that in a couple of, seasons, we will get back to ESG and ESG investing. they are intertwined. we can't solve for the environmental without a socially cohesive society. And we certainly need better governance around our institutions. It's a tough hill right now but there's a lot more people that believe in ESG than don't. there's just a lot more noise by the skeptics. we need to push more around what is good within ESG. We don't hear enough about that. some people look at ESG and think it's some kind of socialist program as opposed to what businesses can do good. So let's focus on that. this is a lovely question. You are a leadership role model for so many. Do you have any suggestions for young women in particular? looking to work in the sustainability and development fields. Sure, just do it. No, that's a simple answer. Look, I think, young women around the world, can work in any field. What keeps me most anxious is seeing the low number of women, in STEM, science, technology, engineering, and maths, I think there's a real strong investment that needs to be done in that. The signals that we give, the mentorship that can happen in there, and the opportunities that we create. I'll just give you a quick anecdote because I did work in the telecommunications industry before. we had to set up Safari. com, which is a telco operator in Kenya, one of I talked to young women and say, why don't we have enough women engineers? Because I was running the sustainability docket. And had to look at inclusivity. I said to them, we had to go back to high school and sponsor girls in science and tech mentor them through university and get them into the workplace. And they said, Because we've just never seen a woman engineer, we've never seen a woman in a hard hat, climbing up a base station or doing whatever at the same time, yet looking elegant in her dress and heels later and being a great mom, daughter, sister, however you want to see her. that underscored the importance of role models of mentorship because they exist. anytime we can give a hand up to a young girl or woman and that hand can be from a male or a female, it's not only women that need to mentor other women. I think we'll just change that. they just hadn't seen enough of what it was that they were aspiring to and you can't really become what you haven't seen. Our world has so many problems now. We have the war in Gaza. We have the war in Ukraine. We have the war in Sudan. So what role can small business play in making an impact on world issues? small businesses play such an important part in economies, SMEs drive economies. In the U. S. it thrives on small business, as does Japan, as does, many other economies. So I would say, I think, first of all, understanding the value they give to society in terms of creating jobs, in terms of providing incomes, truly really important, holding communities together. I think where the challenge lies is embracing issues such as sustainability or the goals because small business owners tell us it's a lot to take on, I see a huge responsibility and opportunity by the multinational, the large corporate to help build that resilience and make sure that they can access, capital, markets, technology, innovation, to keep them alive and well. But again, small businesses are so fundamental to the functioning of society. if there's a political environment that needs to create it for them to thrive, then so be it. We saw it in the pandemic. I was sitting in Kenya at the time and the pandemic broke out. I remember, this huge challenge that arose because, everyone had moved their production lines to producing sanitizer. But, the widget that you put in the pump was in short supply. So here we are trying to think, how are we going to safely, sanitize our hands yet you can't pump correctly. And there lay the lesson in how important the small business is because they were producing that widget. Without that piece, the sanitizer doesn't work. finally, how do you maintain, we said over 20, 000 companies across 160 countries So, in our polarized world, how do you maintain unity within your organization? The simple answer actually is we don't. And I think it's, I don't know if there's unity in Notre Dame either, but I think what's really important is understanding different people's perspectives. and figuring out what you can do to solve when there's a crisis or when people aren't seeing eye to eye. I embrace challenge. I love feedback and critique when people say this isn't working. for me, an intellectually unified organization would trouble me. because then perhaps we're not being as ambitious as we need to be. the unity that I would love to have is a unity around Humanity and just respecting the human being, trying to make the world a better place, but I'm for any other type of disunity because it will help us have a conversation and really understand what's going wrong. And I don't say that lightly. I just say that I think it's great to have voices of dissent within an organization. It's great to have people who challenge your perspectives. and get you to think better and different. I've always thought that questioning is a great thing. it's not a source of anger, it's a source of interest and it is also a source of growth. Absolutely. Finally, I want to ask you the question that Father Bob has posed for all of us. What do we owe each other? I think we owe each other three things. We owe each other solidarity. we all live in one world. That world looks very different depending on where you sit and stand, I'm testament to that. I have lived and worked in New York for the last four years. Prior to that I worked on the African continent. My grandparents grew up in a very rural African village where my mother was one of those that walked. kilometers to fetch water. but she ended up in Harvard doing her PhD and, educated all of us. the solidarity, is when the world is one. we owe each other, The thought that we live in one world, and the world will not prosper if only one part of the world prospers. just understanding we're all in it together. I think we owe each other empathy. We come at the world from very different angles, and I think taking that moment to sit in someone's shoes is very important. we owe each other compassion. We've all been through difficult times, and understanding that we're at a fragile place as human beings, as society, As communities will take us forward. Now we owe that to each other, and political leaders owe that to all of us. there needs to be accountability in all ways. if we all start practicing solidarity, empathy, and compassion, our world will be a better place, and it shows that business can be a force for good. Sanda Ojiambo, thank you so much for spending your time today. I want to thank ASG Ojiambo and Anne for an extraordinary second session and continuing and expanding our conversation and for coming to be with us here to celebrate the inauguration.