The purpose of SNS Sustainability Roundtable is to offer a platform for discussion of different aspects of corporate sustainability with participation of leading international experts.


The three-year program aims to provide the leadership of participating member companies with the latest knowledge from research and best practices in the field. Internationally prominent experts and scholars, often also involved in the development of new standards, guidelines and practices, highlights the latest trends and give guidance on how companies can react to developments.

Each meeting focuses on a specific sustainability theme, where a corporate case is as always presented and discussed.

For each theme the following activities are arranged:

  • Roundtable discussions for CEO, deputy CEO and members of the Board of Directors
  • Discussion seminars for senior executives in charge of sustainability issues

Meetings

The Board’s Role and Responsibility for Sustainable Business

Dialogue with Robert G. Eccles, Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business School, and leading researcher on integrated reporting. He is also a member of the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), and the founding Chairman of Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB). The meeting took place in November 2014.
Discussant: Erik Thedéen, State Secretary, Ministry for Finance

Business and Human Rights

Meeting with John Ruggie, Harvard Professor, and UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights for many years. In June 2011 the United Nations Human Rights Council endorsed the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights (also known as “the Ruggie Principles”). The meeting took place in December 2014.
Discussants:
Maria Stareborn, Communication Director, Unilever Sverige
Michael Treschow, Chairman of the Board, Unilever
Mark Tylor, Research Coordinator, Fafo Institute for Labour and Social Research

Sustainability, Investors and Investment Practices

Professor Gordon L. Clark, Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, with cross-appointments at the Saïd Business School and the School of Geography and the Environment, Oxford University, visited SNS Sustainability Roundtable. The meeting took place in February 2015.
Discussant: Christopher Greenwald, Head of Sustainability Investing Research, RobecoSAM

Sustainability Reporting

The coming trends in Sustainability Reporting were discussed in a meeting with Michael Meehan, CEO of Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). The meeting took place in May 2015.
Discussants:
Mala Chakraborti, Vice President of Corporate Responsibility, Atlas Copco
Kirsten Margrethe Hovi, Head of Viability Reporting, Norsk Hydro

Leadership and Responsible Business Practices

Leadership and the greatest challenges concerning responsible business practices were discussed in a meeting with Georg Kell, founder and former Executive Director of the UN Global Compact. The meeting took place in October 2015.
Discussants:
Michaela Ahlberg, Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer, TeliaSonera Group
Sarah McPhee, Chairman of the Board, SNS, and previously CEO, SPP

The Financial System and Sustainable Development

The growing trend of incorporating sustainability factors into the rules that govern the financial system were discussed with Simon Zadek, Co-Director of UNEP (United Nations Environment Program) Inquiry into the Design of a Sustainable Financial System. The meeting took place in February 2016.
Discussants:
Viveka Hirdman-Ryrberg, Head of Group Communications, SEB
Peter Branner, Head Investment Management, SEB

Improving Labor Standards in Global Supply Chains

Richard M. Locke, Provost of Brown University and Professor of Political Science and Public and International Affairs, highlighted the latest and future developments on global value chains and compliance programs to enforce social performance standards. The meeting took place in June 2016.
Discussants:
Erica Wiking Häger, Partner, Mannheimer Swartling, and Member of the Board, H&M
Ian Spaulding, CEO, Elevate Global Limited

Aligning Sustainable Development Goals with Business Practice

Albena Melin, Principal Operations Officer in the Thought Leadership Unit at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), World Bank Group, talked about the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the role of business. The meeting took place in October 2016.
Discussants:
Charlotte Petri Gornitzka, Chair, OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC)
Malin Ripa, Senior Vice President CSR Management, Volvo Group
Kristina Schauman, Partner, Calea, and Member of the Board, Skandia

Internal and External Carbon Pricing: Opportunities and Challenges

John Ward, Managing Director at Vivid Economics, spoke about internal and external carbon pricing and the implications it has for business. Among other things, Mr. Ward described how the internal carbon pricing is becoming an increasingly widespread corporate trend as the world transitions to a low carbon economy. The meeting took place in March 2017.

Sustainable global supply chains – working with global labour

Jyrki Raina, former General Secretary of IndustriALL Global Union, talked about how to make global supply chains sustainable. He identified Global Framework Agreements (GFA) as a tool for risk management throughout complex global supply chains. The meeting took place in April 2017.

Discussant:
Sofia Östmark, Ambassador and Coordinator for the Global Deal Initiative, Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

Extractive Industries and Sustainability

How to promote the open and accountable management of oil, gas and mineral resources was discussed in a meeting with Jonas Moberg, Head of The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), an international transparency standard. The meeting took place in September 2017.
Discussants:
Christine Batruch, Vice President Corporate Responsibility at Lundin Petroleum
Fredrik Reinfeldt, former Prime Minister of Sweden and Chairman of the EITI board

Environmental impact – the role and responsibility of business

Paul Dickinson, founder and Executive Chair of CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) spoke of the importance to disclose. CDP’s global disclosure system enables companies, cities, states and regions to measure and manage their environmental impacts and make better-informed decisions. The meeting took place in May 2018.
Discussants:
Gustav Martinsson, Associate Professor in Financial Economics at Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), and Project Manager of the Governance research group at Mistra Financial Systems
Sarah McPhee, Chair of the Board of AP4 (Fourth Swedish National Pension Fund) and SNS


Participating companies

AMF, E.ON Sverige, EQT, Första AP-fonden, Fjärde AP-fonden, Handelsbanken, LKAB, Nordea, SEB, Skandia, Stora Enso, Storebrand SPP, Tredje AP-fonden and Volvo Group.

Duration

Three years. Started 2014.

Project manager

Mia Horn af Rantzien, CEO of SNS, +46-8-507 025 48, miah@sns.se

contact

Julia Nederberg, Project Manager, +46 790-98 13 33, julia.nederberg@sns.se