History

Saturday, February 26th, 2010 marked the closing of the 8th Annual Doing Good and Doing Well Conference at IESE Barcelona. Organized by IESE’s MBA students, this year’s conference asked its 640 attendees to question What is the New Bottom Line? for organizations driving change in the 21st century. With over 150 panel speakers bringing diverse experience from both for-profit and non-profit perspectives, professionals and students alike were challenged to re-think how to lead business beyond models that only focus on financial returns. This year’s DGDW Conference was its most diverse in history, with students from over 45 international schools attending, and a total of over 75 nationalities represented by its attendees. The conference was used as a platform to gain insight into the social, environmental and economical challenges business and organizations are facing today, as well as an opportunity to network and to explore new career opportunities.

The 2010 Doing Good and Doing Well Conference, hosted in partnership with IESE Business School, challenged more than 680 attendees to explore how socially responsible organizations and companies can go from “Niche to Mass Market.” More than 100 speakers shared their perspectives on how businesses can scale their organizations successfully and the challenges they face in growing their operations.

The conference drew a diverse audience of professionals and students representing 70 nationalities and 23 Net Impact chapters, including students from nearly every major business school in Europe. Over two days, attendees expanded their networks, explored career opportunities, and gained insights from our distinguished speakers.

In 2009, the conference had a record participation with over 650 participants. The conference had a special focus on how the current economic downturn is impacting social and environmental efforts driven by business. Speakers shed light on both the effects and the prognosis for responsible business in their sectors including finance, healthcare and energy. They also shared their advice on how to continue to make progress and perhaps even create new business models and approaches better suited to sustainable development in all market conditions.

The conference had a record participation with over 450 participants and over 40 speakers. The conference was opened by keynote speaker Daniel Garcia Guelbenzu, GE Regional VP Western Europe, highlighting the role of established corporations in the area. It was closed by a round-table discussion that gave answers as well as new questions for the coming 2009 conference on the question,” Is Capitalism Evolving?”

For the first time in DGDW’s history, the Cleantech Venture Seminar was set up to facilitate investments in start-ups that improve the productive use of natural resources. In addition a separate Responsible Careers Forum was held for prospective employers and employees.

The 2007 “Doing Good and Doing Well” conference confirmed that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has moved from marginal interest to mainstream business reality. Reflecting industry trends, a major thread running through this year’s conference was the environment, with numerous panels on nuclear energy, climate change, wind power, fuel cells and the hydrogen economy, as well as a keynote address on sustainable energy. The former executive director of the Business Council for the United Nations shared his personal experiences of getting business people and policymakers to sit down together, share ideas and then implement practical solutions, in order to meet the UN Millennium Development Goals, an ambitious plan to halve world poverty by 2015.

The conference was opened by Mark Goyder, Director of Tomorrow’s Company who gave his keynote speech on “The Modern Company and Social Responsibility”. The conference was organized around five broad themes: Bottom of the Pyramid, Social Entrepreneurship, Corporate Social Responsibility, The Role of Business in Development, and the Environment. More than fifty speakers from around the world came to share their ideas on these issues in the two day conference. Interactive panel discussions were held on topics ranging from fuel cell development to running your business for high social impact.

This year’s conference had the main theme of the Bottom of the Pyramid. The keynote speaker was Dr. Muhammad Yunus, Founder and Managing Director of Grameen Bank. Dr. Yunus had recently won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to help eradicate poverty through microfinance.

The conference, still in its early stages, was organized with the aim of better understanding the role MBA students can play in corporate social responsibility. The keynote speaker was Dr. Mark Albion, who is one of the founding members of Net Impact. He came to share his thoughts on value-based businesses.