The Center works to increase the competitiveness and socio-environmental performance of companies. It develops insights and tools, which assist companies in creating value both for the shareholders and for society in general. Another aspect of the Center’s work is to emphasize the theme of Sustainability at the Board of Directors level, including the social and environmental considerations in organizations’ risk assessment. In collaboration with the Innovation Center at FDC, we launched an e-book entitled “Innovation: The motor of ESG” with contributions of various board members, C-level executives, and experts in ESG.
The Center continues to produce Sustainability Benchmarking Studies. In the last three years we published benchmarkings for financial institutions and Brazilian Agribusiness. The research results are used in our Global Agribusiness Academy as well as a new online course on “ESG in Brazilian Agribusiness”. The Sustainability Center, for the 11th consecutive year, coordinates the Ranking Época Negócios 360º. The ranking evaluates the biggest Brazilian companies in terms of financial performance, corporate governance, RH, innovation, sustainability, and their vision for the future. The Ranking is executed and published in a partnership with Editora Globo´s Época Negócios, a magazine of major circulation and national impact.
The Center launched a new initiative regarding impact intrapreneurship together with the following corporate partners: BASF, Vedacit, Klüber Lubrication, Nestlé, Natura, VLI and Gerdau. We produced an online course on Impact Intrapreneurship which has since 2020 trained more than 2.000 executives and has been used by the UN Global Compact. At BASF alone we challenged more than 500 participants to present pitches of shared value projects and have seen at least 6 projects being implemented.
Beyond its own workstream, the Center offers support and general assistance to FDC programmes, particularly to CEOs’ Legacy, PDC - Corporate Board Development Programme, Corporate Sustainability and the Specialisation Programme.
Meet Heiko Spitzeck, Executive Manager of the Center: