DBS CEO Piyush Gupta expresses support for Vision 2050 agenda

The agenda is a refresh of the first report published 10 years ago.

DBS CEO Piyush Gupta has expressed his support for the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)’s Vision 2050 agenda.

The agenda, with a foreword signed by Gupta and leaders of 41 other major global companies, lays out nine transformation pathways that aims to help improve lives, livelihoods, and protect the planet in three decades’ time.

“The pandemic has made two things very clear. Firstly, that tail risks can and will happen, and it is incumbent on us as businesses, to think proactively about how we prepare for them. Secondly, it is evident that when pushed, we have the ability to take collective action, going by the quantum and scale of the fiscal and monetary stimulus put out in the wake of the pandemic,” Gupta said.

“There is no better time than now to embrace WBCSD’s Vision 2050 as it provides comprehensive action-oriented pathways for the private sector to band together with the public sector and the community at large to drive much needed systemic transformations that will help to improve lives, livelihoods, and protect our planet,” he added.

Other notable signatories include Ralph Haupter, EMEA president of Microsoft; Takeshi Uchiyamada, chairman of the board of directors of Toyota; Sunny Verghese, group CEO of Olam International; and Nestle executive vice president and head of operations Magdi Batoto.

The agenda is a refresh of the first Vision 2050 report published April 2010. At the heart of this framework are nine transformation pathways for companies that cover the areas of business activity deemed by WBCSD as essential to society: energy, transportation and mobility, living spaces, products and materials, financial products and services, connectivity, health and wellbeing, water and sanitation, and food. 

These are aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the targets of the Paris Agreement.

Each of the nine transformation pathways then contains ten action areas for the decade ahead, designed to help companies drive transformative change in their strategies, business operations and impact on society.

The agenda notes that to move beyond business-as-usual into the accelerated transformations necessary, business leaders must adopt three mindset shifts: they must reinvent capitalism so that it rewards true value creation, focus on building long-term resilience, and take a regenerative approach beyond doing no harm.