What happens in Davos 2020 stays in Davos

A steady stream of 1600 private jets descended upon Davos, the beautiful ski resort of Switzerland, as the world’s elites from 130 countries gathered for the 50th World Economic Forum, where annual membership fee starts at 60,000 Swiss francs ($62,000) and can run up to 600,000 Swiss francs ($620,000). At invitation-only receptions and behind closed-door meetings, many pledges were made to address some of our most pressing challenges, from sustainability, stakeholder capitalism, to gender equality, and the future of work. 

Review of Davos 2020

Discussions on the climate crisis were front and center, against the backdrop of multiple announcements by industry leaders. Earlier in January, Blackrock CEO Larry Fink published a letter to shareholders explaining how it would move away from investing in the fossil-fuel industry, and would vote against corporate managers who are not making progress on fighting the crisis.

Microsoft announced plans to invest $1 billion into a climate innovation fund to “accelerate the global development of carbon reduction, capture, and removal technologies.” The tech giant also indicated that they aim to be carbon negative by 2030.

Meanwhile, business leaders called for a new era of capitalism, where profits balance with purpose. Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of World Economic Forum, released the new Davos Manifesto, which states that “companies should pay their fair share of taxes, show zero tolerance for corruption, uphold human rights throughout their global supply chains, and advocate for a competitive level playing field – particularly in the platform economy.”

Salesforce chairman and co-CEO Marc Benioff boldly declared that stakeholder capitalism has reached a ‘tipping point,’ as he, along with other prominent business and government leaders, made a commitment to plant 1 trillion trees. Although you might want to know that, along with other tech giants such as Amazon, IBM, and Netflix, Salesforce did not have to pay even a dime in corporate income tax in 2018.

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon announced that six months from now, they will “refuse to take a company public unless it has at least one woman or non-white board member.” While many praised the bold move, closer scrutiny on the details is warranted, because as business deals go, there is always fine print. As it turns out, Solomon’s directive does not even apply to Asia or the Middle East, where gender inequality is even more pronounced. Whether other investment banks feel the peer pressure and follow Goldman Sachs lead, or if they all stop at what appears to be tokenism remains to be seen. 

While Greta Thunberg was calling out the dire consequences of the world’s inaction on climate change, another world leader was challenging her message of “doom.” While historian Yuval Harari was sounding out the warning on the threats facing humanity in the 21st century, Google CEO Sundar Pichai reminded us of the upside potential to use technology for good.

Elsewhere, Germany’s Chancellor, Angela Merkel, gave a special address to the forum attendees, calling out the polarization of our societies and the perils of echo chambers, and the crowd casually listened as they scrolled through their Facebook and Instagram feeds.

Does it really take a college degree in economics to see that what we are doing might not be best for the planet that we call home and the future of humanity? Will what happens in Davos literally stays in Davos? Is this simply lip service and an expensive week of PR stunts and slaps on the back as billionaires tell millionaires how the middle class should live? Or is there hope for real impact and action from the world’s richest and most powerful? Join Arun, Bradley, and Theo on a new episode of One Vision on iTunes and Spotify, as we share our optimism and skepticism on #WEF2020.

See more information about Irish Tech News and the Business Showcase here.

FYI the ROI for you is => Irish Tech News now gets over 1.5 million monthly views, and up to 900k monthly unique visitors, from over 160 countries. We have over 860,000 relevant followers on Twitter on our various accounts & were recently described as Ireland’s leading online tech news site and Ireland’s answer to TechCrunch, so we can offer you a good audience!

Since introducing desktop notifications a short time ago, which notify readers directly in their browser of new articles being published, over 16000 people have now signed up to receive them ensuring they are instantly kept up to date on all our latest content. Desktop notifications offer a unique method of serving content directly to verified readers and bypass the issue of content getting lost in people’s crowded news feeds.

Drop us a line if you want to be featured, guest post, suggest a possible interview, or just let us know what you would like to see more of in our future articles. We’re always open to new and interesting suggestions for informative and different articles. Contact us, by email, twitter or whatever social media works for you and hopefully we can share your story too and reach our global audience.

Irish Tech News

---

If you would like to have your company featured in the Irish Tech News Business Showcase, get in contact with us at Simon@IrishTechNews.ie or on Twitter: @SimonCocking