Seminar at BI Norwegian Business School, September 15th 2022

Christian Borch leading the discussion at the seminar at BI 15th September.

The seminar brought together academia, politics, business, and media to take stock of core practices and achievements in corporate sustainability, and to reflect on future options, based, in part, on AFINO case studies and on Atle Midttun’s latest book, Governance and business models for sustainable capitalism [1] with an audience of 70 in the auditorium, and streaming.

Core questions raised were:

  • Asymmetric globalization, with politics lagging behind – can corporate responsibility fill the gap?
  • Corporate sustainability is challenged by ecology, but what about fairness?
  • Do we need to bring the state back in? Is there a case for partnered governance?
  • Is sustainability primarily for front-runners? What about the rest?
  • There is much greenwashing in politics and business, but is there virtue in hypocrisy?
  • Business is in a squeeze between democratic and autocratic states. What are the ways out?
The seminar “A quarter century of corporate sustainability” brought together brought together representatives from academia, politics, business, and media.
Atle Midttun presenting at the seminar.

Professor Atle Midttun set the scene with brief summaries from his book and AFINO cases, followed by comments from panelists (in alphabetical order):


Ebba Boye and Olav Soldal, Rethinking Economics; Caroline Ditlev-Simonsen, BI; Kim Gabrielli, Global Compact Norway; Rasmus Hansson, Stortinget – MDG; Heikki Eidsvoll Holmås, Multiconsult; Marianne Groth, Eika gruppen; Petter Nore, Nord Universitet; Torbjørn Røe Isaksen, E 24; Guro Slettemark, Transparency International Norway; Arild Vatn, NMBU.

The discussion was moderated by Christian Borch, journalist and former NRK News anchor.

Midttun’s presentations:

What-have-we-achieved-TextDownload
Where-do-we-go-next-TextDownload

The deliberations will be followed up by more specialized future workshops and publications under the AFINO project.

Featured imaged: Atle Midttun presenting at the seminar at BI in Oslo. All photos: Linn Dybdahl, BI.

[1] https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-mono/10.4324/9781315454931/governance-business-models-sustainable-capitalism-atle-midttun 

Profile photo of Atle Midttun
Atle Midttun
Professor emeritus at BI Norwegian Business School | Website

Atle Midttun is project associate in AFINO's research group Illustrative Nordic Cases on Sustainability. Read more about Atle on AFINO's webpage.