- IAFOR, ESG-IREC, and VRC in a Symposium exploring ESG, Sustainability, and The Value Model
Opening the COP27 Conference, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres chided world leaders about their ongoing inaction, warning that immediate, real and tangible action is required to address the climate crisis, or “we are on the highway to hell, with our foot on the accelerator.”
According to Prof. Philip Sugai, Director of the Value Research Center (VRC) in Kyoto, Japan, “Corporations are now pressed to answer to a more diverse group of stakeholders, and while there are more than a hundred different types of ESG (Environment, Social, and Governance) evaluation and reporting systems, none yet offer the guidance and strategic value to businesses that are required to address the many complex issues facing business leaders today.”
The 2022 IAFOR Global Innovation and Value Summit (GIVS) is focused on providing one possible offramp from Guterres’s highway to hell, showcasing a new approach to measure and monitor the value created and destroyed by companies irrespective of their size, industry or location. The Value Model offers a powerful alternative to currently available ESG evaluation systems (ie MSCI, Bloomberg and FTSE4Good) with a new, more holistic approach for measuring, managing and creating value for a diverse group of stakeholders not yet found in any single existing ESG or sustainability reporting framework.
The 2022 GIVS event, “The Future of ESG and Value: Why ESG Evaluation Matters”, will include two panel sessions in the areas of sustainability, purpose, and value. Prof. Toshiya Hoshino, Director, ESG-Integration Research and Education Center (ESG-IREC) at Osaka University’s Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) and former Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative of Japan to the United Nations, will deliver the keynote speech. Having attended COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, he will bring to the Symposium valuable insights on the difficult international negotiations at the COP27 conference.
The first panel session will cover critical issues that business leaders, regulators and policy makers need to focus on over the coming 12-24 months related to the implementation of ESG and sustainability within their organizations, and introduces the VRC Value Model. The second panel will explain the VRC Value Model and introduce the Value Model certification course.
The full agenda for the 2022 IAFOR GIVS event ( https://givs.iafor.org/ ) is as follows:
13:00-13:30: Keynote Address – Prof. Toshiya Hoshino, Director, ESG-Integration Research and Education Center, Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP), Osaka University
13:30-15:00: Session 1 – Moderator: Prof. Haruko Satoh, OSIPP; Value Measurement & Sustainability, Challenges & Opportunities (15 min presentation each, 30-minute discussion)
– Speaker 1: Mr. Paul Beddie, International Ambassador, SAP
– Speaker 2: Dr. Flocy Joseph, Singapore Management University
– Speaker 3: Prof. Philip Sugai, Value Research Center (VRC), Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan
15:00-15:15: Break
15:15-16:45: Session 2 – Introducing the Value Model and Value Model Certification Program
– Speaker 1: Prof. Philip Sugai, Value Research Center (VRC)
– Speaker 2: Dr. Kumar Iyer (VRC)
– Speaker 3: Seitaro Owada (EcoRing)
16:45-17:00: Concluding address – Mr. Setsu Mori, CEO & Editor-in-Chief, Alterna Magazine
This course will be provided by the Value Research Center, in collaboration with the ESG-Integration Research and Education Center (ESG-IREC) at Osaka University’s Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP), as well as the VRC Juku, a new membership organization dedicated to thought leadership in value creation and measurement, with D-Bridge, a non-profit organization at Doshisha University (Kyoto, Japan).
The time for action to attain UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is growing more critical every day. As neoliberal capitalism’s excessive focus on company and shareholders’ profits is increasingly identified as a major driver of environmental destruction as well as a host of social and economic inequality issues, today’s business leaders are evaluated not only on their ability to create profitable outcomes, but to do so while simultaneously delivering real, tangible value for the other stakeholders, which include customers, employees, partners, society and ultimately the planet.
About IAFOR
Founded in 2009, The International Academic Forum (IAFOR) is a politically independent non-partisan and non-profit interdisciplinary think tank, conference organiser and publisher dedicated to discussion, awareness and exchange through educational interaction and academic research. Based in Nagoya, Japan, its research centre is in the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP), Osaka University. Visit https://iafor.org/.
About VRC
The Value Research Center (VRC) at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan was established in November 2021. Its mission: to develop a practical system called The Value Model, enabling organizations to measure, monitor, assess and report on their impacts to 7 key stakeholders: the organization itself, its shareholders, employees, customers, partners, society, and the planet.
The VRC enhances The Value Model continuously, integrating new frameworks as they are introduced, bringing greater transparency, objectivity and measurability to value creation – in ways we don’t often see. The VRC Value Model gives government and industry the eyes to see impacts they’re actually having, and the ability to fix what’s broken, and enhance what they’re doing well. Visit www.valueresearchcenter.com.
About ESG-IREC
The Osaka University Graduate School of International Public Policy – ESG Integration Research and Education Center (ESG-IREC) conducts research on practical implementable “ESG integration” models in corporate and business activities for the creation of a more sustainable future. Visit www.osipp.osaka-u.ac.jp/en/.