Leading Experts, Scientists and Business Leaders from the Worlds of 'Cradle to Cradle', Sustainable Building, Climate Change and SRI to Gather in Athens on May 28
Leading Experts, Scientists and Business Leaders from the Worlds of 'Cradle to Cradle', Sustainable Building, Climate Change and SRI to Gather in Athens on May 28
Leading Experts, Scientists and Business Leaders from the Worlds of 'Cradle to Cradle', Sustainable Building, Climate Change and SRI to Gather in Athens on May 28
Published 05-26-08
Submitted by Global Sustain Limited (Ltd.)
May 27, 2008 - The Hilton Athens will once again be hosting the CEO & CSR Conference with an impressive line-up of keynote speakers, panelists, moderators and special guests.
Scheduled to take place on Wednesday, May 28, the CEO & CSR Conference 2008 entitled "Rethinking The Way We Do Business" will gather top experts and speakers from the U.S. and Europe, including:
Prof. Dr. Michael Braungart from Germany, co-founder, McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry, a product and process design firm dedicated to transforming the design of products, processes, and services world-wide. The firm was founded in 1995 by William McDonough and Prof. Dr. Braungart to promote and power "the Next Industrial Revolution" through intelligent design. MBDC, LLC employs Cradle to Cradle Design using strategies it calls "eco-effective" (rather than the widely promoted "eco-efficiency") to create products and systems that contribute to economic, social and environmental prosperity. Based in Charlottesville, Virginia, MBDC works with clients world-wide, while the firm has also collaborated on projects with Prof. Dr. Braungart's company EPEA International Umweltforschung GmbH in Hamburg, which has been developing key strategies for material intelligence for fifteen years. Prof. Dr. Braungart currently concentrates his efforts at MBDC and EPEA by working with major industrial producers, such as Nike and Interface, on issues of materials assessment, waste and energy balances, life-cycle design, and designing for disassembly. He is also active in designing new products, and was instrumental in the creation of the compostable fabric line Climatex Lifecycle with William McDonough (www.eurocharity.org/en/article.php?article_id=3891).
Ken Alston, CEO, MBDC, LLC and Chief of Staff, William McDonough, from the United States. Since joining MBDC, Mr. Alston has been helping major clients -- including Ford Motor Company, Milliken and Visteon Corporation -- lead the transition to Cradle to Cradle Design. Under his guidance, MBDC is developing and implementing new curricula using live and Web-based training media. A Chartered Chemist and Fellow of the Royal Society in Chemistry, Mr. Alston has worked in global multinational companies in a variety of technical and business roles for over 22 years.
Prof. Christos Zerefos, Greek scientist, Chairman of the National Observatory of Athens and regular member of the Athens Academy. Together with his colleague and friend Alcibiades Bais, Professor at the Thessaloniki Aristotle University, they are the first Greek scientists honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize 2007. Both scientists shared the prize with 45 distinguished scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) at the United Nations and with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore. The Nobel Peace Prize went to the two Greek scientists after the decision of the Commission President.
H.E. Thomas M. Countryman, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service who has been Deputy Chief of Mission at the United States Embassy in Athens since September 19, 2005. Mr. Countryman was one of the keynote speakers at last year’s CEO & CSR Conference at the Hilton Athens on October 31 (www.eurocharity.org/en/article.php?article_id=1621).
Joe Sibilia, founder and CEO, Meadowbrook Lane Capital (MBLC), described by The Wall Street Journal as a "socially-responsible investment bank" specialising in turning values into valuation, and President, CSRwire, LLC (www.csrwire.com), the social responsibility newswire service that distributes corporate social responsibility news to journalists, analysts, investors, activists and thought leaders (www.eurocharity.org/en/article.php?article_id=3890).
Jack Wysocki, Global Outreach Director, CSRwire. In addition to managing relationships with hundreds of companies, organisations, and nonprofits who distribute their news on CSRwire, Jack travels around the world, speaking about corporate social responsibility to business professionals, journalists, analysts, and investors. For the last two decades Jack has served as an adviser to Meadowbrook Lane Capital (www.eurocharity.org/en/article.php?article_id=3905).
Additional confirmed speakers include: H.E. Stavros Kalafatis (Deputy Minister of Development, Greece), H.E. Mr. Erkki Huittinen (Finnish Ambassador to Greece), Angelos Mosconas (Deputy Mayor of Athens, Greece), Emmy Labovitch (Head of Investment Specialists, Fortis Investments, Luxembourg), Franca Morroni (co-founder and Managing Director, OpenSRI, France), Aegina-based architect Elias Messinas (founder and President of ECOWEEK and consultant in environmental projects), Rene Estermann (Managing Director, myclimate - the climate protection partnership, Switzerland), Konstantinos Tsolakidis (Environmental Consultant, Interamerican Group, Greece), Nikos Vitantzakis (Sol Energy Hellas S.A., builders and tenants of Europe's first 'energy autonomous' building located in Athens, Greece), Giorgos Kazantzopoulos (CEO, Global Challenges-Sustainability Advisors, Greece), Manolis Koutlis (Managing Director, Talent, Greece), Rika Vayianni (journalist, anchor, "Green Team", Hellenic Broadcasting Corp. (ERT), Greece) and others.
This year's conference programme will focus on the following four main themes:
1) Cradle to Cradle: Introducing the Concept; 2) Green Finance and Socially-Responsive Investing (SRI); 3) Sustainable Building; 4) Climate Change Solutions.
The CEO & CSR Conference 2008 will be a Climate-Neutral event with the assistance of Switzerland's myclimate - The Climate Protection Partnership (www.myclimate.org/index.php?lang=en), which is based on the concept of voluntary and innovative solutions for climate protection as well as the promotion of renewable energies and energy-efficient technologies. The myclimate foundation is a flourishing, non-profit, tax-exempt organisation which supports projects that lead to a direct reduction of greenhouse gases and thus making tangible climate protection possible.
This year's conference will come to a close with the special annual "CEO & CSR Awards 2008" ceremony, where prestigious organisations, senior executives, leading entrepreneurs and CSR professionals will be honoured for their actions, visionary achievements and sustainable development solutions.
CSRwire is, for the second consecutive year, among the Communication Sponsors of this exciting one-day event in Athens, which is being co-organised by:
Money Conferences (www.moneyconferences.com), an Athens-based firm specialised in organising international conferences with a particular emphasis on high-calibre financial and economic events in South-East Europe. The company represents the Euromoney Conferences in Greece and will be organising the following events in 2008: 1) CEO & CSR Conference 2008 entitled "Rethinking The Way We Do Business", May 28, Hilton Athens 2) South-East Europe Î’anking Conference 2008, June 24, Athenaeum InterContinental 3) South-East Europe Insurance Conference 2008, October 9, Athenaeum InterContinental 4) South-East Europe Investment Conference 2008, November 6, Athenaeum InterContinental
EuroCharity (www.eurocharity.org/en/). Founded in 2006, EuroCharity is a values-based, internationally-run and socially-responsive firm with a mission of making a world of difference in the citizen sector and business community by building bridges, both locally and globally. EuroCharity owns, publishes and daily updates Greece's only bi-lingual (Greek and English) Corporate Social Responsibility Directory. Headquartered in Athens, EuroCharity pro-actively supports and co-organises conferences, events, awards, competitions and campaigns that focus on raising awareness of numerous issues related to sustainability, CSR, business excellence, SRI, ethics, corporate philanthropy, clean technology, green innovation and entrepreneurship, and accountability.
Centre for Sustainability and Excellence (www.cse-net.org), a leading specialised organisation for sustainability with offices in Brussels and Athens. It represents the outcome of the co-operation between experts and scientists, who deal with, apply and provide support in the most advanced practical methodologies towards sustainability, while adhering to social and environmental criteria. Through its network of international partners, CSE offers coaching in a vast array of services promoting Sustainability and Excellence to organisations, society and governments. Providing services that are based on contemporary management methodologies, the ultimate aim is to create positive impact and added value for all stakeholders (customers, employees, suppliers, society, shareholders, etc.) leading to more sustainable business and better organisational models.
Founded in 2006, Global Sustain with offices in Athens, Berlin, Brussels, London, New York and Nicosia, creates awareness and inspires and supports companies and organisations to embody sustainability, through advisory, communications, networking and training, with a focus on the people-planet-profit philosophy. Its members include corporations, non-governmental and non-profit organisations, municipalities and local authorities, educational foundations, media, professional bodies, think tanks and other public or private entities. Global Sustain is a signatory to the Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact, to the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), a GRI Data Partner and Organisational Stakeholder (OS), an affiliated member of the Academy of Business in Society, Social Value International, Institute of Directors, CEO Clubs and EFQM. www.globalsustain.org / www.globalsustaingroup.com
