Enterprise Asia, Asia’s leading non-governmental organization for responsible entrepreneurship, hosted the 5th International CSR Summit (ICS) on May 24 and 25 in New Taipei City, Taiwan.

The two-day event themed “Take a Stand, Delivering on the Global Goals” convened over 300 corporate social responsibility (CSR) experts, leaders, and practitioners from across 16 countries and territories to collaborate and exchange insights on the most stirring conversations in CSR, and in deliberating solutions to current society issues.

The ICS 2019 urged participants to reflect upon the journey that the CSR community has embarked over the past decade, and the impact garnered from those initiatives.

Echoing the movement of the 2019 World Economic Forum in Davos, the Summit called for business decision makers to mobilize their resources to aggressively deliver on the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 and to achieve a low carbon future.

According to Dato’ William Ng, President of Enterprise Asia, global warming is one of the greatest challenges of our lifetime and a moral imperative for future generations.

Achieving a low-carbon economy not only makes good business sense, it is also necessary for fighting climate change.

“As heads of global businesses and conglomerates, it is our responsibility to send an urgent message to the world that we need to take a stand, and be more ambitious in driving actions to create a sustainable future,” he said.

The ICS 2019 featured a full suite of speakers from the private sector that are well known in their fields of expertise sharing their experience on sustainability.

Among the distinguished speakers were Erdal Elver, CEO of Siemens Taiwan, Jean-Marc Champagne, head of environmental finance of WWF Hong Kong, and Dr Niven Huang, Regional Leader of KPMG Sustainability Services Asia Pacific.

Dr. Fong Chan Onn, chairman of Enterprise Asia, delivers the welcome address. Photo: Minh Huynh

The key takeaway of the summit was to educate attendees on opportunities and strategies to decarbonize their businesses.

 Using case studies such as how a 170 years-old integrated company transformed itself into a low-carbon business amidst megatrend challenges, participants discovered strategies to accelerate the adoption of decarbonizing actions across the company.

Topics on large scale collaborations across industry value chains, governance transformation, the significance of data collection, latest updates on science based targets initiatives, smart technologies and renewables that disrupt industry norms were discussed among panellists and keynotes.

The full day workshop on circular economy held on the second day of the summit inspired participants to embrace innovative solutions and a circular approach in their strategy and actions to deliver resilient economic systems across their organizations.