We Need a European Pact for a Sustainable Industry

The coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak brought out a renewed entrepreneurial spirit focused on generating value for society. We need to cherish it if we want to build back better the European economy. How? With a European Pact for a Sustainable Industry that will bridge the current silos of the EU economy and spearhead bottom-up standardisation.

Keeping the status quo is no longer an option. In the past weeks, thousands of businesswomen and businessmen across all sectors, have broken old habits and adopted a renewed entrepreneurial spirit, driven by the desire to collaborate, to take care of people and to generate value for society. As we are slowly working our way out of the health crisis brought about the coronavirus (COVID-19), we need to cherish and cultivate this mindset, breaking free from unsustainable business models. Using the words of Frans Timmermans, Executive Vice-President of the von der Leyen Commission, we know what we do not want anymore: “a sluggish, linear and carbon-spewing economy struggling to increase employment rates and quality of life, while depleting natural resources, producing dangerous waste and toxic pollutants, putting the population and industry at risk, before even mentioning climate change”.

In response to COVID-19 and to the 380 CEOs who endorsed our Call for Action for a New Deal for Europe in the past months, we are now inviting business leaders, their Industry Federations and the EU policymakers to join forces in a European Pact for Sustainable Industry.

The objective is to bridge the current silos of the EU economy across borders and value-chains to make the business and economic transformations required to achieve the European Green Deal and the Industrial Strategy, in line with the Paris Agreement, the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda and its Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

Practically, what does the Pact offer to businesses and industry federation? The Pact will act as a cluster where businesses, hand in hand with their industry federations, can:

1. Engage in sector and cross-sector collaborative platforms to develop practical, yet scalable solutions to the global challenges of our times, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, supply chain due diligence and future of work.

2. Join existing collaborative platforms to scale up impact and improve the eco-systems of a sector and its value chains

3. Dialogue and engage with European policymakers to promote sustainability networks and collaborations at international, national and local level.

The ambition of the Pact is clear: to spearhead bottom-up standardisation. By 2024, we hope to see all the European Industry Federations rolling-out a mature Sustainable Industry Strategy.

In other words, with the European Pact for Sustainable Industry you have a unique opportunity: to build a new, better Europe, one that has sustainability, climate action and inclusiveness at its core.

The next step? Interested companies and industry federations are invited to express their interest to join the Pact.

The Pact will be inaugurated at the European SDGs Summit between 26-30 October 2020. Throughout the week, 5.000 local, European and global Actors of Change will incubate/move forward with action-oriented collaborations.