"Richesse oblige"

Peter Wuffli, CEO of the swiss bank UBS, is joining the tradition of the rich philantrops and entrepreneurs. The swiss newspaper NZZ calls this "Richesse oblige". It means taking responsability for the wealth in your hands and give back something to the world.

According to the NZZ of the December 28 2006, Peter Wuffli has founded with his wife Susanna a new foundation called "Elea Foundation for Ethics in Globalization". The foundation has a starting capital of 20 Mio. CHF reports the NZZ.

The objectives sound ambitious*:
-foster awareness of the interdependence which results from globalization and help develop an ethical approach of it;

- foster awareness about global change processes,
-in Switzerlandd: foster knowledge about economic developments in a time of globalization

-abroad: help victims of globalization to open up new perspectives and fight poverty caused by effects globalization

"Richesse obliges" is well established conviction among the older generation of rich people in Switzerland says the NZZ, but acknolewdges to Wuffli that he is one of the first younger managers to adopt this motto.

Wikipedia quotes Wuffli as: "A company is only as ethical as its people".

It seems that UBS is taking ethics more seriously as of today. To be continued...

(*this is quoted and translated from the NZZ by me, therefore it might not be 100% accurate...however, I did not find a website with an official version yet)

A sustainable entrepreneur

There is an interesting article in the Swiss paper 'Neue Zürcher Zeitung', which highlights the work of the ARVINA foundation, founded by the swiss entrepreneur and philantrop Stephan Schmidheiny.

The foundation is promoting sustainable development throughout Latin America supporting civil society actors. AVINA believes in a bottom-up approach and supports many small initiatives, organisations etc.

AVINA formulates its strategy like this:

We facilitate links among individuals committed to sustainable development by promoting the creation of increasingly constructive and inclusive communities.

Working with our partners, we identify opportunities, build agendas for social transformation, promote responsible citizenship and seek to expand social capital in order to contribute to the construction of more sustainable societies"

AVINA gets its financial resources from the VIVA Trust, again founded by Stephan Schmidheyni.

If you read german, read the piece the NZZ-piece otherwise go to the website of the Foundation.

Communications: A deafening silence?

Yes, there is often silence, when it comes to communicating about environmental and sustainability issues.

Hey come on Communicators you have something some responsibility to this..and you have something to say there.
And say it loud and clearly to your TopManagement:

It is not enough to pay lipservice. It needs 'action' first and the adequate communication to put the action into the right context.

Read the whole article in the FT, "Communications a deafening silence".