DuPont hosts Executive Forums in Dubai focusing on sustainable business growth

DuPont hosted its Executive Forums this week, bringing together business executives, academics and government officials to focus on accelerating sustainable business growth through innovation and collaboration.

“Uncertainty in the global market, combined with new pressures to be more competitive and agile, is creating new challenges for business leaders,” said Jim Weigand, president, DuPont Sustainable Solutions. “The DuPont Executive Forums are designed to give business leaders a chance to collaborate on ways to grow our businesses sustainably, while balancing shareholder accountability with stakeholder concerns, and company success with social progress.”

The two-day event kicked off on Tuesday with a Safety & Sustainability Forum focused on how businesses can make improvements in health, safety and the environment that can lead to sustainable growth. After a series of panel discussions moderated by DuPont Sustainable Solutions leaders, the first day of the forum ended with the annual DuPont Safety & Sustainability awards ceremony, which recognized outstanding initiatives aimed at enhancing workplace safety, sustainability and incident prevention in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

On Wednesday, DuPont hosted the CEO Forum, an invitation-only event for approximately 100 CEOs from the world’s leading multinational companies to collaborate on best practices related to sustainable business growth. DuPont Chair and CEO Ellen Kullman opened the forum with a keynote address focused on building a sustainable economy through collaboration. Following her remarks were a series of panel discussions moderated by Weigand, DuPont Nutrition & Health President Craig Binetti and DuPont Electronics & Communications President David Miller.

With delegates representing a broad cross section of industries from all over the world, a short poll of participants showed the majority ranking company culture and leadership as the primary challenges when it came to mobilizing their businesses to address sustainability opportunities. Interestingly, they also pinpointed leadership role models as being the strongest motivator for employee engagement in sustainability. Access to resources, be the human, natural or financial, was cited as the leading source of sustainability challenges, though regulation clearly also plays a pivotal role.

The ensuing panel discussions addressed some of these points. Weigand focused on the topic of how companies can best compete despite volatile market dynamics and tepid growth projections, and Binetti moderated a discussion on how to build nutrition and health in a growing population, especially as related to the need for affordable and nutritious food in the Middle East region. Miller’s panel discussion centred around securing our energy future as our world’s population swells to more than 9 billion people by 2050.

DuPont Sustainable Solutions, one of 12 DuPont business groups, is an integrated global services and technology delivery business. Its offerings comprise four practice areas: Safety Resources, Sustainable Operations, Learning & Development and Clean Technologies. Together they offer consulting services, products and technologies that help organizations protect people and the environment, use assets more efficiently and improve worker skills and performance. Our training solutions have been used by more than 190,000 employee development professionals in 129 countries to help transfer knowledge and sustain business competitiveness.

DuPont (NYSE: DD) has been bringing world-class science and engineering to the global marketplace in the form of innovative products, materials, and services since 1802.  The company believes that by collaborating with customers, governments, NGOs, and thought leaders we can help find solutions to such global challenges as providing enough healthy food for people everywhere, decreasing dependence on fossil fuels, and protecting life and the environment.  For additional information about DuPont and its commitment to inclusive innovation, please visit www.dupont.com