Dear Friends and Colleagues,

2020 is out the gate on the front lines of sustainability, collaborating and convening action to address our planet’s challenging social and environmental problems.

Earth’s climate is going through unprecedented changes in the history of modern civilization as a result of human behavior. Without adaptation and mitigation strategies, substantial damages to the U.S. economy, environment, human health and well-being will continue to increase over the coming decades. These include increasing greenhouse gas emissions, higher temperature extremes, heavy precipitation, flooding and wildfires. This is influencing the movement of humans, marine and wildlife species to find better places to live and survive in and outside of cities.

This weeks announcement by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and commitment of $10 billion of his own fortune to help fight climate change has further emphasized ‘the need to work alongside others both to amplify and explore new ways of fighting the devastating impact of climate change on this planet we all share."

As we celebrate International Women’s Day in March, 2020 is also an important year for the fulfillment of women’s economic empowerment and gender equality.

Since I founded Reputation Dynamics in 2005, we have seen transformative change, progression in the corporate social responsibility movement, now transitioning to corporate social innovation commanding greater budgets, attention from the C-suite, filtering into corporate brand identities, into supply chains and increasingly critical for long-term customer loyalty.

We are excited to represent clients, mingle with peers and present at the following events in the next couple of months.

I look forward to connecting with peers in 2020 and working together to make the world a better place.

Harambee, Sam Taylor

Events Schedule:

March 5: International Women’s Day Forum: Marking A Milestone: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s 10th Annual International Women’s Day Forum. Continuing the Momentum will showcase the change makers, doers, leaders, and visionaries who are paving the way for a better future for all.

March 6: United Nations Observance of International Women’s Day 2020: I am Generation Equality. Realizing Women’s Rights. General Assembly Hall from 10.00 am to 1:00 pm.

March 12: 2020 Women’s Empowerment Principles Forum (WEPs): Hosted by UN Global Compact and UN Office for Partnerships, will align with UN Women's new multigenerational global flagship campaign, Generation Equality, to mark the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPfA), recognized as the most progressive roadmap for gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, everywhere.

March 17-18: Responsible Business Summit: New York: I will be representing American Forests, the oldest conservation organization in the U.S., among 950+ leaders from across the globe who will share strategies and insights into how they are helping build regenerative and resilient strategies that deliver market-level change on key climate risks and opportunities – protecting and preserving our forests is fundamental to resilient communities.

April 15: Luxury Daily: Women in Luxury Conference: Theme: Next Level Leadership: I am excited to join senior executives from luxury Fortune 500 brands for the day and present a keynote on ‘Embracing the Circular Economy’.

By: Samantha Taylor - Founder of Reputation Dynamics

Since 2005, Reputation Dynamics (RD) has been committed to addressing social, environmental and human justice issues. RD mobilizes corporations, NGOs/civil society and academia to devise share-valued approaches and develop inclusive partnerships.

Contact: sam@reputation-dynamics.com

Part I: Setting the Sustainability Agenda

Corporate responsibility has always been defined by and evolved within the broader context of politics, power and technological change, and responded to the call for the greater good. A confluence of factors – notably the financial crisis and climate change – has finally pushed this agenda towards a tipping point. It is now widely understood that our globalized marketplace requires a stronger ethical orientation, better caretaking of the common good, and more comprehensive management of risks.

Part II: Leading the Change

Corporate sustainability leadership today calls for a sophisticated and comprehensive approach to integrating ESG issues across the organization – from the Board, down through the organization and subsidiaries, and out into the supply chain. It requires connecting sustainability issues and actions – moving beyond silos – and meaningfully reporting progress and impacts. Corporate leadership today also calls for responsible engagement in public policy spheres.

Part III: Achieving Development

2010 will mark a decade since world leaders committed to reduce extreme poverty and set out the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to be achieved by 2015. Much remains to be done – especially with negative impacts from climate change, food crises and the global economic downturn turning back advances. Poverty is a profound threat to global security, interdependence and building strong markets. Business can and must strengthen its role in finding strategic and effective solutions to combat global poverty, hunger and disease.

Reputation Dynamics will be attending this event and will report back.

Sam Taylor