Nobel Prize Winners praise ethical business
(Oslo, April 15th 2009) Three Nobel Laureates will for the first time select business leaders who stand out as examples for others within the business community by his or her ethical business activities.
The Award Giving Committee consisting of Professor Muhammad Yunus (Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2006), Dr. Wangari Muta Maathai (Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2004) andProfessor A. Michael Spence (Nobel Prize Laureate in Economic Sciences 2001), has selected 7 Honorees for The Oslo Award 2009.
The prize will be awarded to one of the Honorees for the first time on May 14th in the City Hall of Oslo. The Oslo Award will be awarded annually to the business leader whose actions and commitments are making an outstanding contribution to the promotion of ethical behaviour and peace.
“It is important to inspire and encourage business persons to be conscious of the role they can play as individuals to foster stability and peace. This is an element that should be incorporated as a matter of course into Corporate Social Responsibility,” says Nobel Laureate HE Kofi A Annan, who is a key supporter of The Oslo Award.
The 7 Honorees are presented below. The winner of The Oslo Award 2009 will
be presented at the Award Ceremony on May 14th, in the same hall and surroundings as the Nobel Peace Prize, in the City Hall of Oslo, as the high event of the annual Oslo Summit on Peace through Trade.
“The Oslo Award develop as a natural consequence of discussions and deliberations during the The Oslo Summits on Peace through Trade in 2007 and 2008,” says Mr Per L Saxegaard, representing the Business for Peace Foundation in Oslo, the initiator of the Award.
For more information please contact:
Business for Peace Foundation
Per L. Saxegaard
Email: info@businessforpeace.no
Telephone: + 47 90 800 777
Web: Businessforpeace.no
The seven Honorees are
Anders Dahlvig (Sweden)
Anders Dahlvig started working for IKEA in 1984, and assumed his current position as CEO in 1999.
Under Anders Dahlvig’s leadership, IKEA has placed sustainability at the heart of its product development and supply strategy.
“The IKEA Way of Purchasing Home Furnishing Products” (the IWAY) is a code of conduct which defines what suppliers can expect from IKEA and what IKEA requires from its suppliers in terms of legal requirements, working conditions, the active prevention of child labor, environmental protection and forestry management.”
Mo Ibrahim (Sudan)
Dr. Mohamed “Mo” Ibrahim is a Sudanese-born British mobile communications entrepreneur. He is currently on the board of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, and is a member of the Africa Regional Advisory Board of London Business School.
In 2006, the foundation launched the Prize for Achievement in African Leadership. The prize is awarded to African heads of state who deliver security, health, education and economic development to their constituents, and who democratically transfer power to their successor. With a $5 million initial payment, plus $200,000 a year for life, the prize is believed to be the world's largest, exceeding the $1.3m Nobel Peace Prize.
Jeffrey R. Immelt (US)
Jeff Immelt is the Chairman of the board and Chief Executive Officer of the U.S. based conglomerate General Electric since 2000.
Under Mr. Immelt’s leadership, GE implemented a new initiative, under the name of “Ecomagination” to ramp up development of clean technologies and lighten the company’s environmental footprint.
GE committed itself in 2005 to double its research-and-development investments in eco-friendlier technologies from 2004 to 2010, more than 10 times the 2005 federal US R&D budget for solar and wind combined.
In 2007, GE announced that it was expanding its ecomagination strategy, committing to reduce its global water use by 20 percent by 2012.
Mohammed Jameel (Saudi-Arabia)
Mohammed Jameel is President of Adbul Latif Jameel Co. Ltd. A great philanthropist as well as a respected businessman, Mr. Jameel has developed several community programs promoting job opportunities for thousands of young Saudi men and women each year.
Jameel has been the driving force behind the Grameen Jameel Pan Arab Initiative, which aims to reduce poverty through micro credit. In addition, he opened the first Bab Riza (Gateway to Prosperity) Jameel Center in June 2007 in Jeddah for creating employment opportunities for women and offering financial support for start-ups and loans for vocational training in both the public and private sectors.
Josephine Okot (Uganda)
Josephine Okot is the founder and Managing Director of Victoria Seeds, a full line seed company in Uganda.
She founded Victoria Seeds for the purpose of delivering quality seed to "small holder" farmers who produce over 90% of agricultural output in Uganda. Ms. Okot’s goal is to reverse the decline in agricultural productivity in Uganda and other countries of the region where Victoria Seeds is exporting to.
Jiang Jianqing (China)
Jiang Jianqing has served as Governor of the Shanghai Bank and the Pudong Subsidiary Bank before becoming the Head of the Investment and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC).
Under the leadership of Mr. Jianqing, the ICBC became the first Chinese
bank in the country’s domestic banking to introduce and apply the
notion of “Green Credit”, strictly constraining credit inputs for heavily polluting and/or high energy-consuming corporations. For the ICBC, the environmental protection compliance serves as the
ultimate determinant to reject or accept any projects and business entities requesting loans.
Shi Zhengrong (China)
The Chinese-Austrialian solar scientist Dr. Zhengrong Shi is the founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Suntech Power, one of the leading solar energy companies and the largest solar module manufacturer in the world.
When he decided to start his own company in 2001, he was acutely aware of the growing need for renewable energy and he wanted to be part of the solution. Now, only eight years later, he is considered to be one of the world’s leaders in the development and commercialization of renewable energy technology.
Dr. Shi guided Suntech into designing and providing low-cost solar generators to let even the disadvantaged be able to afford clean energy. His idea and vision is to bring environment-friendly power to the world.
