It’s time for businesses to collaborate on the world’s big challenges

We live in an age when technologies like artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, and renewable energy are making the impossible possible. These technologies are opening the door to a future that is cleaner, healthier, and wealthier.

But for some, this vision of the future is clouded by the scale of the challenges we face, including climate change, income inequality, and the accelerating pace of technology.

And even before the COVID pandemic and now with the war in Ukraine, customers, employees, and investors continue to expect us to be focusing on these challenges, and the positive impact our organizations can bring to deliver responsible growth that benefits their communities and the planet.

Business must play a big role in solving these challenges – not just in helping realize the full potential of innovation, but in making sure the benefits are shared broadly. To deliver lasting change will require companies to think differently about growth and create new models that benefit the many, work with nature, and create long-term prosperity.

For businesses, leading the current transition to a sustainable and inclusive future is not only the right thing to do for humanity, it also represents a significant commercial opportunity.?With millions still unable to access the digital economy; and the need for significant innovation to create a path to net zero – the opportunities for business are vast. So too are the resources that will be required. Some estimates suggest the global response to climate change will require investment of up to €45 trillion between now and 2050.?

Building on the good work already done, the private sector can make massive contributions to a brighter future bringing the financing skills, technical capability, and human capital these challenges require. It will also require cooperation between businesses, governments and policymakers across geographies and industries on a scale we’ve never seen.

This shared collaboration is in the DNA of Europe Delivers.

Europe Delivers is a business-led partnership that works to build future-fit growth in Europe. With combined annual revenues of ca. €600+ billion, an employee base of more than 1.3 million, and operations cutting across multiple sectors, our nine corporate partners have a profound commercial stake in the future of Europe.

Helping businesses work together on the world’s most complex challenges is why we came together. And committing our people, intelligence, experience, and resources is how we aim to make impactful change.

The collaboration among our coalition members is a testament to the pioneering ecosystem approach and practical execution model of this partnership. The projects we work on are small enough to execute – but big enough to scale on issues that will determine our future. As we have been told by senior Brussels officials, the cross-sector approach of our program is unique – making it easier and more rewarding for policymakers to engage with our partnership.

One example of the power of this approach is the work we are doing through Europe Delivers BioAdvantage Europe coalition. Together with its partners, Avril, DB Schenker, Lantm?nnen, Scania, Shell and Yara, the coalition is exploring the feasibility of producing biofuels on European land unsuitable for production of food or feed and building a value-chain to realize that potential. By focusing primarily on abandoned and contaminated land, our aim is to explore the full range of benefits biofuel production could bring to these communities as part of a just energy transition.

As we look forward to the year ahead, we are committed to delivering tangible results that will lead to more partnerships including with new companies, that can expand the impact of our ambitions.

The Europe Delivers partnership is committed to bringing society into all our thinking because in the end, all our projects can have profound societal impact – and that’s our ultimate stakeholder, our ultimate customer, and our most exacting judge.

By partnering with academics, government, foundations, and innovators, we can lead the way in creating talent and human prosperity; digitally transformative growth; decarbonized strategic sectors; and sustainable and resilient value chains. These themes are discussed further in our 2022 plan -Turning Ideas into Action and Outcomes.

Through partnerships like Europe Delivers, we believe we can do this together. The ecosystem we have built can create sustainable, regenerative growth models for the communities we serve, and the good of Europe. We invite other businesses to join us on this important mission.

I wrote this article together with Osvald Bjelland, founder of Xynteo.