Our Issue Experts
Simon Zadek
Senior Fellow and Associate
Simon advises business and governments on the alignment of public policies and business strategies to sustainability outcomes. Current public policy roles include those with the China Council International Co-operation on Environment and Development’s Task Force on Trade, Investment and Environment, and as team leader of the South African Renewables Initiative, and advisor to the World Economic Forum. He advises many global businesses, with recent corporate clients including AngoGold Ashanti, Codelco, General Electric, and Nike.
Simon has widely published in academic and more popular channels, including in his role as non-resident Senior Fellow at the Centre for Government and Business of Harvard University’s Kennedy School. Most recently he has published on climate finance, emerging markets and sustainability and the China-Africa relationship. His book, ‘The Civil Corporation’, was awarded the Academy of Management’s prestigious Best Book on Social Issues in Management in 2008, and his Harvard Business Review article, ‘Paths to Corporate Responsibility’ is widely used as a reference point in understanding ‘emergent sustainability strategies’.
Simon founded, and was until recently Chief Executive of AccountAbility where he established the organization’s global leadership in sustainability standards, collaborative governance and responsible competitiveness. Before this, he was the founding Chair of the Ethical Trading Initiative and the Development Director at the think-tank, the New Economics Foundation. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the sustainability fund manager, Generation Investment Management, and the Boards of the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development and the Employers’ Forum on Disability. He is an honorary Professor at the University of South Africa.
- Sustainability Impacts of Chinese Outward Direct Investment: A review of the literatureThis literature review study has been developed in support of the project on Promoting Sustainable Development of Chinese Enterprises for “Going Out,” in order to accelerate the pace of “going out responsibly” as well as to cultivate a group of world-class responsible multinational corporations.
- Meeting China’s Global Resource Needs and Managing Sustainability Impacts to Ensure Security of Supply: Synthesis ReportThis paper outlines and tests a commodity-by-commodity framework for assessing sustainability risks and vulnerability for importers. The framework is designed to be applied both at the enterprise (micro) level and at the national (macro) level.
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- South-Originating Green Finance: Exploring the PotentialInvestment from developing countries to other developing countries, both domestic and cross-border, is growing to become one of the most important...
- IISD's Simon Zadek comments on the timely arrival of China's corporate social responsibility movementIISD's Simon Zadek comments on China's push for greater corporate social responsibility in the wake of allegations of corporate misdemeanors by...
- Chinese NGOs in Africa: An essential link for the futureChina's engagement with Africa has to date been a story of government-to-government relations.The appearance of China`s first generation of...
- Age of MacroinvestmentMacro investment is the practice of large-scale, inter-governmental financing providing a framework for project-level investing, particularly in...
- Financing the Green Economy According to new estimates that will be presented at this year's World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, US$100 trillion is needed by 2030 to...
- Responsible Business in Africa: Chinese Business Leaders' Perspectives on Performance and Enhancement OpportunitiesThis paper, authored by Chinese and international scholars and practitioners, is the result of a process that surveyed a number of senior Chinese...
- Advancing the Sustainability Practices of China's Transnational CorporationsThis paper examines how the Chinese business community can best use international sustainability standards to enhance its competitiveness in global...