São Paulo – The Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce took part, as a guest and for the first time, in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Business Forum, held by the United Nations (UN) in its New York headquarters. On July 17, over 200 companies, from 43 countries, attended the forum’s third edition.
Danielle Berini, Business Analyst, and Fernanda Baltazar, International Business executive, represented the Arab Chamber in the event. According to Baltazar, the Arab Chamber was the only chamber of commerce taking part in the event, which saw a significant Brazilian and Arab participation.
“Many companies focus on sustainable development as a business strategy and we could see that actions that engage the private sector to reach the SDGs can be profitable,” said Baltazar.
According to the executive, the Arab Chamber’s participation was important because she was able to go to the panels and better understand how other countries and the private sector are committed to the SDGs, their importance and how they’re working regarding the issues. From the needs identified, the Arab Chamber will assess how it can help in the best way possible.
“We also had the opportunity to make good contacts during the panels and intervals and we had as our goal to, based in this participation, set up an agenda to push forward the projects alongside the companies,” said Baltazar.
Many Brazilian entrepreneurs took part in the panels, telling about their success cases, including the group Boticário, Sanasa Campinas, Schneider Electric, Natura, Unilever and the Itaipu Binational hydroelectric power plant.
“Itaipu made sure to work within its area of business and to show how that can be profitable; meanwhile, Schneider showed commitment to the SDGs to work alongside the government, thinking about the end public, the communities, the future and the private sector’s social responsibility to teach small entrepreneurs and, therefore, turn the economy from linear to circular,” said the executive.
The president of the Bahrain-based Albaraka bank, Adnan Ahmed Yousif, in his presentation, said that he was not there just to fund projects, but to also understand the needs of each company and answer appropriately.
To Baltazar, the Arab Chamber’s role, from now on, is to engage more companies and send the information to the Brazilian government, with this also being a way to unite the countries, possibly generating common projects so that everyone can work together next year.
“Our first participation was very important to better understand how Brazil is taking a stand before the world in these issues, how the Brazilian companies engage; they had an interesting participation in all of the panels, telling their case, discussing, having a voice,” said Baltazar.
Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
