Between October 31st and November 2nd 2017, more than 1,000 business leaders, government officials and academics met in Bahrain for the United Nations Forum on Sustainable Development, which focused on the need for more sustainable investing in business practices and effective global partnerships to attain the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

History of UN Sustainable Development

The history of international sustainable development agendas dates back to 1987, when the UN Commission on Environment and Development published “Our Common Future.” This ambitious manifesto, written under the supervision of then-Prime Minister of Norway Gro Harlem Brundtland, provided a comprehensive outline to combat global problems like uncontrolled population growth, excessive deforestation and grazing, destruction of tropical rainforests, extinction of living species, increased greenhouse effect causing climate change, acid rain and erosion of the stratospheric ozone layer.

“Our Common Future” argued that sustainable development, and the business practices associated with it, must meet present needs without discounting future generations.

The so-called “Brundtland Commission” that emerged from the original publication came at a time in the 1980s when investment bank profits were soaring to unprecedented levels and aggressive global capitalist growth was fueling labor and environmental controversies. The Brundtland Commission called for international institutional reform, particularly from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, to hold business leaders accountable for social and environmental consequences of their decisions and to alleviate the debt of the world’s poorest countries.

Today, the tension between capitalism and sustainability remains. With the increasingly urgent need to address broad global challenges like unsustainable population growth, food and resource allocation distortions, and widespread effects of climate change, as well as continued global inequity in addressing these challenges, this forum catalyzed a wider discussion on whether the broad goals of the United Nations can be reconciled with practical solutions on the scale of business agendas.

The Bahrain Forum

Hosted jointly by the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the Government of Bahrain, and the World Entrepreneurs Investment Forum, the 2017 UN Sustainability Forum urged key global players on the entrepreneurship side – technological disruptors like Amazon and firms utilizing blockchain technology—and on the investment side – pension and hedge funds – to play a larger role in the UN’s sustainability agenda.

The event was part of a broader initiative to assess the current effectiveness of powerful business entities in implementing sustainable practices. Specifically, several of the keynote speakers addressed the importance of incentivizing businesses to close the gender and socioeconomic equity gaps, emphasizing the need for diverse and fresh perspectives in the workplace to tackle sustainability issues more effectively.

The forum facilitated discussion of a series of topics related to attaining Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which range from eliminating hunger to striving for social equity to more fiercely combating climate change. Through the theme, “achieving the SDGs through promoting entrepreneurship and innovation,” the forum showcased entrepreneurial exhibitions and promoted females in industry, given that currently, fewer than 10 percent of businesses worldwide are owned by women.

World leaders at the event emphasized the necessity for more rapid sustainability efforts to adapt to today’s unquestionably global business world. “At this time of global economic uncertainty, enhanced international development cooperation is more important than ever,” said President of the UN General Assembly Miroslav Lajčák. “World leaders need to deliver on their promise to lift people from poverty, ensure sustainability and make sure that no one is left behind.”

Recent evidence shows promise that public international institutions and private sector actors are increasingly making decisions in tandem with the goal of sustainability. In fact, more than 1,500 investors and managers around the world, managing over $60 trillion in assets, have signed the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), an independent program that encourages responsible environmental and social investment. Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) integration, defined as “the systematic and explicit inclusion of ESG factors in financial analysis” has been growing at a brisk 17 percent per year.

Investment strategy is also increasingly integrating sustainability practices promoted by the UN. Sustainable investing specialist firm Generation Investment Management, co-founded by Al Gore and David Blood, has declared ESG the highest material priority in its global equity strategy. According to management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, Generation Investment Management has exceeded its benchmark by 5 percent per year over the past decade.

Sustainability in investment practices is already making a measurable impact. Global Sustainable Investment Alliance data cites that 26 percent of all global assets under management are being invested “under the premise that ESG factors can materially affect a company’s performance and market value.” This data and similar research findings suggest that sustainable business practices are not only being encouraged from the moral—and previously assumed to be impractical—pillars of institutions like the UN, but also are actually becoming more crucial in generating higher returns.

The geographic spread and concentration of these sustainable business practices is heavily concentrated in the most developed parts of the world. Europe has historically led the way on questions of sustainability, and this continues to be the case. Over half the assets in European asset management entities (52.6 percent at the beginning of 2016) fall under the sustainable investment classification. Australia and New Zealand are close runners up at 50.5 percent sustainable investments in their combined portfolio, and Canada comes in next with 37.8 percent.

The historical lack of sustainable development agendas in developing countries reinforces the need to close the equity gap at the investment level as well as at the community level.

Public sector sustainable investing, particularly in government, is taking great strides as well. In July 2017, Japan’s Government Pension Fund (GPIF), the largest pension fund in the world containing over $1.1 trillion in assets, announced that it had selected three investment indexes focusing on ESG practices. At the end of 2015, the second largest pension fund in Europe, the Netherlands’ pension fund ABP, declared two ESG related goals: to reduce the carbon-emissions footprint of its stock portfolio by 25 percent by 2020, and to invest €5 billion in renewable energy by 2020.

While much work remains in closing the gap between the institutional ideology and business realities of sustainable development worldwide, it is clear that a trend exists towards the convergence of the two spheres in many parts of the world. The UN’s recent Forum on Sustainable Development will hopefully invigorate a much-needed larger dialogue between those in power and those with the will to make the world a more sustainable place for the future.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors or governors.

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On July 6, 2017, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced Cyprus’ 11^th failed peace talk to reunify the north and south in 43 years. A divided nation since 1974, Cyprus is located in the eastern Mediterranean at a strategic commercial and cultural intersection between Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. As a familiar stalemate to the Cypriot population, the reunification conflict is its own sociopolitical battle between two proud Cypriot peoples as well as a proxy for broader Greek-Turkish tensions.

Last April, I had the opportunity to travel to Cyprus while studying abroad in Europe. During my visit, it was evident that Cyprus is home to conflicting national and regional prides. Greek and Turkish influences have a stronghold on the island and on their respective conflicts. Traces of historical empires like the Assyrian and Egyptian remain, and intricate mosaics and ionic columns still decorate the coastlines where Alexander the Great once walked.

I learned that the Republic of Cyprus, carved out by Greek Cypriots in the south, claims membership to the European Union and resembles Greece in language, currency, and culture. The population in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus uses the Turkish lira and largely practices Islam. The TRNC remains unrecognized by any country besides Turkey, and both the Greek and Turkish sides maintain close military ties with their respective mainland sponsors. Because of these differences, I truly felt as if I were visiting two separate countries, as I explored coastlines, cities and ruins.

As a tourist, I frequently crossed Cyprus’ UN buffer zone dubbed “the green line” that bifurcates the country and capital city of Nicosia. In some ways, the wall was eerily mundane. UN Peacekeepers ordered Doritos from a convenience store on the Turkish Cypriot border before crossing into the buffer zone for duty. Tourists, indifferent to the conflict, joked that beer was cheaper on the Turkish side and that the Greek side had better food. Cobblestone streets, marketplaces, and restaurants bustling with people on either side of the line almost seemed to ignore it. At one restaurant, I was close enough to reach out and touch the wall.

In other ways, though, the buffer zone did feel like the symbol of ongoing conflict and social division. In the less lively parts of Nicosia, the wall was riddled with graffiti, sandbags and rusted barrels. Streets that dead-ended at the wall echoed with crime. My Greek Cypriot host, Athena, scoffed that she would never set foot near it or speak with any Turkish Cypriot who resided beyond it. Once, when I crossed the border, handing over my passport to Greek Cypriot authorities, then to the Turkish Cypriot ones, I noticed how militarized both stations were, with cameras installed everywhere and officers carrying massive guns, scrutinizing me.

Cyprus has a complex identity, having been a trading center since before 3000 B.C.E and occupied by various kingdoms, with particular strongholds from the Greeks and Ottomans. Cyprus’s contemporary identity was shaped in 1914, when Britain annexed the island strategically against its adversary, Turkey. Greek Cypriots anticipated that Britain would unite them with Greece, to the resentment of the island’s Turkish counterparts. The Greek side’s campaign for enosis (Greek for “unification”) and Turkish Cypriot resistance led to alternating waves of petitions and reactionary riots between the two groups for decades. In 1974, Turkish forces arrived at the northern port of Kyrenia to overthrow the coup and succeeded in establishing a bridgehead around Kyrenia, which linked to the Turkish sector of Nicosia.

Turkey’s invasion solidified the island’s political and cultural separation. At that time, 140,000 Greek Cypriots fled to the south and 40,000 Turkish Cypriots in the south abandoned their livelihoods and moved north. Aggression and failed peace talks continued throughout the 1980s and 90s, and by 2002, the European Union offered Cyprus membership on the condition that the country would reunify. When that failed, only Greek Cyprus was admitted in May 2004.

Cypriots themselves often joke that any difficult and prolonged situation in the world “has become like the Cyprus problem!”[1] Clearly, attempts at a Cyprus resolution have resisted traditional methods of diplomacy, as disagreements during negotiations prompt both sides to retreat back to their positions. This is due, at least in part, to Cyprus’s two-pronged challenge: local identity crisis and global role ambiguity. Locally, Cyprus is geographically concentrated with deep-rooted cultural and national prides, spanning a history of thousands of years. Similar to cases like Northern Ireland and Sri Lanka, Cyprus harbors divided definitions of identity, where each side finds the opposing side a direct threat to the identity they believe to be true. Unrecognized Turkish Cypriots have faced an inferiority complex to the rest of the world while enjoying state and international institutional benefits. The Greek Cypriots are still embittered by Turkey’s divisive invasion as well as failed efforts to have a more unifying framework with Greece.

Undeniably, though, Cyprus’ two identities are irreversibly enmeshed in the governments, economies, and cultures of Greece and Turkey. From Turkey’s political unrest to Greece’s economic recovery, Cyprus has competing interests at play from major world powers and their allies, and this contributes greatly to continued peace talk failures.

Ultimately, Cyprus must reach a plan in which both sides can compromise as a nation and remove historical tensions from Greece and Turkey. Overcoming the challenge to peace requires recognition of mutual interests shared by the two communities. Turkish Cypriots must acknowledge that Cyprus has long abandoned its intention for enosis with Greece, and this was further confirmed by the collapse of Greece’s banking system and subsequent bailout in 2013. At the same time, though, the Greek Cypriot side must accept a solution that allows for Turkish Cypriot recognition in the world.

Perhaps the most symbolic concession for mutual understanding would be the removal of the buffer zone between the two populations. During my trip, one of the only times I was able to envision this possibility was during my visit to the Home For Cooperation (H4C), a nonprofit organization inside the zone that provides Greek and Turkish Cypriots opportunities to intermingle. The H4C offers language courses in Turkish and Greek and hosts dances and other cultural functions.

While inside the group’s building, I could still hear the Islamic call to prayer crackling on the intercom on one side and Greek Orthodox church bells on the other. Both sites were probably less than a mile away. While I was speaking with the director, I could hear both worship sounds trickling through the buffer zone into my ears, competing, bickering, and mourning.

My hope is that Cyprus can soon overcome its failed conventional peace talk framework and find a way for its populations to coexist peacefully. Through historical respect, cultural awareness, and careful political planning, it is not too difficult to imagine a future with Turkish and Greek Cypriots dancing together without garrisons and guns and the Orthodox church bells and Islamic calls to prayer sounding in proud unison.

[1] Michael, Michális S. “The Cyprus Peace Talks: A Critical Appraisal.” Journal of Peace Research Vol. 44 Issue 5, pages 587-604. 1 September 2007. Print.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors or governors.

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