Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

Big brands join tve debate to talk seriously about addressing the UN SDGs

20/09/2019

Big brands join tve debate to talk seriously about addressing the UN SDGs Lucy/ September 13, 2019/ news

Business and sustainability practitioners from key global companies joined a selected audience for tve's debate on 12 September, to take a good hard look at how corporates are working towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Jennifer Viccars, Brand and Marketing Director of Octopus Group and President of the 2019 tve Global Sustainability Film Awards chaired the event which was hosted in the boardroom of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). On the panel was Mark Watson, Head of Sustainable Development at John Swire and Sons, the shipping, aviation and trading conglomerate; Alistair Clark, Managing Director of Environment and Sustainability at the EBRD; and Jess Kennedy, Associate Director of Sustainability at Arup, the global engineering and built environment specialists.

Debate Highlights:

Jennifer questioned where leadership and accountability should come from with corporate efforts to achieve the SDGs. In the finance sector, Alistair Clark remarked that leadership is coming from a range of sources: from our investors, from business groups like the WBCSD or the TCFD, and even central banks.' Alistair highlighted these organisations as providing more direction than governments in the UK and many other countries.

Jennifer asked the panel to address the issue of how best companies should build sustainability into their business model, commenting, There is a view that a sustainability department is a way for everyone else in the organisation to outsource their thinking about sustainability. On the other hand some organisations have made a huge success of that structure.'

Mark Watson commented: You cannot leave this issue to specialists alone, or it risks becoming a quiet backwater of the business. I work a lot with finance, because if you can't get sustainability prioritised by the guys with the money, it will be hard for it to have any real traction elsewhere in your business.'

The panel discussed how to translate the SDGs into practical business action. Jess Kennedy from Arup responded: We run SDG workshops, socialising the SDGs so people can think about the opportunities that each goal represents - that is the place to start.'

Jennifer pushed the panel to address the question of industries whose product or service cannot ultimately work within the UN goals, such as oil exploration or aviation. Mark Watson, commented that where there are no viable alternatives, corporates in these businesses must improve sustainability where they can. In the long term, investing in innovation to find sustainable alternatives is crucial.

We were the first airline globally to put money into a biofuels facility a closed loop zero carbon system that produces jet fuel from waste. The dream is to bring that technology to other parts of the world including Hong Kong,' said Mark.

The panellists agreed that for business, the key value of the SDGs lies in setting out a common purpose. Jess Kennedy stated: It's the fact they have global consensus, five million people were engaged in the consultation to bring them together and that's really powerful. If nothing else, it gives us all a common language and vision at the national level and across sectors, and we haven't had that before.'

The debate is part of a series of events tve runs in the lead up to the Global Sustainability Film Awards. Showcase your company's sustainability initiative by entering a short film about it for the Awards now, before the deadline on 10 October. Find the entry guidelines here: www.gsfa.tve.org/how-to-enter/.

Share this Post
LINK: http://tve.org/2019/09/20/big-brands-join-tve-debate-to-talk-seriously...
See more stories from tve

Most recent headlines

23/12/2025

Nielsen, Roku Expand Measurement Partnership

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

23/12/2025

PwC: Streaming Market Shifting to 'Scale and Sustainability'

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

23/12/2025

Inside the Gray Innovation Lab

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

23/12/2025

ESPN Renews Deal for Heisman Trophy Coverage

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

23/12/2025

Gray Media to Acquire WBBJ from Bahakel Communications

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

23/12/2025

Taking the Stage at Carnegie Hall-On a Global Scale

Taking the Stage at Carnegie Hall-On a Global Scale Boston Conservatory Orchestra students reflect on their epic concert marking the 80th session of the UN Gene...

22/12/2025

SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Neerav Shah on the Role of Its Captivate and Resonate Platforms in Sports Production

SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Neerav Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...

22/12/2025

Hitting the Bullseye: Sky Sports Readies Itself for the Biggest PDC World Darts Championship to Hit Ally Pally Yet

Hitting the bullseye: Sky Sports readies itself for the biggest PDC World Darts ...

22/12/2025

Unique Skillset: Bringing New Directors to the World of Darts at The Worlds with Sky Sports

Unique skillset: Bringing new directors to the world of darts at The Worlds with...

22/12/2025

Gravity Media Prepares for a Flight of Fancy With the PDC World Darts Championship 2025 for Sky Sports

Gravity Media prepares for a flight of fancy with the PDC World Darts Championsh...

22/12/2025

One Hundred and Eighty: Gravity Media on Hitting the Production Bullseye at the World Darts Championship 2025

One hundred and eighty: Gravity Media on hitting the production bullseye at the ...

22/12/2025

The Famous Group's Jon Slusser on Fascinating Fans Through Immersive Content Experiences

The Famous Group's Jon Slusser on Fascinating Fans Through Immersive Content...

22/12/2025

ESPN's Meg Aronowitz on Continuing High-Quality Broadcasts of Collegiate Sports, Expanding Growth of Internal Production Team

ESPN's Meg Aronowitz on Continuing High-Quality Broadcasts of Collegiate Spo...

22/12/2025

ESPN Takes Data-Driven Storytelling to New Heights with MNF Playbook with Next Gen Stats' NFL Altcasts

ESPN Takes Data-Driven Storytelling to New Heights with MNF Playbook with Next ...

22/12/2025

A Decade of Giving: Fest & Flauschig' Christmas Circus Celebrates Record Turnout and Generosity

For a decade, popular German podcast Fest & Flauschig has hosted an annual Chris...

22/12/2025

Paramount and Netflix Boast Double-Digit Gains in Nielsen's November Media Distributor Gauge

Paramount Scores Largest Share Increase Among Distributors as Paramount and CBS...

22/12/2025

Nielsen and Roku Expand Strategic Measurement Partnership

New multi-year deal integrates Roku's data to fuel Nielsen's measurement suite Roku gains access to Nielsen's streaming ratings, showing The Roku C...

22/12/2025

Allen Media Group to Deploy Infillion TrueX for Streaming Services

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

22/12/2025

Berklee Wrapped 2025: Our Top News and Stories

Berklee Wrapped 2025: Our Top News and Stories A look back at a year highlighted by faculty milestones, major film and television projects, Bob Dylan's ho...

22/12/2025

Marine Biological Laboratory Explores Human Memory With AI and Virtual Reality

The works of Plato state that when humans have an experience, some level of change occurs in their brain, which is powered by memory - specifically long-term me...

22/12/2025

Space42 and LatConnect 60 Expand Access to Advanced Geospatial Intelligence

Partnership integrates complementary satellite data and AI analytics to enhance security, infrastructure, and environmental monitoring solutions for global cust...

22/12/2025

Simplify Playlist Management with Workflows in WO Automation for Radio

Workflows allow you to create a sequence of planned events which may be added to your template(s) or inserted directly into your sequential or background playli...

22/12/2025

Sky extends PGA TOUR partnership until 2029, as Sky Sports remains the unrivalled home for golf fans in the UK and Ireland

Monday 22 December 2025 Sky extends PGA TOUR partnership until 2029, as Sky Spo...

22/12/2025

Global Anime Hits and New Releases Take Center Stage at Jump Festa 2026

Back to All News Global Anime Hits and New Releases Take Center Stage at Jump Festa 2026 Entertainment 22 December 2025 GlobalJapan Link copied to clipboar...

22/12/2025

Christmas with Oliver Callan on RT

Siobh n McSweeney, Rory McIlroy, Elon Musk, Catherine Connolly, Jim Gavin, Ivan Yates and Traitor Paudie Moloney lead new characters for Callan Kicks the Year 2...

22/12/2025

Monaghan's McKenna family crowned Ireland's Fittest Family 2025

Winner announced in the picturesque surroundings of Wicklow's Avondale Tower and Treetop Walk Andrew Trimble wins the show in his first series as coach Th...

22/12/2025

RT lyric fm Choirs for Christmas 2025 Winners Announced

The 2025 winners have been announced today, Sunday 21 December, for Ireland's largest choral competition Choirs for Christmas hosted by RT lyric fm. Ove...

21/12/2025

Legoshi and Haru's Story Reaches Its Finale: BEASTARS Final Season Part 2' Premieres March 2026, Main Trailer Out Now

Back to All News Legoshi and Haru's Story Reaches Its Finale: BEASTARS Fin...

21/12/2025

Rory McIlroy caps stellar year by winning the RT Sport Sportsperson of the Year 2025

John Shortt named Young Sportsperson of the Year Kerry are the Team of the Year ...

20/12/2025

Atomos Updates Ninja TX GO-Ninja TX With ProRes RAW and C...

Atomos announced the immediate availability of a new firmware update for its Ninja TX GO and Ninja TX monitor-recorders, unlocking ProRes RAW recording from the...

20/12/2025

CJP Broadcast Completes Digitisation of European Gymnasti...

CJP Broadcast has completed the digitisation of the European Gymnastics tape archive, converting 328 tapes containing more than forty years of recorded material...

20/12/2025

Bitmovin Launches Stream Lab MCP Server

Bitmovin, the leading provider of video streaming solutions, today announced the launch of the Stream Lab MCP Server, to give AI agents and large language model...

20/12/2025

Gracenote Unveils New Immersive Features for Sports Hubs

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

20/12/2025

Morgan Murphy Media Promotes Jill Shiroma to VP of Digital Strategy

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

20/12/2025

Samsung Makes GameBreaks Ad Format Available Programmatically

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

20/12/2025

FCC Extends Deadline for Comments on Upper C-Band Proposals

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

20/12/2025

Scripps Sports Inks Deals for Soccer and Professional Cheerleading

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

20/12/2025

Atomos Unveils Firmware Update For Ninja TX and TX GO

Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Pinterest Flipboard...

20/12/2025

Barack Obama Includes Laufey on His 2025 Favorite Music List

Barack Obama Includes Laufey on His 2025 Favorite Music List The former presidents roundup of books, music, and movies includes a song from the Berklee alums ...

20/12/2025

December 19, 2025

Study reveals a key hormonal circuit in the kidneys Scripps Research scientists identify the protein that helps kidney cells regulate renin, providing foundatio...

19/12/2025

With Playout Release 2025.4, ToolsOnAir continues to push professional playout workflows forward on macOS.

With Playout Release 2025.4, ToolsOnAir continues to push professional playout w...

19/12/2025

SVG Sit-Down: Diversified's Jared Timmins on AI for Broadcast Sports and Creating the Smart Venue'

SVG Sit-Down: Diversified's Jared Timmins on AI for Broadcast Sports and Cre...

19/12/2025

2025 SVG Summit Audio Recap: Say What?

2025 SVG Summit Audio Recap: Say What?The Audio Production and Distribution Workshop at the SVG Summit 20 took on issues including speech intelligibility, Next-...

19/12/2025

Gamified Fun: Channel 5 on its NFL Big Game Night Ambitions with Hungry Bear Media

Gamified fun: Channel 5 on its NFL Big Game Night ambitions with Hungry Bear Med...

19/12/2025

College Football Playoff Preview: For ESPN, Round 1 is a Fantastic Yet Familiar Saturday of Production

College Football Playoff Preview: For ESPN, Round 1 is a Fantastic Yet Familia...

19/12/2025

AWS's Jason Dvorkin on Developing Partnerships With the NBA and PGA Tour, Embracing the Use of Agentic AI

AWS's Jason Dvorkin on Developing Partnerships With the NBA and PGA Tour, Em...

19/12/2025

Netflix Kicks Off Packed Sports Week with Paul-Joshua Fight Before Shifting to NFL Christmas Doubleheader

Netflix Kicks Off Packed Sports Week with Paul-Joshua Fight Before Shifting to N...

19/12/2025

SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Nareev Shah on the Role of Its Captivate and Resonate Platforms in Sports Production

SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Nareev Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...

19/12/2025

US Marine Corps Increases Affordable Mass Demonstrations with Successful Red Wolf Low-Altitude Live Fire

Mounted to the pylon of an AH-1Z Viper helicopter, a Red Wolf vehicle successful...